Tricia & Anupam @ carrotcurries.com

Being parents means, creating a safe, nurturing and loving environment at home. This is not just for the first week or month till the excitement has worn off and the number of dirty dishes, laundry is piling up.

Parenthood is a lifestyle change. You look after your newborn, then your toddler, then your adolescent and the young adult.

You have to love your child with no strings attached. There are no ifs and buts. Fallacies are a part of life. Take them in your stride. These are decisions that will affect your child for the rest of his or in our case, her life. Make wise decisions. It may take you a few seconds longer to come up with that thought, but those seconds are what make parenthood so much more fulfilling.

Having a baby at home is like being at a theme park. Sometimes a rollercoaster of emotions and other times a walk in the park. It's almost always messy. But its, oh, so much fun!

Did you know that almost all parents worry about the same things? Is my baby getting enough food and enough sleep. Did I burp my baby? Is this supposed to be colic? We are new at this. It's ok to stuble. Get up and give it another one of your best shots. The blame game is no fun at all.

The first few weeks with your newborn are undescribable. Yes, I'm writing about it, but there are much deeper feelings that I cannot even fathom. When she yawns, or stretches or even squeezes out a little wet fart. It's all magical. Enjoy the carpet ride.

Tricia and her mom are creative in ways I cannot express myself. Trish started a picture journal of our pregnancy in the fourth week and we have a picture of her belly growing with little Evelyn in so many situations, in so many countries, with so many friends. Her mom, has already made a scrapbook with the start of the labor, the birth and the first few moments that Eve was in our arms. This scrapbook is for Evelyn's greatgranny, whose name is also Evelyn.

Make sure you keep a journal and take pictures. Be certain to write a few lines about what your were feeling every now and then. This would be oen the best things that the mom and dad can read when they have a quiet moment and reflect upon all that time spent together.

• Wisdom
• Patience
• Listen to problems
• Take action to fix problems should the need arise
• Healing powers : A kiss or a hug or even a loving word can fix the bruised knee or ego.
• A high tolerance for mess
• Multitasking wizard
• And finally, a sense of humor

1. Hunger... Got Milk?
2. Getting ready to poop.
3. Been sitting in her poop for more than 30 seconds.
4. Getting ready to pee.
5. Sitting in a wet diaper for more than 30 seconds.
6. Getting ready to fart.
7. Getting ready to burp.
   
8. She wants attention.
9. She's getting too much attention.
10. Let's see how fast mom and/or dad can get to me is probably her little game...

Most people stay up till midnight on New Year's Eve to usher in the New Year to start on a fresh set of bad habits and other have new resolutions that they're like to break... :)

Tricia and I had a very different new year. We started this year as parents! Eve, our daughter was born on 31st of December 2005. She is just a day and a half old now and we are in awe of her already. Let me tell you about the 24-30 hours before she was born and a few hours after.

If you read any of my posts before this, Trish and I had decided to go the natural birth way. We had contacted a midwife close to home and had rented a heated birthing tub, which holds some 200 gallons of water.

Thursday, 29th December, Tricia and I drove to Corvallis to return some Videos we had borrowed from Linda (our natural childbirth instructor) and we also wanted to visit the "Co-op", which is a naturals/organics store. During the drive there, Tricia told me that she felt the Braxton-Hicks contractions all the way. We smiled and said that the day is close by. We stopped to do our grocery shopping, which is a weekly affair which usually involved a lot of meat, but this time we bought veggies and salad fixing among other things we needed. It was pouring rain when we walked out of the store, with thunder and lightning. A very stormy night. Little did we know.

The Monday before that, 26th December, was when Tricia's mucus plug had come out. It happened right about when Grandma and Aunt Kathy were getting ready to head off to the airport to go back to LA.

We drove back home from the store, quite carefully since visibility was quite poor. We got home at about 5:30pm and I started cleaning up the kitchen so, I could make dinner for all of us while Tricia decided to go for her water aerobics classes. I didn't think she should go because of the contractions that she was feeling but she told me not to worry because they were just Braxton Hicks. Turns out she ended up leaving the class early because her belly was quite uncomfortable. By the time Trish got home, I had made a Bengali lamb curry called "Kosha mangsho" and a Maharashtrain dry fry called "Tindli Batata Curry". The lamb was ok... I tried to make yoghurt with lactose free milk, but failed miserably, so the recipe was incomplete and the Tindli was only ok. My maid used to make the Tindli much better.

After dinner Tricia told me that she was feeling the contractions quite regularly and she commented on how weird it was...none of them were painful, but she noticed them more than she had other times. After dinner we decided to continue watching our Star Wars Marathon. We were on, Revenge of the Sith. There is a scene in the movie where Anakin dreams about Padme in labor. Just as the picture switched to Padme's face in labor pains is exactly when Trish jumped up and announced that her water broke! We didn't even notice that until later when I looked up and noticed the paused TV screen. Mom and I then, started cleaning up the place. We started getting the house ready, just incase the labor progressed faster than normal. I had already cooked for several days and frozen quite a few meals in the freezer, incase it was required.

After Tricia called Carol, our midwife, we decided to head to bed and see how much rest we could manage to get before things started to progress. When we went to bed we timed her contractions and they were about 12 minutes apart - we think. She was having a hard time feeling when one began and ended because they weren't causing her any pain.

We were very excited and tried our best to go to sleep and at about half past the witching hour, we fell asleep. Trish woke up the next morning at about 5:30 am and felt quite a few contractions. We had breakfast, made sure things were as ready as we were, and carried on with our day. We had bought some diaper liners from Bombay, these are 3 ply toweling which are quite absorbent. These had kind of come apart in the washer and subsequently in the dryer. True to her nesting instinct, Trish pulled out a sewing machine and started working on them.

Trish walked around and at about 11am, we decided to watch some TV. Law & Order was on. I guess the "SVU" version and we saw 2 episodes back to back. At about 12:30 pm, Trish's contractions started becoming quite uncomfortable. We turned the TV off and we walked around the house. I called Carol, who dropped by at about 1:30pm and examined Trish. She was about 80% effaced and 3 centimeters dilated. But the labor was progressing quite slowly. Carol used a small tool to break the "water bag" a little more. It broke and lots of amniotic fluids gushed out. This was good.

Carol had some back problem so she went off to have it looked at. At about 4:30 pm, Trish was starting to get very uncomfortable and she was then in active labor. I called Carol and she reached us by about 5:45 pm. Just before she got to us, we stepped into the birthing pool, which we had set up in the family room. Her contractions were slowly gaining in intensity. The birthing tub was almost too good. It kept the water heated to 100 degrees F, but Trish got quite hot after a few hours.

By about 9pm, Trish was getting quite tired and wanted some respite. The hardest part was yet to come. She went through "Transition" over almost 2 hours.

At about 10:30pm Trish felt she was ready to try the tub again, because she was getting ready to push. I helped her in. It was still a little warm, so mom and I dabbed ice cold towels across her face, back and arms for the next 3 hours. She kneeled across the tub with her arms across the sides, as she labored and started her pushing. As time passed, she kept saying very positive things. She did not use any tranquillizers. She was quite calm and serene through everything. All the exercises and planning we had done was working positively for us. Pushing for 3 hours is certainly not an easy task.

I changed my laptop's screensaver to the system clock and synched it with the atomic clock. As time was ticking by, it was past midnight. It was 31st December 2005. It was a quarter past 1 am when I stepped into the tub. We could just about see the head of baby. We could see dark hair. Everybody was very excited! Things were literally coming to a head. :-)

AS Trish worked her way through the last few minutes, I was ready to catch our baby. It was a very exciting moment. The head was slowing coming out. There was certainly a lot of hair on the head and it was black. The head got stuck right at the nose. We smiled at that. After a few more pushes, the head popped out. It was a surreal moment. A small push later, the shoulder popped out. I put my hands under water to make sure I catch the baby as it comes out. We did not know the sex, so I call the baby "it".

At exactly 1:31 am, (yes, I looked at my laptop's atomic clock synched time... :-) ) Tricia delivered a healthy baby. Dida (Grandma in Bengali) called out her name.

Her name is Evelyn Suchitra Mittra. 8 lbs 5 oz. 20 3/4 inches. A beautiful baby girl with black hair, brown eyes and mocha skin.

Mom's pictures are here.