Considering I’m an Indian citizen, this might be the first of it’s kind in our country. Yes! I was allowed to see my wife’s cesarean operation.

Two day before we had planned for the delivery of our Baby, we visited our Doctor to let her know of our intentions to go for a C-Section. It was then when I asked her to let me in the Operation Theater (OT).

Me: “Doctor I would like to be there in the OT when the operation ….”

Doctor: “Hmmm … That will be a problem, I’m afraid …”

Me: “But in foreign countries they allow the husbands in!”

Doctor: “This is India … ” (Smiles)

Me: “But I really really want to … please”

Doctor: “Would you be able to see you wife being cut and slit?”

Me: “Yes, I’m strong and I know it will be in a controlled environment”

Doctor: “You may be thinking you can do it …  on actually seeing blood … many people chicken out”

Me: “But doc …”

Doctor: “Okay, I’ll let you in when I’m about to take the baby out …. ”

Me: “Thank you doctor … thank you very much”

Doctor: “In India this does not happen … I’ll need to take permission from a lot of people … but I’ll manage” (Smiles)

Me: (I smile back) “Thank you so much doc”

Fast forward to the Delivery Date … 8:30 am in the morning. I arrive with my wife and my Mother-in-law at the Nursing Home. My Dad was already waiting there. I’m starting to get a little nervous by this time. My Dad leaves back home to get my Mom and Brother to the Hospital. We move into our private ward and chit-chat. Soon a couple of nurses enter the room and ask us to leave the room. Things just start to accelerate from this moment onward. When I was let in, I see my wife had been put on drip and few injections had been administered to her. Apart from few more tube coming out of her body.

In no time it is 10:30, the time fixed for the operation to start. My family had arrived by this time. We are asked by the Hospital staff to move to the first floor and wait at the Operation Theater(OT) waiting room. I could feel my hands and feet going cold now, I could only wonder what what was going through my wife’s mind. I caress her forehead and smile to her and tell her we’ll all be very close, before we all moved out to the first floor towards the waiting room.

Now, the time seemed to have slowed down. The seconds seemed like minutes. I told my Mother-in-law, I feel like I’m here to give my term examinations, and it’s Maths paper! Everybody laughed on this. Chat amongst the family is swinging between weather forecast to what would be going inside the OT to how good the hospital is.

To kill time I pick up the camera and started shooting. Clicking snaps and recording videos. Meanwhile I’m thinking if the doctor still remembers about calling me inside the Operation theater. I’m getting anxious now. At around 10:58 a guy came out of the OT, dressed in white and green. With his head and mouth covered, asking for me. I stood up and acknowledged him. He then asked me to follow him inside after removing my shoes, “The doctor has called you in”.

I had already loosened my shoes, immediately I came off them and moved in behind him. On the way inside, he covered my head and mouth with the typical surgeon mask. As I neared the Operation Theater’s door, I could hear “our” baby cry. “The baby’s here”, I said to myself in my head. I was excited and nervous as I entered the room filled with doctors surrounding my wife. On my left was my wife, I could see her tummy all open as the doctor cleared some blood, while my sweetheart smiled backed at me(Which kind of amazed me, considering she was midway a surgery and her tummy was all open, cut apart). Towards my left was our baby, our very own baby. Our princess was here.

It may have been by accident, but it felt as if my daughter looked at me, as if asking, “Why aren’t you coming and taking me in your arms”; The nurse turned her to the other side as she bathed and dressed her. I walked to my wife, beside her head, on the left, as she looked at me with a constant smile on her face. It was a amazing thing to see and experience. My wife was talking to me while the docs were still operating on her. The nurse brought our daughter in-front of us once more before she took her out. My wife held my hands tightly as she adored our princess, I squeezed her hands and rubbed it for a while, as I looked at them both. Still struck with awe, the wonder of life that we created.

I was then asked to wait out as they complete the surgery. I said bye to my wife and thanked the doctor as I headed out. The doctor on my way out said to me “Write a journal – My Wife’s Cesarean” – I didn’t really figured out what she said, but I nodded and said yes. The doctor waved a little bye as I walked out. I had just seen My Wife’s Cesarean.

It’s been about a year since I’ve been writing this post in bits and pieces; My daughter is almost a year and a half old now. And yeah, it was my wife who told me what the doc had said at the end.