Unconditional love

I gently placed my baby on the mattress back-facing and went to grab towels from the next room. When I came back I saw him lying down with his belly-facing mattress. My baby has not yet learnt to wiggle and change his position yet as he is too young for that. This went on for days. I started to worry as he is not doing this in front of me but he is somehow changing his positions. This worried me more than it amazed me.

First I thought the reason for this might be because the baby is actually turning and I was not there to witness it. I decided to record a video of the baby's room for an entire day. Unfortunately, the video camera skipped over the part when the baby rolled and did not capture it. I tried to do the same with my phone video camera. The phone camera just would not start. It was very bizarre.

I did not know what I was feeling. Am I afraid of my own baby boy?

The following day I thought I will watch him all the time. I even watched him through a video camera when I was in the bathroom. I watched him and half-day passed by and everything was normal. Suddenly he became playful and changed his sides in front of me. It was like a miracle and a relief for me. Finally, I can take some rest I thought. The baby changed his sides again this time belly-facing bed. He slowly used his arms to push himself up and stood on the bed. I lost my balance and fell to the ground seeing this. The baby started walking towards the edge if the bed as if he started walking years back. I started to tremble and moved away from the bed. The lights in the bedroom stopped working and I heard a loud thud near the bed. Did my baby fell from the bed? I thought. Suddenly my leg was pulled from underneath the bed and I fell to the ground. I was getting pulled into the bed. I held the carpet for my dear life and I was screaming at the top of my voice. The bed had almost completely swallowed me up. The baby jumped from the bed and offered me his hands to help. How can his tiny little arms pull the weight of my whole body? I thought. I held his hands and he pulled me with ease. I wondered how is this possible. When I got up I saw my husband standing in front of me. My husband was concerned about me and asked why I looked worried. I touched my belly and realised that my baby is still in my stomach. Looking back I realised that it was not the baby who was changing his sides, it was my husband. He was having sleepless nights thinking about the health of the baby. I myself was hallucinating and worried because of the pressure of becoming a mother. I was not confident about becoming a mother. I did not know even the basics of it. I called my mother and tears rolled down my cheeks as I heard her voice. She comforted me and put me to sleep through the phone. The next day morning doorbell rang and it was my mother. My sweet caring mother made breakfast for me and spend a whole day with me reassuring me that I was ready to take care of the baby.

Twenty seven years into the future right now I am packing dosas for my daughter-in-law who is pregnant. From one mother to another, the only true source of unconditional love in this world is from a mother.