Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Why I love Ramadhan even if it means having to fast for 17 hours!

Ramadhan has always been a special and most awaited month of the year for my family and I. It's that time of year we all look forward to each and every year. Alhamdulillah, I've now managed to witness approximately 25 months of Ramadhan and experienced fasting approximately 18 of them. I'm not sure what or why, but Ramadhan just seem rather peaceful, surreal and magical time of the year. Somehow it's the only time that I could fight my eyes from sleeping just to pray after Sahur to ask Allah for anything and everything. I guess it's easier to do good things on this month because as narrated by Abu Hurairah, Rasulullah Salallahu Alaihi Wassalam said "When the month of Ramadhan starts, the gates of the heaven are opened and the gates of Hell are closed and the devils are chained." (Sahih Bukhari, hadith no:1899)

To top it all up, Khairaldin was conceived on Ramadhan 1429. We have been trying for a baby for a few months before that but had no rezeki then. Even during Ramadhan, we were still trying and made extra efforts to pray and ask Allah to shower us with a child. Alhamdulillah, during Eid celebration I already had a feeling that I was pregnant and managed to confirm about a week later. So, what is there to not like about Ramadhan? It's been such surreal experience for me ever since I started to learn about this month.

Ramadhan 1430 was another magical experience for me. I was blessed with a child few months before Ramadhan. Khairaldin was 3 months old during Ramadhan and was actively breastfeeding and very dependant on me. Even though Ramadhan has been something I look forward to, somehow last year I was scared and not too keen of it. Of course like other Mommies, my main concern was what nutritions will my baby get if I were to fast? We are constantly being told to have proper meals when breastfeeding or else the baby won't get enough nutritions etc. So, I did my research on whether to fast when breastfeeding.

Bearing in mind, last year's Ramadhan was during Summer season, so that's a total of approximately 16 hours of fasting (Shurook 4am and Maghrib 8pm). A month before Ramadhan I was already thinking how do I breastfeed + fast for 16 hours, how will I manage or even what will Khairaldin be filled up with as there won't be enough milk if I don't eat for that long?! So I started saving my expressed milk for Ramadhan just in case he gets hungry when I'm fasting.

But, due to him being very fussy and not wanting any other nipples, I still contemplated on whether I should fast or not. I continued researching and found a few people who say "it's okay to just pay Fidyah (feeding a poor person) and not fast throughout Ramadhan." And another who says "every Muslim has to fast regardless of their circumstances."

So, how do you decide between this two? Insha'Allah, I will interpret further on this in my next entry (hopefully will publish tomorrow).

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

No comments: