Most Precious 7 minutes of our Life
Most Precious 7 minutes of our Life
Incredible experiences are acts of miracles happening around us all the time. To be able to live through one of the many is grace abundant and plenty on us. To be able to celebrate even one in this lifetime makes our heart feel full of joy and gratitude. As an ordinary day unfolded in our family one morning, never did we fathom those events could take an incredible turn! This is a note regarding the most precious 7 minutes of our life. A rare experience we hear in Kuwait.
February 01st, 6.30am
That morning, I woke up a little late, tired, with dull aches and wanting to hit the pillow again. Thinking to myself if I felt more tired than usual or not, I decided to call in sick as the back ache was letting up a bit more. I was in my last trimester.
7.00am
I went to my kitchen, to arrange the boxes for my husband Anish and our daughter for the day, while I could hear both going about their morning routine to head out, to office for Anish and playschool for her. I told my husband how I was feeling and that I planned to visit the doctor just to see if everything was okay.
7.25am
While setting the food, suddenly, I felt a contraction and since it was not my due date yet, more than pain all I could think of was to breathe and relax. However, I started the timer just in case I got the same feeling again. I asked our daughter to start having her breakfast. I made sure to relax, breathe and carry on with my tasks. And soon enough, I got my second contraction which was way less than 4 minutes apart. I remembered to breathe through it AND not drop the plate of food that I had in my hand.
7.28am
As soon as it got over, I called out to Anish and said, “I think we might have to go to the hospital and not to the clinic. I’m not really sure what’s happening. It could be false as well.” Anish replied, “Okay, that’s just a slight change of plans. We were heading to the clinic anyway, so let’s go to the hospital instead.” He quickly began clearing the kitchen and as I walked to the corridor, I got an intense contraction and had very less strength to support myself. Calling him, I said “I cannot take a step anymore! I cannot even walk to the car. We MUST call an ambulance.” Anish held me and said “Okay let’s do that. But I can’t leave you to get my phone. Let me seat you somewhere and I’ll go get it.” We decided to head to the bathroom and while about to seat myself, I had the next contraction, and my water broke.
From this point onwards, Anish turns out to be a different person altogether, as if he received instructions from God about the way forward.
“I don’t think you should sit there. Let me move you to the side”, said Anish, pointing to the tiled platform at the end of our bathtub. Since getting to that position was extremely uncomfortable along with increasingly painful contractions and expelling fluids of different sorts, I said “Okay, get me into the bathtub.”
“Pray, relax, don’t worry” was his instant response as he could perceive from my face that the pain was totally out of control now. Meanwhile, I can see and hear our daughter wailing out as she got scared seeing her Mama screaming.
February 01st, 7.35am
Anish said “okay, let me pick the phone to call the ambulance”, while propping me upright in the bathtub, on trying to check, lo and behold I touched my baby’s head!!
I screamed “The head is here! Take baby!” and then was the most precious moment of our life... He prayed and pulled out baby swiftly in one hand.
He handed our baby in my arms. That was a sight, a feeling I will never ever forget my entire life! He cried and we saw he was breathing.
The time that we got with our baby was one of the most vivid, beautiful and peaceful times in our life. Being connected at the cord for all those minutes made me appreciate truly what was transpiring all those months of my pregnancy, a life growing inside me. Our baby slowly opened his eyes, looking around, blinking his eyes – I don’t have words to describe how beautiful those first few moments were.
Anish was so perceptive of the entire situation that as soon as baby was safe in my arms, he went to our daughter and hugged her to calm her down. She gradually calmed down and came to see baby when he was blinking his eyes. We reassured her that everything was okay, and that baby is finally here. We could see that our toddler was trying to process the situation as well. Later, when the ambulance staff were preparing to move out, daughter was there next to baby, trying to tickle him. Baby and I were taken by the ambulance to the hospital, with Anish and daughter following us. My health was assessed to be fine overall, and baby was admitted in special care unit for a week because of his low birth weight.
Every moment before, during and after the delivery is so deeply etched in our memories that when we remember them, we feel like we relive those moments again. It felt like each step to be taken was told to us by divine guidance. We are extremely grateful to the Almighty that His guidance and protection was on us that day. When we recollect it later, we can think of several things that could result in complications. When all the medical staff ask us how we managed this situation, we can say truly God was the Doctor that day! Anish was applauded a lot by family and friends for his presence of mind, brave and bold decisions.
We are very grateful to a number of people, ambulance staff who gave us first line of care, emergency department staff who assessed us, labour room staff who delivered the placenta and special care unit staff who took care of our baby. On the same note, we are extremely thankful to our friends and well-wishers who came to enquire, help and provide in all ways possible. Before we could sense a need, God would send an angel along to provide us with more than we could ask for, whether its prayers, kind words, sound advice, tasty food or looking after our daughter for few hours. It was truly a miraculous day for us!
All Praise be to God Almighty!
Panjami Anish