Vaccination

I always used to wonder while seeing Ramayan or watching any melodramatic serial, how could Raja Dashrath get so emotional that he gives his life just on getting separated by Bhagwan Ram?? or How stupid it looks when an over emotional Maa (think Nirupa Roy) in a Hindi movie cries over small pains felt by her child through some telepathy???

While these stories are definitely a bit exaggerated, one thing is clear to me now... there are certain emotions in life you can't experience or understand unless you go through a certain stage of life. And one such stage is when you become a parent ...

I guess the feeling can't be described in words. You always want to protect your child , see smile on her face, hold her, cuddle her, kiss her, don't want to let anyone hold her, get angry on small things which make her unhappy, make silly sounds or dance around her to please her. And best of all you curse inventors or policy makers who invented (with good intentions) things like car seat or anything which is good for the baby's safety or health but is extremely disliked by the baby....

You basically become an extremely biased person with total loss of reasoning power or logical deduction capability..You start following double standards without any guilt whatsoever, one for the entire world and other for your child ... In short you become a character of a Hindi Movie ( think Nirupa Roy again)..scary..huh....

Vaccination given to the child is one such occasion where you cannot escape cursing the inventor of injection and the whole system..

We had been avoiding it (I would say 'avoid' even though Gunjan may not agree because I know subconsciously that's what I was doing) for almost 3 weeks. It was supposed to be given at the beginning of the month...But we were very uncomfortable with the idea of seeing our cutie pie in pain. I had thoughts like what would she feel, how would she be able to handle this pain, she is so small and how could the entire world be so cruel for such a small living being etc etc

But finally reason prevailed momentarily and on 27th evening we took Aanya for her first vaccination. On that day, I came from office early...and waited downstairs for 3 generations of females in the family to come down...I had around 5 mins to kill time... Obviously I didn't want to think about vaccination.

Anyway, Gunjan brought my little darling downstairs... Aanya was sleeping before I arrived and had to be woken up... therefore seemed a little lost... but the moment she saw me...the cutest smile came on her face...my day was made ( btw thats what I long for the entire day in the office now a days)... but then I remembered about where we were heading to and I was suddenly a little perturbed and my protective instincts came over me. I looked at Gunjan and her mom and saw the similar scare in their eyes... But nothing could be done...we drove on... Surprisingly though Aanya was cheered up and was playing during the journey oblivious to our feelings and of what was to come in few mins.

We reached doctor's office but had to wait for her for 15 minutes. Again to our surprise Aanya was cheerful and happy ...But that added to the pain in us. Now that we were in doctor's office, inevitable was upon us and we were acutely aware of the fact that soon Aanya would have to go through painful experience...I guess, when you know whats going to happen to you in few minutes and that you can't do any thing about it increases the anxiety and feeling of pain. You feel helpless and powerless. And precisely at that moment, entire world looks like your enemy and you start cursing inventors of injections, doctors and the entire medical system.

Anyway to cut the short story even short, all of us were s@#t scared while the subject of this pain was happily playing and was cheerful. Infact when doctor came, she even smiled at her as if something good is going to happen to her. (sigh!!)

I can't forget the entire episode from there on. Even now I can visualize her smiling face in front of my eyes... The next step doctor told us was to hold Aanya's legs as the injection was supposed to be given on her legs and not bottom...I must admit I couldn't muster the courage to do that... I guess same was the case with Gunjan.... It was as if we were spell bound. There it was, the final moment was upon us... Thank God we had Gunjan's mom there who with her experience and courage immediately took charge and held Aanya's leg... Not to say that she was not scared...I am sure she was scared too...

Precisely at the very moment, somehow Aanya sensed something was wrong... her cheerful face suddenly turned into an expression of bewilderment... her eyes got wide open and lips curled...a little hint of scare... can't forget that moment...

Doctor was swift and in a split second it was over ...

followed by..

a look of confusion, pain, horror and a shrill cry, lips protruding, eyes tight shut,face muscle tense...my little Angel was crying.. and I couldn't do anything... all our hearts sank hearing her cry.... everyone of us felt like crying to see such pain... it was so unfair..she is so small..how can anyone do this to her....its wrong...

As grown ups we are not allowed to cry....our responsibility was to try to calm her and cheer her up immediately by diverting her attention..some how we collected ourselves and manage to do the required. Thankfully it seemed to had an immediate affect... quickly Aanya recovered... thank God..

But it was not over yet...

There was second injection waiting for my Aanya... and that was even more painful with more sting and longer lasting pain...damn the injection and the system...

Second time it was her second leg...But this time, Aanya knew what to expect, her face got distorted even before the vaccination and this time she was frightened...very frightened... She looked at all of us as if pleading and asking us to hold her and not let this happen to her...but we were helpless...

I was angry..a rage was there in me to see my baby,my Aanya, in that condition...

Anyway finally second injection was given to her resulting in another round of cry and pain more than the previous one... the pain was unbearable even for us. It made me very very sad...

Thank fully the doctor had advised Gunjan not to feed Aanya before the vaccination. So when breast fed immediately after , it helped her calm down and when she cuddled with her mom it gave her a warm feeling of protection... Not everything is bad afterall...

Doctor let us stay there for another 10-15 min to recollect our nerves... I guess she also needed to do the same because I could see she felt really bad.

So that's how this episode came to an end...( though followed by more pain and crying sessions at home)..

In the end I would like to say that it has left me with a completely new intensity of feeling and emotion...