Third Trimester, Final episode.

Beautiful December

December was very special for Piya and family-- Piya's birthday, her sister's birthday and her parents' wedding anniversary all fell in December. And, need I say it's the beautiful,cold yet cozy part of the year with Christmas lights all o'er and the little ones awaiting for gifts from Santa.

It was Piya's birthday and Jay took her and his in-laws to one of Piya's favorite Thai restaurants. She was excited to have the dessert in particular - Mango Ice-cream with sticky rice! It was a beautiful evening, she enjoyed with warm ginger tea (hmm, note that), crispy spring rolls, healthy summer rolls, the pineapple fried rice and ofcourse the dessert. The evening also ended on a beautiful note where the restaurant made a couple of kids bring yet another candle-lit Mango ice-cream with a sweet birthday song. This was Jay's idea and she couldn't have asked for a better day.

The following day was Piya's parents' anniversary. Jay and Piya decided to take them to one of their favorite little Indian Dhaba. Piya told Jay that that should probably be last longest car ride (an hour and a half round trip) before the baby comes since she didn't think it was great to travel even for 30 minutes with the baby inside in the last few weeks. The lunch at the Indian place went well and Piya enjoyed the spicy food  (note that too) after a long time. While heading back home, Piya kept asking Jay to make it fast as she felt uncomfortable for some reason.

As soon as Piya came home, she tried relaxing a bit. It was okay for a while and later in the evening, she started getting stomach cramps. Just the day before when she was talking to a friend who asked if she was gonna take an epidural, Piya said "I have no idea what contractions feel like, so I can't decide yet". Oh well, did the baby hear this?, she thought. But, Piya wasn't sure what the cramping pain was. But, she knew it was getting worse. With her parents around, her hubby and Jill around..ofcourse she still felt helpless.  She called the child birthing centre to clarify what the cramping might be, but the nurses just asked her to take a Tylenol (pain reliever) and see if it helps, since sometimes it could be false-labor which then disappears with Tylenol. If the pain doesn't go away with the pill, it's probably a "contraction" is what they mentioned. But, again nothing was for sure.
Piya and Jay learnt about the mucus plug episode that some women experience before child birth (few days before..or few weeks before). Well, Piya experienced that as well. But, that was not a sure indicator that anything was gonna happen immediately. The cramping continued for every half hour or so and she was afraid she wouldn't be able to sleep at night. The tylenol didn't do any good. Things were getting tensed up. With her hubby's help, she tried hard to close her eyes a bit. And, before she knew the contractions became milder and she slept for a few hours. So, in the morning she woke up with no pain and was clueless as to what may have happened. She hoped the baby was safe.  Well, soon after she thought so, the cramping continued..even harder now. They were coming on and off for every 15 to 20 minutes and lasted for a minute or so. The pain was excruciating and the nurse informed them they wouldn't be able to get admitted at the hospital if the frequency of the contractions was anything more than 2 minutes and that the pain should be in such a way that Piya is even unable to talk during the time. Piya felt completely dejected at that, no help from anybody and she just had to go through it. Nobody was sure what was happening, they had about 15-16 days more for the due date. Piya's mom felt terrible seeing her daughter in pain, but couldn't do anything to relieve that. Piya tried to distract herself..she washed and arranged all the NB clothes, bassinet pad, etc. Piya had packed her hospital bags much earlier. But, Jay and herself checked again and threw in a couple more items. Piya told Jay perhaps he should put the bag in the car for future use. Jay asked if she thought it might be the big day that day, when Piya said "I don't know, may be not. But let's put the hospital bag just in case".

Jay timed the contractions using an app :) and along side he was watching Top Gear on his laptop.

Dr.Contractions

Ofcourse, with the excruciating pain and her husband watching Top Gear, she was terrified and you know what may have happened :) Few minutes later, Jay tried soothing Piya and asked her to lay down a bit. She did and her mom also gave her some warm water with cumin seeds to ease the pain (yeah, right). Well just few minutes after all this, Piya definitely felt her water breaking and cried not due to pain, but probably with the question in her head "What's next, how do I handle it". Her hubby, mom dad were excited and nervous too. Her parents did a little prayer and after bidding bye to them and Jill, off the couple went to the child birthing center.....
Ofcourse, the OBGYN did say "Feel free to go into labor anytime, you're officially full-term" at 37 weeks, didn't he? :)


The couple had just got done with the "Prepare visit" about a week ago and they were given the exact same (nicest) room shown as an example during the hospital tour, how cool. Even amidst all the pain, the couple managed to take a Selfie in between contractions ;) (Seriously?!)
Five hours later a beautiful baby was born to Piya and Jay. "A" baby's name was after one of the names for Lord Shiva. It also means "the first", and is one of the rhythmic patterns in Indian carnatic music.

Bless the baby, good luck to the parents.

Important Fact:

Child birth is really "four trimesters", the fourth poses some of the BIGgest challenges :)
Good luck to all the beautiful pregnant women.

Happy Mother's Day 2016!

P.S: Thanks H for baby sitting while I finished this long-awaited post..that's your gift to me for Mother's Day :)



(What a struggle to make these series of posts look like a chapter-wise post! )