You smile, I melt !

Dear daughter,

Nowadays, every night, I go to sleep thinking about your smile. I eagerly look forward for the next day morning because I could see my Anisha smile. Your smile is divine, your smile is  bewitching, your smile is enchanting. What a gorgeous smile you have ! Do all children smile so beautifully or is it just my daughter ?

You started smiling at the age of one and half months. From then on, the frequency of your smiles steadily increased. Now, at 3 months, you smile more frequently during early mornings. You wake me up at around 6 AM with your constant body movements. I look at you and try to bring joy to my face. You have an inherent joy and happiness which I don't have, unfortunately ! I think, as humans age, they accumulate lots of emotional baggage. That takes away their ability to be joyful for no reason. I forcefully bring a smile to my face and look at you. I greet you like this, "Hi Anisha kutty (meaning, little one), Good Morning". You look into my eyes and give me a very bright smile in return. Then, whatever sweet nothings I tell you, I receive a smile in return, a smile which is non-ending. Oh, how happy it is to wake up to a face which gives nothing but smiles and hence immense happiness ! Why don't adults smile like this ? Because of you my dear, I am learning to smile again. I have no more grumpy mornings. I don't want you to look at my face and wonder whether I am happy with you or not. I don't want you give you an impression that this world is a sad place to live in. So, nowadays, I wear a smile always and my face is becoming beautiful as a result, atleast I believe so !

The best part of your smile is, your eyes smile too. Not everyone has such a soulful smile. Your tiny eyes ooze out so much love, warmth and compassion when you smile. Whenever I look at that smile, I melt, melt and melt!

After you came into my life, I smile a lot, I hug and kiss a lot, I also talk a lot of sweet nothings ! It keeps me blissful.

Thanks little one for all the goodness you have brought to my life ! Keep smiling always; let your smile spread joy and happiness in this world !

Love,
Amma

Our first selfie :)

Our first meeting

Dear Daughter,

The first time I met you, you were so teeny-tiny I needed a microscope to see you, yes a mi-kro-skop ! I wonder how many mom's have seen their daughter via a microscope ! I got the privilege to see you so. You were happily floating in the nutrient medium, in a petri dish, in Malpani Infertility Clinic's IVF lab in Mumbai. You were so small you would have fitted easily on the tip of a pinhead, yes, that teeny-tiny you were ! Anisha, even then, you were looking so beautiful and that is why you were selected to be transferred to my uterus; you won your first "beauty pageant" ! Your life has started just five days before (exactly on May 3rd, 2014). The embryologist called you as blastocyst. Isn't that a cute name ? The scientific name of all five day old embryos is blastocyst. From a blastocyst to becoming a baby, there is a long road ahead with lots of obstacles inbetween. I was not sure at that time whether you will grow into our beautiful baby but I really, really hoped you should. Unfortunately not all embryos that enter the uterus will grow into a baby, on their way to becoming a baby many yield to the obstacles and vanish forever. I looked at you with love and hope as I have looked at all my 24 other embryos, during my previous 10 embryo transfers. I talked to you silently. I asked you, "Will you become our baby, please ! Mamma has no more strength to go through this ordeal" As a result of self-pity, a wetness spread in my eyes blurring my vision. You must have understood my pain. You must have smiled and nodded affirmatively but my watery eyes failed to notice it ! That was our first meeting. After that, within few minutes, you were transferred to my uterus (on May 8th, 2014). There started your journey to become a baby ! After our first meeting I saw you several times during our ultrasound sessions. You crossed obstacles after obstacles and grew strong and sturdy.

Exactly 250 days after you entered my uterus, you came out of my uterus as beautiful Anisha.  Isn't that a great miracle ? A 50-60 celled microscopic ball which was transferred to my uterus came out as 3 kg, 48 cm beautiful baby ! That is when we met again in person; our real eye to eye, skin to skin contact happened then. It was a beautiful morning on January 13th, 2015. I was lying down in the labor room. I was so tired due to lack of sleep and labor pain. I was surrounded by doctors and midwives; your dad was standing beside me holding my hands. He was tired too and anxiously awaiting for your arrival. I was getting enormous pressure in my pelvic region. You were pushing hard from within to enter this beautiful world, you must be very tired too. I heard the head nurse say, "push". I gathered all my strength and gave a hard push. Suddenly all the pressure in my pelvic region vanished, I felt a great relief and at the same moment I heard the most beautiful cry of my lifetime. Yes, that's you ! You were screaming, announcing your arrival to all of us, to this world. Your dad broke into tears. I was smiling ! They took you, wiped a bit, put on a diaper and then kept you on my chest, my daughter. It felt heavenly to see you, to touch you, to kiss you. I was calling you with different endearment terms, trying to feel you with my hand and heart. I might have easily looked like an insane person, blabbering with immense joy and ecstasy, totally engrossed in you. You felt so good to touch. You were licking everything that came in touch with your mouth. That was super cute and I was dying to feed you.

So, that is how our first few meetings were. Did I fall in love with you at first sight ? No, not at all ! I fell in love with you even before that.

"Before you were conceived, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. Before you were an hour, I would die for you. This is the miracle of love".

                                        Maureen Hawkins

Loads of love,

Amma

To My Daughter - with Love !

Dear Anisha,

As I type this letter, you are 2 months and 20 days old. I have given you a nice bath with oil massage. You are wearing a white dress and sleeping peacefully. You look so beautiful, cherubic and I am deeply in love with you.

I don't know what I am going to write in this blog. But I want to write to you (anything, everything!)  I express myself better when I write than when I talk. You will understand me better by reading this than listening to me.

My dad, your grandad, wrote me a letter when I came to Germany for pursuing PhD degree. He said in that letter that he wants to write letters to me like the then prime minister of India Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to his daughter Indira Gandhi (The letters were published as a book). At that time, I was in love with your dad. At the age of 25 years it felt good to spend time with my boy friend than to write to my old father. I never managed to write to him and his wish of exchanging letters with his daughter never got fulfilled. Oh boy, how guilty I feel now ! Will I be able to quench my guilt by writing to you ?

I am a mother now. I fought for 7 years to get this mother title officially. When I was carrying you, I was very paranoid, fighting so many unreasonable fears. I used to express them to my Dr and he suggested that I write what I feel as letters to you. He believed that it will help to calm my mind. But, I couldn't do that. Whenever I tried writing to you I ended up with tears. I was afraid that if I get so emotional I might harm you. So I dropped the idea of writing to you when you were in my womb.

Now, you are here, very healthy and happy.  When I see you my daughter, my heart just melts like a chocolate and becomes gooey, gooey. All I feel for you is pure, unconditional love. Unconditional love is too powerful, magical and soul-purifying. I believe it will help me to craft the most beautiful letters -  love letters, of my lifetime !

These letters will be a memoir of you, memoir of me, memoir of us ! I promise that I will be honest as much as I can.

With love,

Amma