• Hospital,  Motherhood,  Pregnancy & Childbirth,  Qatar

    Caesarean Awareness Month

    April is International Caesarean Awareness month. Just hours after my Csection, I heard one of the first demeaning comments about ‘ladies who have C section’. And so it increased from there. Amongst the Indian mindset, it makes a girl less of a woman if she had a C section.  She is not brave, they say. She cannot bear the pain they say. ( When did bearing pain become a virtue?) But that is far from reality. Do you know the intensity of the excruciating pain when you get up from the hospital bed after having your body cut at the exact point where you will bent. (For a miniscule version…

  • Baby Products,  Cloth diaper,  Motherhood,  Review

    Review #2 – Charlie Banana Pocket Diapers

    ( This is not a sponsored post neither have I received these diapers for review. Purchased by me and opinions and pictures are mine ) Charlie Banana One Size Pocket 2 in 1 reusable diapers. Description Outer – They are made of soft PUL in vibrant colours. They have cross over tabs, hip snaps and a row of waist snaps. These helps in making it to the smallest size even for new borns. Inner – Microfleece inner layer. The opening for placing the inserts lie in the front of the diaper and they are covered well by a flap so not even a mm of the MF insert touches baby’s…

  • Tourist spots activities Qatar
    Qatar

    Tourist spots and activities in Qatar

    Now that our baby is 7 months old and I am out of the pregnancy craziness/initial sleep deprived days and all the roller-coaster confusion days of newborn, we look forward to weekends on either having a road trip or exploring any part of Qatar we haven’t been to. I have been compiling my list of tourist spots in Qatar for a few weeks now and it has stayed in my drafts folder until now when I saw the link-up on Follow Your Sunshine blog on the favourite tourist spots of Qatar. If I could choose one, it would surely be the Doha Corniche purely for sentimental reasons. It is the place…

  • Beloved,  Faith,  Poem

    Calls to Him – Duas

    I find myself in darkness. Unable to move. Tears stream my face. Light, I need Light. I think of Younus in the belly of the whale. عليه السلام In the depth of the ocean. In the darkness of night. He cried out, ‘There is no God but You, Glory be to You. Indeed, I have been of the wrong-doers.’ His darkness vanished. His prayers were answered.   I think of Ibrahim, they swept him into the fire. عليه السلام Blazing fire. Melting heat. Burning day. He cried out , ‘ Sufficient for me is Allah and  He is the best disposer of affairs.’   The fire cooled down. His prayers…

  • Daughter,  Hospital,  Motherhood,  Qatar

    Pediatric emergency centres – Qatar

    Your baby spikes up a fever of 39°C at 1 AM in the night. What do you do? Voila! Pediatric emergencies to the rescue. Qatar is well endowed with Pediatric Emergency Centres in almost all the corners. The main Pediatric Emergency is located at Al-Sadd. Quite busy but well equipped. Easily accessible for people in Doha area. For people in Mesaieed and Wakrah, there is Wakrah PEC located in the Wakrah Hospital. Go to the Emergency Gate, and go up the bridge. The first door is adult emergency and go a little further, there is the pediatric emergency door.  Procedure at Wakrah PEC – Go to the receptionist for token.…

  • Qatar,  Uncategorized

    Qatar.

    Qatar is the place where… I spent my childhood. My brother was born. I did my schooling. I made forever friends. I had opportunities to fine tune my public speaking skills. I got my first works published in a newspaper as a child(Peninsula/Gulf times). I spent every vacation during college days. I struggled through my severe quarter life crisised year. I learnt to drive. I got my first job (and the second job). My niece was born. I met my better half. We set up our first house after marriage. We had our tiny mini-honeymoon. Our daughter was born. Qatar is home.           Participating in the…

  • Baby Products,  Cloth diaper,  Motherhood,  Review

    Review – Popolini One Size Fitted cloth diapers

    I have been cloth diapering my baby for 4 (out of 6) months now and must I say, I am a cloth-diaper-addict mom now 🙂 My go to diapers for both day time and night time is Popolini One Size Fitted diapers. Here is a review of this great product. It is a fitted diaper made of 85% Organic Cotton and 15% Polyester. It comes with a snap in booster (also made of organic cotton) which can be used for heavy wetters or night time. This diaper is marketed as a birth to potty diaper though it could look a little bulky for newborns/very lean babies. For  using it on…

  • Daughter,  Letters,  Motherhood,  Poem,  Relationships

    An ode to my daughter.

    01/08/2015  16:55 I heard your first cry. ‘Everything is fine! ‘ Traumatic ordeal – forgotten. Alhamdulilah Months of waiting and praying In my hands finally. So tiny. So precious. Alhamdulilah Your birth taught me the strength of my body, the resilience of my mind, the power of prayers. Alhamdulilah Two strangers united in love and faith to bring forth the perfect miracle of Allah. Alhamdulilah Words do no justice to the multitude of emotions. Photographs donot capture the essence of my feelings. Alhamdulilah Your name is a reminder to me to praise The One who blessed me with You. Alhamdulilah https://instagram.com/p/7suwNJvx0TNfyhPYJA-nPHuVCoyG145icHOps0/

  • Letters,  Motherhood

    Death and grief

    (I started this series ‘Letters to my unborn child’ during the April A to Z Challenge which sadly I never completed due to all the stress and workload I was under back then. Here I am trying it out again since this is something I really want to document. Hope I am successful this time around.) Dear baby,   Death. How can I talk to you of death when you haven’t yet experienced birth? I ask myself that absurd question. Yet this thought lingers in my head.   I experienced the pain and grief due to the death of a close one at the age of 15 only – My maternal…

  • Daughter,  Letters,  Uncategorized

    Creator’s creation

    This post is part of the A to Z April Challenge. My theme for the month is ‘ Letters to my unborn child ‘. Dear baby, Did you know a pencil cannot be formed on its own? Neither a computer nor a leaf! So there has to be some one who made it, right? What about the human body? Who made it? I have been thinking of when and how I should introduce you to your Maker, your Creator, your Lord? The answer is given in the Holy Qur’an itself. Kul huwa Allahu Ahad. Say, He is the One. ( 112:1) The Oneness of God. He is unique in His…

  • Letters,  Motherhood

    Beauty-talk.

    This post is part of the A to Z April Challenge. My theme for the month is ‘ Letters to my unborn child ‘. Dear baby, Of late, I dream of your features. Your smile. Your face. Your eyes. Who will you resemble? Me, your dad, your (late) paternal grandpa? What will the shade of your colour be? As much as I hate to bring to your attention about the concept of ‘skin colour’, being from the Indian community,  I know I should be the first one who should teach you to appreciate all 64 shades of human skin. Being on lighter spectrum should not make you feel privileged neither…

  • Letters,  Motherhood

    A beginning

    This post is part of the A to Z April Challenge. My theme for the month is ‘Letters to my unborn child’. Dear baby, The first word I, your dad and grandma uttered when we came to know of your existence inside me is “Alhamdulilah” All Praise be to God. Merely that knowledge of your two-cell existence has bought immense joy and happiness into our lives. When you are 16 and feeling lonely, remember there were two people who have prayed for you even before your were born…even before they had met each other! Nearly four years ago, after going for a routine check-up to a gynecologist, she uttered the…

  • Letters

    Theme reveal – A to Z Challenge

    As like last year, in the whim of a blogging frenzy I signed up for the A to Z Challenge. Last year’s theme was A to Z of Arabic words in English. It suited my tagline and the exact reason of why I started this blog – my love for words. Much has changed in my personal life over the gap of a year. It has been an exhilarating roller-coaster ride. Alhamdulilah. Hence this year’s theme will be more closer home. More personal. More intimate. I have tried to keep my personal life away from the online world. Yet it is words that calm me. So I come back to…