It was simply a coincidence that I was at home that day – I was down with a bad case of sinusitis and had decided to take the day off. So, after I’d packed off Pumpkin to school and had barely sat down to check to my email, when my wife announced that she was feeling contractions, we first thought it was the usual anxiety combined with the “fake” Braxton-Hicks contractions that feel like labour pains but are really not. After all, it was just 3 days ago when we had had the cervical stitch removed, and, even though delivery was imminent any time after that, the expected delivery date was a good two weeks away…

These are just some of the headlines for the 16th of October 2007… Sensex touches 19K in just four sessions… 3 Americans share Economics Nobel… India leads in deaths during childbirth… Tiger is born…

The past couple of months have been among the most demanding I have ever experienced. As you may already know, the wife had developed some complications with our second pregnancy, and was confined to two months of bed rest after undergoing a minor surgical intervention. While we were in the hospital, we did not have too much time to think about what would follow. But, once we returned home, the fun stuff started rolling out, one after another…