25 Years of Motherhood, 25 Lessons of Becoming: Part 1

By Dr. Anupama Vaidya (hc)

“Motherhood doesn’t come with a manual — it comes with moments that teach you how to love, how to let go, and how to become.”

Twenty-five years. Seems like just yesterday.

Waking up on Choti Diwali or Narak-Chaturdashi, as we call it, right in the heart of the Diwali festivities, the air alive with light, laughter and the scent of celebration. 

Rushing to the hospital that morning, I carried within me equal parts of anticipation and uncertainty. A quiet knowing that life was about to change forever.

And then, as night descended and the world outside sparkled in celebrations, I held a miracle in my hands — tiny, warm, and utterly life-altering. My dear Ishita arrived not just as my daughter, but as the most beautiful Diwali gift, the celebration and blessing my life had been waiting for.

A quarter of a century has passed since that evening – twenty five years of nurturing, guiding, worrying, hoping, learning and above all, becoming.

Even now, every time I cross the Bandra signal, V.V. Kamath’s words echo softly within me, “A child gives birth to a mother.”

How true that feels, for in your arrival, Ishita, I was born too.

Motherhood has been a truly humbling, awakening, and transforming journey. It’s not a role I mastered; it’s a rhythm I learnt to flow with; imperfectly, instinctively and wholeheartedly.

I stepped into motherhood towards the close of my twenties, a time of anticipation, curiosity and surrender;

Anticipation of the unknown;

Curiosity about what life as a mother would be, and

Surrender to the little soul that I was carrying – a soul that was already teaching me the language of love before it had even spoken a word.

The path wasn’t effortless; it asked more of me than I had ever imagined. There were moments I thought, “I hadn’t signed up for this”.

Yet, somewhere between exhaustion and expectation, I found a quiet grace unfolding.

Each day arrived as a new teacher - some gentle, some demanding, others highly demanding – revealing facets of myself I didn’t know existed.

Patience, surrender, resilience – all found their way into my being, one heartbeat at a time.

I learnt how endurance feels in the body, and how faith feels in the soul.

Even today, when I recount those months, the waiting, the inner movements, the outer shifts, the whispered prayers, the sacred pain of bringing a noble soul into this world – it all returns with vivid clarity;

That evening was nothing short of a drama of contrasts – laughter and tears, anxiety and awe, chaos and calm – all unfolding within the same heartbeat. The doctor on Diwali shopping spree and returning at the last minute (remember mobiles were not yet prevalent). Those who listen to the story often confess to feeling the same goosebumps I do, as if the memory itself still carries the pulse of a miracle in motion.

Somewhere amidst those months of waiting and wondering, I realized that motherhood was never just about birth, it was about becoming. These 25 years, have brought out facets of mine, that I myself did not know existed.

As I bring in my daughter Ishita's birthday on 25th October, and her Star Sign birthday today, I find myself reflecting on the journey; the tender, tough and transformative moments that shaped not just her, but me. 

So, over the next few days, I'll be sharing 25 lessons from my 25 years of motherhood - a few at a time, fragments of wisdom born not from perfection but from presence. 

Each one a reflection of the becoming that continues even today.

I look forward to you walking this path with me, feeling these emotions and perhaps finding echoes of your own story with mine. 

"25 Lessons from 25 Years of Motherhood: Reflections on Growing Through Love"

Learning 1:  Pain is inevitable; suffering is a choice.

Learning 2: Listening to the quiet, not chasing the noise. 

1. Pain is inevitable; suffering is a choice.

The delivery table taught me the greatest difference between the two.

Pain is what life brings to test your strength; suffering is what you create by resisting it.  That night, as I endured the unbearable waves of pain to bring Ishita into the world, I realized something sacred – I had chosen this pain.

Willingly, lovingly, instinctively.

And that’s why it’s called delivery pains, not delivery suffering. 

Because a mother does not fight pain – she flows through it.

She breathes through each surge, not to escape it, but to meet it with purpose.

In that sacred surrender, pain transforms; into power, into presence, into prayer.

Motherhood, I learnt, begins not with perfection, but with surrender. It embraces pain as life’s invitation to strength, as the first act of trust, and as the beginning of a love that makes every ache worthwhile. Some lessons are written not in words, but in the pulse between pain and purpose.

2. Listening to the quiet, not chasing the noise:

As I began familiarizing myself with the cries of my newborn,  I realized that in between those cries lay a language only a mother can hear – a pulse, a rhythm, a whisper that goes far beyond the words.

Which cry is for a feed, and which one is for comfort;

Which sigh comes from hunger, and which from loneliness - 

A mother simply knows, not because she is told, but because her heart has learnt to listen where the world only hears. 

Over the years, even as words have replaced those little cries,  a mother continues to understand far beyond what is spoken.

She doesn’t get lost in the noise of words, she listens to the silence beneath them. 

The tone, the pause, the hesitation — all become her map of meaning.

For her, listening is never been about hearing the sound; it is always about feeling the truth that rests quietly beneath it.

Motherhood taught me early that listening isn’t about reacting; it’s about receiving.

Not every cry needs fixing, not every silence needs filling — sometimes, presence itself is the comfort they seek.

A bridge to the next lessons. 

Each lesson, like each phase of motherhood, has its own rhythm - some were learnt in moments of chaos, others in the hush of midnight silence. 

As I continue my reflections, the birth, the first cries, the first lessons in surrender, I look forward to sharing the next few lessons tomorrow.... Because the story of motherhood is never finished - it simply unfolds, one heartbeat, one lesson, one dawn at a time.