My Premature Birth Story

Photo by Oleg Sergeichik on Unsplash

I am grateful to get one of the best platforms to share my motherhood experience. In this article I will express all my experiences, feelings and emotions of my pregnancy and my premature baby. 

When I got pregnant, my age was 30. It was not so easy for me to enjoy my pregnancy because during my third month of pregnancy, I suddenly bleeding started. That day was very horrible for me because that day was my husband’s birthday too. I had even started dreaming of my baby. But the sudden bleeding made me lose all my hopes of my baby. With God's grace I found out that it was very normal. When I approached my doctor early morning around 6:00 am she advised me that it's just because of hormonal variation and within the period of 15 days it completely stopped, for which I should thank my doctor, and also my ma for her extraordinary motherly care. 

Days went on very normally. After 6 months, new dreams of my child started as my child developed and started rolling and kicking inside the stomach. When I was 7 months pregnant, I was at my parents’ home and took complete rest. My day used to start from mother's home-made enriched drinks prepared using ayurvedic herbs. Then I used to do exercises with dad. It was a heavenly feeling. Finally, the day came. It was October 27^th, lord Ganesha's Sankastahara chaturthi. It was around 12 noon when severe pain started, which was unexpected and I had never felt in my life. When I came to know it’s the delivery pain I tears in my eyes and heart full of fear. Within half an hour I was in hospital and around 1.30 my baby was here! And it was baby boy. 

Thereafter, the situation was not normal. When the doctor observed that my child’s breathing rate was abnormal and he was lower weighted, we were advised to shift him to child care hospital in Shimoga. Introduction of a new baby in the family was very much awaited by parents but when the baby was premature and with these complications it reduced my moral strength and lost happiness of motherhood. 

The hospitalization of a child in the NICU was difficult and challenging experience to me and my family. But our baby's health was not so much complicated as we thought. The word premature was biased to our family. Each and every minute when baby was in NICU it was toughest time we had never ever faced in life. Even me and my family faced several problems during the period of hospitalization. The experience of separation of baby, hospital environment, uncertainty about the present and future, clinical evolution of the baby and its survival was challenging. Hardest thing to digest was when my child didn’t recognize me and treat me as his mother. 

Discharging movement 

Every day after listening to doctors consultation my energy and positive thinking used to raise. Hope of baby's health went on increasing. We were hoping for earliest discharge of baby. I was waiting for that moment. Parents were eager to welcome my little one entering to home. Every day was a challenging task to weigh baby to see his weight gain. Each gram increase in his weight made me excited. He was getting plumper day by day and soon that made me to feel early discharge of baby. Each extended day of hospital stay made me exhausted with feelings of impatience, anxiety, and stress. I was afraid of handling my baby in future days. How to bathe him and hold him, because he was very small. But when I stayed in the hospital for a long time i.e,19 days I learnt how to bathe him, change his diapers and breastfeed my baby.

When the baby came home, we avoided contact from family members, relatives, natives in the fear of infections. But it was also difficult task because all were curious which made me and my mother struggle for two months by avoiding from showing to baby to relatives. 

The first bath 

He took his first bath after two months of his birth as he had low weight. First bath is generally a movement of high expectations and I felt apprehensive and insecure due to the movement and reactions of baby during the procedure. I was afraid of holding him. It was time to turn all his body around from his back, to front and top to bottom. My mother helped me a lot learn how to hold the baby and gave lot of support.

My first breastfeeding 

It was a wonderful experience to hold and feed him. But my little one didn’t’ have enough strength to feed correctly. But making him breastfeed correctly was again a great task. 

The period of preterm birth caused me anxiety, fragility, insecurity of baby's health. But the nurses played a crucial role in building bond between mothers and infants. 

Now my son reached 1and half years. He is very normal. His normality like all children made me forget all my struggle. The movement of seeing his each and every activity makes me proud and happy. Now he is ready to walk, started to speak, murmuring, laughing, the giggles are so beautiful. He responds our facial expressions and reacts to my words. He can observe my presence and absence.  All mothers’ struggles are countlessly worthy.

"Motherhood is my joy, my passion and my greatest achievement". 

Arpitha SV did her post graduation in Masters of Commerce. She is working as a faculty in the department of commerce and management. She has published many articles in her regional language 
(Kannada).

She can be contacted at arpithasv87@gmail.com and can be found on facebook with username - Arpita Sarish.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mom Store.