The Day I became Pappa !!

                             We started to search a name for our baby when she was still inside her mother's womb. In fact, this was as soon as the day when Farz was confirmed “pregnant”. The first few days were of disbelief. This feeling was so overwhelming and emotional that I am unable to express it in words. I went through a phase of - weren't we too young to be parents? How are we going to take care of a baby, etc?

                             But then as Farz's belly got bigger (and bigger) ... the realization set in... I was going to soon become a Dad or Pappa. I didn't know how the baby would call me? I call my dad as Pappa so guess I would be also called like that...just guessing....

                            Well it became more evident as Farz's appetite also grew tremendously.. It seemed like she was ready for it. Our discussions started centering on the baby's name most of the time. By the 6th month we started listing few names more for a girl baby than for a boy and gradually the list for baby girl became very long and was just the opposite case with the list for baby boy names.

                           You know what, when Farz was nearing her delivery, we actually thought what if it's a baby boy, he would have heard us from inside and once he is out, he would for sure question us. So we thought of few names for him as well. But inside our hearts somewhere we felt it had to be a sweet little cutie pie angel. I especially wanted a baby girl. In my family we are three brothers and I always felt a need for a sister. Finally when the day was arriving we started praying just for a healthy baby. The discomfort and so many changes that my wife was going through was about to end. She was nervous and excited as the date was coming close and so was I.

                          We had actually zeroed on couple of names for our baby (girl) like Arshia (from the skies), Rifah (happiness) and few more, but we wanted to choose from these two only. Since my brother has a son whose name starts with R (Raihan), we concluded that the cousins would love to have names with the same first alphabet.

                          All set, we waited for the day, a day and date that would change our lives, in many ways that we could not even fathom. Waiting as a countdown for the great day we were already feeling responsibilities of being the PARENT. The day was about to come when we would move from so called teenagers to a more “matured parents”. Probably this was and would become our only purpose of survival. The feeling was awesome.

June 17^th 2010: 5:36 PM: 

                         We had been waiting outside the labor room since morning. My thoughts were completely with my wife and my baby, since the hospital protocol did not let me be there with my wife I sent her a small letter through the nurse to tell her that I am waiting for both of you outside.

                         Finally a nurse called out my wife’s name and asked for the relatives....congratulations...Ponnu kolandai (It's a BABY GIRL) J we were safe!!...It wasn't a boy....We rushed towards her.

The nurse gave us in our hand the gift from our almighty (all thanks to him) a small little creature, resembling us (FarZain) and yes we called her Rifah... and today she calls me Papa.

                       It has been three and a half years since and I am in so much of love with this bundle of joy..  I must say these two women rule my life....And I'm loving it more...

 "Belated woman's day" to all the women out there . You make our lives real special.... 

                                                                                                               ZAIN