‘I think my water broke.’

‘What?!’

I’m on the phone with my husband.

I’m sitting at the edge of my bed with my blue pj pants in hand.

My mind is taking me a million places -

Am I giving birth…now...but…but I have 2 months left!

Before I know it, we are bumping across the motorway, me clutching my tummy and a half-filled hospital bag, my husband criss crossing between lanes as fast yet safely as he could.

Cars, fields and gray skies zoom past us.

And along with them, without us realising, life as it was speeds away from us too.

—

Assalamualaikum my dear

How are you? It's been too long!

I can't believe I'm sending out my first letter about baby Ibrahim after a few months of him being cuddled next to me. It's crazy how fast things change and how different things end up being to what you plan.

I had no intention to keep this pregnancy a secret until the end. In actual fact, in my normal style, I was planning on sharing my favourite lessons and reflections of pregnancy towards the final weeks!

But we plan, and Allah plans.
And He is the best of planners.

Ibrahim was due on October 3rd but my water broke six weeks earlier.

—

A new chapter

Things changed overnight - priorities, anxieties, duas.

Where my biggest concerns once revolved around when to hand out baby shower invites and whether I should start a weekly Quran journaling circle or not, in a split second, all of it was replaced and consumed by this tiny 1.7kg bundle named Ibrahim.

To feel his movement drop even a little became my biggest fear.

To hear his first cry in the operating theatre became my most joyous memory.

To see his tiny frame gain a few grams of weight became my most fervent dua.

If life felt like a rollercoaster of emotions before, those first few weeks of motherhood felt like a bungee jump on repeat - exhilarating, daunting, terrifying.

An unexpected revelation

In that infinite loop of bungee jumping, one of the unexpected beautiful things I found (and one I was excited to tell you about) was how often I inadvertently kept coming back to this newsletter as a source of comfort and strength.

It was the letters of Fi Hi khair and the hadith that every difficult is a means of expiation of sins and the dua to ease every difficulty that really gave me strength when things felt like too much.

Writing has always been a form of healing to me. And this newsletter space played a massive role in that over the past year. Sharing the different lessons I was learning and reading your experiences about them too - forming this bond together through writing and faith, made this really a beautiful space of healing and growth.
And then to see those letters came back to heal me once again ..it felt like a full circle.

A comeback (hopefully)

Ibrahim is turning 12 weeks soon and it feels like the initial storm of the preterm newborn season has settled (I’m not sure if I’m speaking too soon!). The bungee jump still continues but I’m learning to lean into it more. 

As a result, I’ve been thinking about picking up this newsletter again. I’m not sure if I can keep up the bi-weekly newsletters at the moment, but I will be back as much as I can!

I can’t lie, I’ve been itching to get back to my keyboard and write again. My Notion is full of quick drafts filled with typos and ellipses (a result of a combination of typing while feeding and mum brain) which I can’t wait to flesh out and share with you.

Keep us in your duas.

Until next time,
Thasneema 🌻

PS. Jazakallah khair to all of you who reached out to me in my absence to check up on me. Honestly, it meant so much!