Once upon a time far away from home, a certain woman gave birth to a beautiful baby and there started her journey of self discovery. While I reflect on my experience, I can find dollops of humour and pain in equal measures. Strangely, pain isn’t supposed to be funny, yet it is a staple ingredient of humour and prompts laughter. As I see it, pain makes you stronger, tears make you braver and vodka makes you forget all of these. True enough, the intoxicating ‘gas on air’ administered between my contractions was making me forget all of these for few seconds before it all came back. I chose to be ‘High on my way to motherhood.’

Discovering pregnancy and delivering a baby for me is similar to assembling a large DIY furniture piece. I had to figure out the complicated stuff and had no clue what lay at every turn. I had whole lot of information but was left alone to put the bolts and screws in place. I can now write a bestseller ‘Mummy’s guide for dummies’. All new mothers here are like dummies. You have to plan everything from getting pregnant to delivering the child. It has to be thought through and every development has to be recorded to minutest detail-blood count, sugar levels, urges, tastes, aches, likes, dislikes birthing plan to the way you want your baby delivered. ‘Recorded and signed for’ and during the process it will be tracked, this is the way ‘Royal mail delivers your parcels and mothers here their babies.

I have been a witness to many of my close friends and family back home reproduce an army of babies. Firstly, having a baby in India is not entirely a personal experience it is similar to another family event like a ‘Big Fat Indian Wedding’. Mysteriously, the whole world comes to know that you and your spouse are having sex  Infact this routinely becomes a topic of discussion in all social events and family dinners  You know that the time is right when the regular drip of aphrodisiacs supplements and spiritual wisdom starts, you are coerced gently into considering that the family and the neighbours want a baby, it really doesn’t matter what you and your mating partner think, you just have to perform well and produce a healthy baby  However, here I learnt that the partners in crime  first concur on their schedules, their time off work and importantly wait for the discounted offers on vintage wine and then let the ‘fine spirit’ work the romance and do the rest. It is simple and straightforward. Decide, plan and execute.

Ushering into motherhood in India has an unusual method to the madness, the controls are with multiple stakeholders ranging from the mother in law, mother, neighbours and the old 70 year old maid who probably has raised couple of generations in the family and who mysteriously knows more about the unformed baby than your personal gynaecologist.  Approach to pregnancy and child birth is a lot more wholesome Every household is like a training academy the walls proudly display the amazing conquests achieved by the veteran mothers in the family tree. A healthy new born in India has to be an overweight cherubic faced baby, only then the mother is provided a certificate of graduation with distinction. Everything is tried and tested and a lot more laid-back people prefer to let nature run it’s course unless some greedy doctor glances on your hefty insurance policy and orchestrates a C section and a big bill.

In India, the expectant mother is not allowed to undertake any undue physical or mental stress and kept emotionally well fed by dozens in the extended family unlike my experience here where I was doing the household work on one hand and throwing up on the other Everytime I experienced anything strange or unfamiliar emotionally or physically, I either googled or referred to the checklist provided by my midwife and most often by the time I completed answering the questions I had concluded that my condition was normal and I had to just get on with it. It was all DIY pregnancy! Finally, it all comes down to the hormones going on an overdrive. I had to either figure out a way to tame them and most often all I did was sleep for long hours. I just gave my hormones a royal ignore, back home they would have been given a welfare treatment of desi ghee and unadulterated attention and constantly kept satiated. No wonder the women easily move from size 6 to 16.

Here size matters as you have to move about till the last day hence fit and not fat is what they recommend.  The infrastructure is ‘pregnant woman friendly’ and they ensure that you can do whatever you would normally do. There is no excuse to taking a break to the extent that they admit you into the hospital only when the baby is hours away

‘Urmi, when the water breaks and you are unable to talk and the contractions appear rapidly is when you come to the hospital’ said the doctor. On hearing the message, my mother who was all packed and ready to rush me to the hospital for a week, fainted and started having her own panic attacks, her sensibilities just could not cope to the western way of life, she scolded the midwife claiming that in India I would have been long admitted in the hospital as I was past my due date. The midwife smiled and replied this is not India, it is only childbirth and your daughter is doing good do not worry! Was I doing good? I was superbly confused between my midwife and the stop watch tracking my contractions.

Finally when I could not utter anything but the four letter abuses, I was summoned by the midwife. That day happened to be the week of 7h Feb 2009 when UK was hit by record breaking snowfall and instead of being driven into the hospital I had to walk. This is when I seriously questioned my planning capabilities clearly nothing was going as per the plan All the walking and drama ensured that I was ready to pop the baby out. The stage was set for a water birth with rose petals, aromatic candles, spiritual music etc all that we had passionately listed out during my antenatal classes. Voila! The time had come and all of the paraphernalia was not even capturing my attention Only thing I wanted was big doses of gas on air to take me higher and alleviate me from the pain I had decided to give a natural birth with no painkillers or an epidural, midway between the final contractions I realized that I had committed the second biggest mistake of my life, first being not marrying a rich billionaire. However, one person who enjoyed the ambience, the feeling and the experience was my husband. Maybe, they should specify this while making birthing plans with expectant mothers- ‘pain for you but spa experience for your birthing partner’

One thing I discovered that there are side effects to being healthy and strong, I realized this, when promptly 4 hours after childbirth I was sent home. Needless to mention my mother by this time was completely in shock, she proudly tells everyone back home that I am a Gujju vegetarian superwoman Next stage of motherhood is getting used to a small tiny person in your life My baby and I settled in my room and she was neatly wrapped in a warm and cozy blanket providing all the cushioning and comfort. Next day my midwife visited me home and removed all the layers and put the baby on a single foam mattress in the cot and announced that this is the way it should be. My mother fondly caressed the baby and announced that she has raised several healthy kids including me and she knows best! Between logic and emotion, I decided to go with the emotion peppered with some logic and found an intermediate solution.

It may take one split second to embark on this never ending journey called motherhood but nine months of carrying and delivering a baby is nothing short of any adventure No one prepares you for it, you learn on the job, it is frightening and painful but yet you find the drive to carry on smiling! I find this a baffling, crazy and a bizzare natural phenomenon which is strangely gratifying and we women go straight into it, not once but most times over and over again. Every mother in my opinion is a scientist, discovering and producing something gradually and continuously. At the end of Act 1 Scene 1, three of us have learnt and unlearnt the art and science of reproduction- me, my husband and in some strange way maybe even my mother.