Birth of my new born

Dear Readers,

Just to give you a small introduction about myself, I am Jeevan Lobo, been in Bahran for 14 months. This is my first attempt at writing a blog and would appreciate your comments/suggestions so that it can bring out the best in my future blogs, if I ever decide to write later.

My son, Nathan Lobo was born on the 26th of August, 2007. I consider myself, rather unfortunate not to witness his birth nor be a part of his baptism held in October, the same year. I was not sure how to react to the birth of Nathan until I eventually saw him for the first time, 7 months later. The blog is a summary of the events which begun from Nathan's birth and the forced transformation which I had to go through courtesy him.

Coincidentally, Nathan was born on the same day as my wife, Nisha (now that's called perfect timing, huh!!!). I do remember wishing her at 12 AM IST after which I hit the sack. I was woken up at around 7:30, 8 AM IST the same day by my brother-in-law, Naveen whose excited voice suggested that there was some good news to come very soon. After speaking to him for about 5 minutes, I was wide awake. Reality was eventually sinking in. Deep within, noises like Dada, papa, father, pampers, poo, crying voices, waaa waaa etc were reverberating in my head and before I could brush my teeth, I heard the good news that Nisha delivered birth to a baby boy at 8:30 am. I was so excited and wanted to inform the whole world. I made not less than 30 calls and sent above 50 messages to family, relatives and friends across the globe within a span of an hour. I had no mood to work that day and my only hope of a miracle to meet my son.

Days, weeks and months passed by. I remember planning on how I would spend my paternity leave with mother and child but my job at Bahrain came as a surprise. Even though, I was busy at work, I missed family terribly. I was utterly disappointed that I could not be a part of Nathan's baptism. I felt terrible to miss key occassions for the first time with him (Nathan's baptism, celebrate the first X'mas together). This phase of 6 months until I could see my Nathan and Nisha has been the most tormenting experience I have ever faced through my life. To make it worse, there were movie releases like "Hey Baby" and "Taare Zameen Par" which made me think more of him, about the love and care to be given to a child etc. I felt hopeless that I could not be by the side of my wife when she needed me the most. To make it worse due to the December and Jan holidays, my visa processing got further delayed (all to add to the grief!!!)

Finally the day arrived when I could for the first time see my son, Nathan. I still remember the date, it was the 28th of Febraury, 2008. I was unsure how to react, whether Nathan would recognize me, would he cry when I carried him for the first time, etc. I reached the airport an hour before scheduled arrival. After waiting for a long time inside the lounge, I caught a glimpse of Nathan and Nisha walking towards me. I was definitely perplexed who to greet first, son or mother. Without thinking, I just held Nathan in my arms and looked at his face and his smile made me realize that despite the distance, I still had the opportunity to prove to him and to myself that I can be a good Dad and can still be close to him.

The month that followed was an eye-opener for me. Days passed by and it slowly became a month. Family was slowly settling in. I knew Nisha for around 4 and a half years until then and we had a fair bit of understanding of our expectations with each other. I initially felt neglected and always considered myself being treated second fiddle to everything, food first for Nathan, bath, milk and timing of food, putting him to sleep etc. I never knew that Nathan woud take all the attention. My only understanding of kids, especially when I played with kids of friends and my sisters were playing with them and that was the most I used to do with Nathan.

Amidst all this, I never used to volunteer with any helping activity for Nathan- giving food, putting him to sleep, giving bath etc partially as I felt I was not treated fairly and maybe felt dirty or lazy to do any activity (cleaning, changing pamper, giving bath etc). All this went on for close to a month and I slowly realized that my son was not too close to me either and never bothered if I was at home or not. On speaking to my wife, I got to know that emotional attachment between parents and kids are also developed when they do all activities for their kid as their mother (Except nursing ofcourse). "Love to kids must be self-less" was the message of the day. It took me a day to decide if I really want to do things that I never even imagined I could do, like changing pampers, giving my son an oil massage, putting him to sleep etc. I finally succumbed to my wife's verdict and started helping her with taking care of Nathan.

Months of April and May were quite a challenge. It was very hard to change pampers. To ease the pressure, my wife dedicated a day of the week which was usually on Fridays to change his pampers. I used to dread Fridays, it used to begin early in the morning before mass, when I was woken or called for to do the honours- nappy change (phew). We used to go to church, get back and then nappy change time again. Oh, how I wished there were no Fridays, next was giving him food and that was sure a challenge, I used to get annoyed with food dropped all over the place; Half the day and I was exhasuted. I really saluted my wife after this. After his food, came his massage and on more than 2-3 occassions I had some showers of blessings (fountain flowing from bottom to top) and this would infuriate me to the core (enuff is enuff is what i was thinking in my head) ; I wanted to wash myself but then his hot water would have cooled down by then. After that his bath which Nisha thankfully helped me with (looking at my plight) and then it was feed time and sleep time. A well deserved break. Having barely recovered from all this, he would get up again and then there would certainly be a couple ofo nappy changes before bed. Eventually after a couple of weeks, I felt comfortable removing the pamper but was not at ease washing the bottom. I used to leave some places unwashed and this would lead to nappy rash for Nathan. It took me some time and moreover a positive attitude that "Shit and Crap are not necessarily bad" for me to get to the routine of changing nappies. Today, he is more than satisfied with me changing his nappies that he always mutters dada dada while doing the same. The incentive factor for all this was his SMILE which would melt anyone. The ultimate satisfaction which according to me can beat no other joy was when Nathan first slept on my chest. Truly, a moment and an experience to cherish.

Nathan is now a little over a year now. We just celebrated his birthday. It feels so nice to be greeted by him when I come home. As life passes by, I realized that life is all about living our lives for others and there is no better place than to begin first with family. Having a child is a great experience as it brings both the parents close together. We now both work together to ensure Nathan is contented. While some one is feeding him, the other is changing his pampers and clothes; while one is giving him bath, the other is putting him to sleep. Nathan has definitely made me more responsible (am sure my wife will agree), has been a great support when I am worried or low and has changed my life for the positive. I would like to conclude by stating that the wait was worth it. I look forward to supporting him, giving him the best exposure to various things and watch him grow and get naughtier by the day.