365 DAYS 365 TALES

First Cry

30th October 2014,

That was the happiest day in my life and the day when my smiles met my tears. Experiencing the unexperienced was always thrilling, but experiencing the world's best emotion for the first time had a new level of excitement.

I was crying, tears spilling down my cheeks when they first informed me. The prominent contributing factor for my tears, was they didn't allow me to eat while I was famished. Dammit! I cussed, wiping away my tears frantically with the sleeve of my shirt. My parents were happy and making the arrangements quickly while I was sitting on the stairs, hands on my cheeks, tears pooling at my feet. The last part was literal, though.

"Don't be like that... Everything's gonna be alright," my mom tried to convince me, in vain.

My tears wouldn't stop.

Half an hour later, I was all set and sat on the table while two surgeons, an anaesthetist and two nurses were working warily around me. My heart raced, sweat prickling on my forehead, in an airconditioned room. I purposefully ran my eyes on only one side of the well lit theatre, as the other side held the equipments needed for my surgery. I didn't want to push my panic button harder, but the metal touching metal sound was enough to make me crawl and beg.

Suddenly, a nurse shoved a pillow between my hands and asked me to hug it. That I can do, I thought, biting my lips. After all, that was what I used to do when I was afraid of monsters, vampires and others, at night, hugging my pillows as if they were my defence.

Hugging it tightly, I waited, the clock ticking away and it was the only sound I heard. A numbness veiled over my body. Soon, I gave into it and fell limp on the table, with the guidance of the nurses. 'Done', 'quick', 'seven minutes exactly' were the words I'd captured in the first few seconds of my trance state, before everything cleared up.

As I was a science student myself and daughter of a doctor, I knew what would happen but resisted the urge to roll into the details, at least for that moment.

Breathe, I told myself, again, as I waited for this to get over with.

Five minutes into the surgery, I heard it, the sweet little voice that cried softly at the beginning. Then it got high pitched, the first cry of my son. Despite the anaesthesia that was all numbing me, I could feel the grin that spread across my face and the tears that spilled at the sides of my eyes, perfectly.

His first cry was the most sweetest thing I had ever heard in my life. The pure ecstasy of bring him into the world, safe and sound, was unmatchable with anything in the whole world. In God's glory, I happened to experience such a pure happiness.

Once the surgery was over, precisely after twenty minutes, I got to see my little bundle of joy, wrapped around in white sheets, pure like him.

Leaning on the bed, I touched his tiny hand at first, so fragile and soft. I was worried that my touch might hurt him, or discomfort him. The nurse who brought him to me, chuckled at myp thoughts that were obviously written on my face.

She transfered him gently into my arms and I couldn't contain the emotions that flooded me, like that of the overflowing dam. That was a crappy metaphor but that was how I felt at that moment.

He was asleep when I snuggled him in my arms, the water wrinkles on his body were peeling off the skin at places. Happy tears welled my eyes, making the surroundings blurry. I sniffed twice and bit my lips, to stop myself from sheding the tears while the plastered smile on my face never moved.

His little hand was covered with a bandaid. On enquiry, I came to know that it was routine to pierce a venplant into the babies hands. That did it, the shutter I had built myself to refrain the tears from spilling out, had broken hearing the needle in his skin. And I started to cry, gently rubbing the sides of his fingers, so as to soothe the pain the needle might have inflicted.

"First you cried as you don't want to go through C-section. Now you cry seeing your baby? Silly girl!" my mom taunted, but my eyes were only for him, for my son who was born as a delight in my beautiful life.

⭐⭐⭐

Akiprabagar (13/4)