Hours of sleep: Five minutes, or at least that’s what it feels like.

Feeds: 11 (so, yay!)

Fights with Agni: None, because he is travelling on work. Grrrr.

Natural and easy are not the same thing. Some parts of this whole mothering deal come perfectly naturally. Like cooing over edible toes. Like reading her totally age-inappropriate children’s stories. Like making her laugh. Like feeling her heart beat against mine, skin to skin.

Basically, the good stuff.

The rest…. I have been told that the beginning is the hardest. That any day now she will start sleeping through the night and feeding far less. I’m not counting on it.

Is it this all-consuming for everyone? Sometimes I think I must be incompetent. And that is pretty new to me. Billions of mothers have given birth. Amongst them were idiots, people with all sorts of problems, and probably a fair number of those who just didn’t care. But this is seriously hard. Shocking the world is so overpopulated.

And, of course, I wanted this. Not now, but eventually. Getting it done early is a good thing, I keep telling myself. When Baby V is off to college, I will be less than 45. Once she’s done, Agni and I will be free birds. We can take early retirement. Or not. Work only when we want. Live in the hills somewhere. Or if we’ve made a couple of millions, the Mediterranean.

Maybe I am thinking too much. I’ve had a lot of time to daydream while breastfeeding. And my hormones are leading me to unexpected places, sometimes wildly happy, sometimes pensive. I am happy. But on days like today, it is something I know rather than feel.

At some point, I was scrolling through pictures of Baby V, Day One, and I can’t believe how much she has already grown. She is well past the bumpy-alien-monkey stage and very much a pudgy ball of squishiness. And to think every atom of her being then, and still, was produced by me.

Then I saw a shot of the two of us getting in the car to leave the hospital. Baby V was sleeping after a hectic morning of trying to feed, nurses coming in to help with the whole process, soreness already well on its way to setting in — for me and her.

I remember feeling terrified in that moment. I had entered that hospital a young woman and I was leaving it entrusted with keeping alive six pounds of helpless human. And though I couldn’t wait to get to know her better, she was essentially still a stranger. What would she be like? I had no clue.

I can’t imagine that I will ever again experience a more drastic change in the span of 48 hours. Even if we have another child, I would have done this already, and I’d be an old hand at it. This was the first grand experiment, and it was zero to 100 in under 30 minutes — the time taken to get from hospital, with the nurse on call to bathe and change, and enter the home, where it was me and Agni and (my admittedly pretty kick-ass) mother. Makes me feel kind of sympathetic towards all the first children I know — myself included.

It felt very much like the bumbling about period, but since there was a precious life at stake, let’s just say it was the sharpest learning curve ever. In a few hours, I knew how to hold her with one arm. In a few days, I was comfortable bathing and grooming her. In a few weeks I had a handle on the interminable feeds.

And I’ve been watching Agni step up, too. Up all night. On call for everything except the feeds! They say for fathers it is harder, because their attachment starts only when the baby exits the womb. God knows it was difficult enough for me, despite having had nine months to bond. In the beginning, it was surreal to watch something that was a part of my physical self operate outside my body. For so long, I had taken care of Baby V without even (really) trying. And now she is out there, but still very much in need of constant physical contact, and it just seems so much more.

But better out than in! I finally feel I am getting to know this little creature that is half me and half Agni, and yet a completely unique entity. It blows my mind to think that who she is was decided in a moment of alchemy just about a year ago. From that very moment, she has been all that she will ever be.

I am learning her. And that part is not just easy, it is incredibly sleepy wonder.

t2 shops for some me-time musts for mommy

Text: Neha Banka
Offline product pictures: Sayantan Ghosh