Aanika and her mom
Aanika sleeps very peacefully in her mom's arms.
posted by kmd at 4:33 PM
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Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Grandma and Grandma
Aanika loves to play with both her Grandma's
posted by kmd at 1:25 AM
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Monday, June 26, 2006
Dont disturb me !
Dont disturb me ! I am one day old and I am thinking about what I want to dream about as I sleep.
posted by kmd at 11:59 PM
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Look at me ! I love playing...
15 days old and Aanika just loves to play with everyone especially after her afternoon nap
posted by kmd at 10:59 PM
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How the name "Aanika" came to be!
Priya was in the hospital for 2 days before she was sent home packing. Those two days seemed like a whirlwind at the time - with congratulations flying in from all sides, frequent back and forth trips between home and hospital and a night, and information overload about caring for new borns from the nurses and doctors at NICU. Little did we know that this was hardly a whirlwind, but rather just a gentle gale with promises of life changing wind patterns to follow. But within these two days we had an important job to finish - the repercussions of which could very well haunt us for the rest of our lives - and that was to choose the just-perfect name for our little one.
Luckily for us, just a day before Priya was rushed to the hospital we had narrowed down to just two names (from our several-times-narrowed-down-short-list of 8 names). And the contenders still standing were "Aanika" or "Amelie" (like the French movie). Kanak had already voiced strong opinions against Amelie the night Priya went into labor. And so the polling began. Papa was dead set against Aanika while Mom favored Aanika over Amelie. Aanika had already polled way ahead with all of Priya's colleagues and friends at work (though Amelie wasnt in the running quite then). Tania (Priya's spunky sister) had other ideas for her niece's name, but preferred Aanika of the two, and so did rest of Priya's family (just as long as both of us were happy with it).
Mihir (Kuntal's brother) and Dhwani (Mihir's wife) had a fancy for their own suggestion, Diya (perhaps just so her initials will spell "Dee Dee", one of Mihir's favorite eating joint in the Bay Area). But again, between the two, they went for Aanika. But I suspect, Mihir is still hatching plans to brainwash his poor little niece into thinking she is named Diya.
Priya's doctor, Dr. Catherine Hill stopped by on Monday morning to check up on Priya and when the talk turned to names, she strongly preferred Aanika over Amelie. Her reason ? She was probably thinking Emily when we said Amelie, and there are just too many Emily's (she was the eighth Cathy in her class, she elaborated). And that drove the nail home just a little further.
Later that night, Papa, Mom and I set down to finalize the name as I was filling up the application for SSN and registration of birth forms. It seem only Papa needed convincing since Aanika had polled ahead with almost everyone, and both of us also really liked the name, and she looked just like a little Aanika to us ! So we googled all meanings, statistics and variations of Aanika for several hours. And in the end, with some fair amount of convincing from Mom and all favorable results from Google, Papa eventually gave his blessings to the name Aanika.
And just then and there, I called Priya at the hospital, and the name Aanika was officially finalized. I filled up the forms with that name before anyone has any other bright ideas and submitted the forms the next day to the birth registrar at the hospital - and she was formally and informally, offically and legally... Aanika !
A few days later, after some more googling and as the name Aanika sank into our minds and heart, I realized what a good choice this had been. It has ethnic Indian roots, and in Hindi it means, "Goddess Durga", one of the prominent goddesses of Hindu religion and also, "very beautiful". Interestingly it has language roots in several western languages, and it means "grace" or "graceful" or "gracious" in Spanish, Hebrew, Dutch, Czech and Scandanavian. Its roots can be traced to the name "Hannah" and its variations in a large number of European and other languages, which means "favor" or "grace". Further research revealed that it even has African roots with several meanings such as "smart, beautiful, child of god" and, "sweet-faced" specifically of Hausa origin. A variation "Anyika" means “she is beautiful” in Vai. And I wonder if it means anything in Japanese.
Speaking of pronounciations, although the most common written form for this name is "Anika", and despite some variations in pronounciation like "a-nee-ka" and "ann-ni-ka", the one that we really liked was "AH-ni-ka" (with a long A), . So we decided to go for the written form "Aanika" to avoid any confusion with pronounciation (and hopefully save her a few headaches when she grows up) and also because this variation was quite uncommon and unique.
And thats how the name Aanika came to be !
Luckily for us, just a day before Priya was rushed to the hospital we had narrowed down to just two names (from our several-times-narrowed-down-short-list of 8 names). And the contenders still standing were "Aanika" or "Amelie" (like the French movie). Kanak had already voiced strong opinions against Amelie the night Priya went into labor. And so the polling began. Papa was dead set against Aanika while Mom favored Aanika over Amelie. Aanika had already polled way ahead with all of Priya's colleagues and friends at work (though Amelie wasnt in the running quite then). Tania (Priya's spunky sister) had other ideas for her niece's name, but preferred Aanika of the two, and so did rest of Priya's family (just as long as both of us were happy with it).
Mihir (Kuntal's brother) and Dhwani (Mihir's wife) had a fancy for their own suggestion, Diya (perhaps just so her initials will spell "Dee Dee", one of Mihir's favorite eating joint in the Bay Area). But again, between the two, they went for Aanika. But I suspect, Mihir is still hatching plans to brainwash his poor little niece into thinking she is named Diya.
Priya's doctor, Dr. Catherine Hill stopped by on Monday morning to check up on Priya and when the talk turned to names, she strongly preferred Aanika over Amelie. Her reason ? She was probably thinking Emily when we said Amelie, and there are just too many Emily's (she was the eighth Cathy in her class, she elaborated). And that drove the nail home just a little further.
Later that night, Papa, Mom and I set down to finalize the name as I was filling up the application for SSN and registration of birth forms. It seem only Papa needed convincing since Aanika had polled ahead with almost everyone, and both of us also really liked the name, and she looked just like a little Aanika to us ! So we googled all meanings, statistics and variations of Aanika for several hours. And in the end, with some fair amount of convincing from Mom and all favorable results from Google, Papa eventually gave his blessings to the name Aanika.
And just then and there, I called Priya at the hospital, and the name Aanika was officially finalized. I filled up the forms with that name before anyone has any other bright ideas and submitted the forms the next day to the birth registrar at the hospital - and she was formally and informally, offically and legally... Aanika !
A few days later, after some more googling and as the name Aanika sank into our minds and heart, I realized what a good choice this had been. It has ethnic Indian roots, and in Hindi it means, "Goddess Durga", one of the prominent goddesses of Hindu religion and also, "very beautiful". Interestingly it has language roots in several western languages, and it means "grace" or "graceful" or "gracious" in Spanish, Hebrew, Dutch, Czech and Scandanavian. Its roots can be traced to the name "Hannah" and its variations in a large number of European and other languages, which means "favor" or "grace". Further research revealed that it even has African roots with several meanings such as "smart, beautiful, child of god" and, "sweet-faced" specifically of Hausa origin. A variation "Anyika" means “she is beautiful” in Vai. And I wonder if it means anything in Japanese.
Speaking of pronounciations, although the most common written form for this name is "Anika", and despite some variations in pronounciation like "a-nee-ka" and "ann-ni-ka", the one that we really liked was "AH-ni-ka" (with a long A), . So we decided to go for the written form "Aanika" to avoid any confusion with pronounciation (and hopefully save her a few headaches when she grows up) and also because this variation was quite uncommon and unique.
And thats how the name Aanika came to be !
posted by kmd at 3:04 AM
5 comments
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Its a girl !
Lets pick up at 7am on June 4th, Sunday from our last post. I am almost awake by then, the nurses have changed shifts and Kira, our new attending nurse, after some careful checking declares "its time to start pushing!" and that officially makes the labor about 12 hours long. This proclamation casts out any last remnants of sleep struggling to survive on my drooping eyelids.
As Kira gets the delivery table ready with towels, napkins, instruments of trade and other paraphernalia, she clarifies that there are two other patients already pushing and the only on-call doctor in the department at that time is time-slicing between the three delivery rooms. As she explains that we may have to hold off on pushing half way if any of the other patients progress to the actual birth and require the presence of the doctor, I am already sending telepathic messages to my daugher "My sweet one ! You are being born in a competitive world ! A world of strife and struggles ! But persevere, and you shall prevail !".
Kira starts off Priya on her first push by 7:30AM and as if on cue from my thoughts and lots of red-faced pushing from Priya (with considerable help from yours truly), within an hour, our daughter is ready to arrive into this world. Dr. Ann Wong is immediately summoned along with the pediatric doctor, Dr. Panchal and the NICU crew, ahead of the other two rooms, and at precisely 8:45AM, our sweet daughter arrives in this world.
And then everything happens in a blur of speed. Dr. Ann moves with speed and sleight of hand that would shame David Copperfield, clears the baby's nostrils, covers her in blankets, cuts her cord and hands her to the Dr. Panchal and the NICU crew. And as all of this happens, to much of my and Priya's relief, the baby loudly proclaims her arrival in lung bursting and ear splitting shrill cries. The pediatric and neo-natal crew instantly put her on a warmer crib, get her somewhat cleaned and get me to shorten the already cut umbilical cord by an inch to officiate the cutting of the cord.
Swaddled and clean, the baby is put by Priya's side and the NICU nurse, Tammy, reminds me of fetching my camera. Instantly I am digging through my spoils from the previous night and fish out my trusty F707, find the right location in the room and shoot a few quick shots of the baby by Priya's side. Tammy encourages me to step around to them as she snaps another few shots of all three of us.
As Kira gets the delivery table ready with towels, napkins, instruments of trade and other paraphernalia, she clarifies that there are two other patients already pushing and the only on-call doctor in the department at that time is time-slicing between the three delivery rooms. As she explains that we may have to hold off on pushing half way if any of the other patients progress to the actual birth and require the presence of the doctor, I am already sending telepathic messages to my daugher "My sweet one ! You are being born in a competitive world ! A world of strife and struggles ! But persevere, and you shall prevail !".
Kira starts off Priya on her first push by 7:30AM and as if on cue from my thoughts and lots of red-faced pushing from Priya (with considerable help from yours truly), within an hour, our daughter is ready to arrive into this world. Dr. Ann Wong is immediately summoned along with the pediatric doctor, Dr. Panchal and the NICU crew, ahead of the other two rooms, and at precisely 8:45AM, our sweet daughter arrives in this world.
And then everything happens in a blur of speed. Dr. Ann moves with speed and sleight of hand that would shame David Copperfield, clears the baby's nostrils, covers her in blankets, cuts her cord and hands her to the Dr. Panchal and the NICU crew. And as all of this happens, to much of my and Priya's relief, the baby loudly proclaims her arrival in lung bursting and ear splitting shrill cries. The pediatric and neo-natal crew instantly put her on a warmer crib, get her somewhat cleaned and get me to shorten the already cut umbilical cord by an inch to officiate the cutting of the cord.
Swaddled and clean, the baby is put by Priya's side and the NICU nurse, Tammy, reminds me of fetching my camera. Instantly I am digging through my spoils from the previous night and fish out my trusty F707, find the right location in the room and shoot a few quick shots of the baby by Priya's side. Tammy encourages me to step around to them as she snaps another few shots of all three of us.
The baby is bundled in my arms and I am paraded proudly but nervously across the labor and delivery wing to the NICU. The baby is weighed, and measured in more ways than a tailor would, every dimension registered, anti-biotic drip started and ointment applied in the eyes. The baby is declared to be 5 lbs. 1 oz. and 18.5 in. and I rush back proudly to share the information with Priya as she is being readied to be moved to a shared room in the maternity wing for the next two days as she recovers.
By around 10 AM, life slows down a little for the first time in the last 18 or so hours. As Priya and I catch our breath, regroup and recompose, we realize that this is but a temporary respite and there are about a hundred more things to take care of since the baby arrived about 5 weeks earlier than anticipated. Need to change the time-off schedules at work, make alternative arrangements so that the work does not suffer, pick up my parents at the airport, finish up the remaining baby shopping and get our home ready for the baby, learn about the infinite things involved in taking care of a newborn... hmm, life will change forever... for the better.
posted by kmd at 2:07 AM
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"I think my water just broke"
Lets go back a few days in time... June 3rd, Saturday, around 4:00PM... I sat making some changes to my yet-to-be-published photoblog, penning the words "... are expecting their first child in the first week of July..." when I hear Priya steal a line from Hollywood movies "I think my water just broke" - about 5 weeks earlier than expected date.
My hand freezes, blood rushes to my brain, and perhaps some adrenaline with it, which prompts me into a series of robotic actions... get the OB's phone number, but the clinic would be closed (medical emergencies apparently wait for Saturdays and Sundays), call up the labor and delivery dept, gets me redirected to the hospital's main line, someone at the other end takes down the details we had to share with her, and within minutes the on-call doctor gives us a call back and asks us to head for the labor and delivery department at the hospital. We grab our car keys and rush out the door (no, we hadnt prepared the delivery bag yet, we were going to do it just that weekend) and by the time we reach the hospital, the watch is showing 6:45PM.
After some checkups, we are assured that the water indeed break and the most appropriate step is to induce labor. After signing of consent forms and other formalities, Priya is strung up on three different IVs of glucose, anti-biotics and Pitocin. And by 8:00 PM, she is still looking brave and sounding brave "Its pretty much like a bad cramp!"
In the meantime, we decide to call up my parents at Phoenix, AZ and they arrange to fly over by afternoon next day. We also call up Priya's parents in Ahmedabad, India and her mom also prepones her visit to June 9th. Next we request our friends, Senthil and Kanak, to see if one of them could come over and stay with Priya for a while while I gather items of siege from home, to best substitute the missing delivery bag. Kanak and her sister, Puja, appear like savior angels and by 11:30 PM, I have managed to stock up for survival through at least two nights. After Kanak and Puja depart, I learn that during my absence, Kanak has voiced strong opinions over the choice of baby's name. But could that have tipped the delicate balance in choosing the "ever-so-perfect" name for our first born ? Thats a different story, different post.
By 12:00AM, Priya is already pointing to pain level 6 in the pain chart, though I could have sworn that her facial expressions registered no more than level 4. The next two hours pass fairly quickly with Priya tossing and turning in the bed trying, in vain, to find the most convenient position to sleep in amid the web of IV tubes tangling around her, and the nurse strugging just as much to find the right position for the sensors to register the fetal heartbeat, contractions and Priya's blood pressure.
By 1:00AM, Priya is screaming for pain killers and the nurse starts her on a yet another IV of a narcotic which she claims "will take the edge off the pain". Priya gets by on this for another 30 to 40 mins or so, but by 2:00 AM, she is ready for the epidural. By the time the anesthesiologit is located and epidural administered, the clock is registering 3:00PM. With the epidural administered, she feels joy and elation and freedom from pain that I probably cannot even put in words here. The epi lowers her BP some and sends her into shivers, but with proper adminstration of extra fluids, she hangs in there and so does her BP. With Priya comfortable, relaxed and happy over her victory against pain, I pull out the sleeper couch and catch a few winks, waking every now and then to ensure she is comfortable and her BP is keeping up reasonably well.
This brings us to the end of the first chapter in this story of adventure and drama, pain and happiness, companionship and friendship, risk and rewards...
My hand freezes, blood rushes to my brain, and perhaps some adrenaline with it, which prompts me into a series of robotic actions... get the OB's phone number, but the clinic would be closed (medical emergencies apparently wait for Saturdays and Sundays), call up the labor and delivery dept, gets me redirected to the hospital's main line, someone at the other end takes down the details we had to share with her, and within minutes the on-call doctor gives us a call back and asks us to head for the labor and delivery department at the hospital. We grab our car keys and rush out the door (no, we hadnt prepared the delivery bag yet, we were going to do it just that weekend) and by the time we reach the hospital, the watch is showing 6:45PM.
After some checkups, we are assured that the water indeed break and the most appropriate step is to induce labor. After signing of consent forms and other formalities, Priya is strung up on three different IVs of glucose, anti-biotics and Pitocin. And by 8:00 PM, she is still looking brave and sounding brave "Its pretty much like a bad cramp!"
In the meantime, we decide to call up my parents at Phoenix, AZ and they arrange to fly over by afternoon next day. We also call up Priya's parents in Ahmedabad, India and her mom also prepones her visit to June 9th. Next we request our friends, Senthil and Kanak, to see if one of them could come over and stay with Priya for a while while I gather items of siege from home, to best substitute the missing delivery bag. Kanak and her sister, Puja, appear like savior angels and by 11:30 PM, I have managed to stock up for survival through at least two nights. After Kanak and Puja depart, I learn that during my absence, Kanak has voiced strong opinions over the choice of baby's name. But could that have tipped the delicate balance in choosing the "ever-so-perfect" name for our first born ? Thats a different story, different post.
By 12:00AM, Priya is already pointing to pain level 6 in the pain chart, though I could have sworn that her facial expressions registered no more than level 4. The next two hours pass fairly quickly with Priya tossing and turning in the bed trying, in vain, to find the most convenient position to sleep in amid the web of IV tubes tangling around her, and the nurse strugging just as much to find the right position for the sensors to register the fetal heartbeat, contractions and Priya's blood pressure.
By 1:00AM, Priya is screaming for pain killers and the nurse starts her on a yet another IV of a narcotic which she claims "will take the edge off the pain". Priya gets by on this for another 30 to 40 mins or so, but by 2:00 AM, she is ready for the epidural. By the time the anesthesiologit is located and epidural administered, the clock is registering 3:00PM. With the epidural administered, she feels joy and elation and freedom from pain that I probably cannot even put in words here. The epi lowers her BP some and sends her into shivers, but with proper adminstration of extra fluids, she hangs in there and so does her BP. With Priya comfortable, relaxed and happy over her victory against pain, I pull out the sleeper couch and catch a few winks, waking every now and then to ensure she is comfortable and her BP is keeping up reasonably well.
This brings us to the end of the first chapter in this story of adventure and drama, pain and happiness, companionship and friendship, risk and rewards...
posted by kmd at 12:10 AM
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Saturday, June 17, 2006
First Post
Alright - finally after a few sleepless nights and getting used to having a newborn at home to care for, we finally found some time to set up this blog to record the growing up activities of our newborn daughter, Aanika.
In the coming days, we hope to catch this blog up with what all has transpired in the last two hectic weeks ! So stay tuned...
In the coming days, we hope to catch this blog up with what all has transpired in the last two hectic weeks ! So stay tuned...
posted by kmd at 6:39 PM
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