My Lady of the Lantern

There are too many things that abound around me. My aunt is here. She lives in a coastal area. I told her last year that I would bring the baby to meet her. I also wanted my kid to have a flavour of the beach. Well, that is not going to happen. My aunt is knitting something. The wool she is using is partly from the lot she had for knitting Kaiser/Lola's sweater. I think of Lola every day. On Monday I went to meet the SuperPed here in City X, and was surrounded by a sea of babies and family in the waiting area. He took me in immediately and I was crying by the time I came out. And the sea still existed. Lola should have been here for a routine visit/vaccination or whatever. Instead, she came summarized in a paper file . It hurts big time. And my ears! In UsualCity I could hear the cry of a baby coming from the adjacent building. And here in City X, there is an infant in the neighbourhood whose cry I hear now and then. It does not affect me in the sense of making me cry, but it seems...

I birthed Kaiser ( in a dream, thankfully ) on the night of 14th November. Of course, in my dream, the date and situation were very different. I was in office and felt the baby coming. Next thing I know the baby was born...I remember it was in the rear end of an empty classroom on the ground floor (of the institute's building). I do not remember any pain...Also, I was smashing conscious enough to record the date of birth and time as November 28 and 0820 Hrs. Kaiser was very healthy. In fact, by the afternoon, I had him sitting in my arms and I was moving around. The peculiarities do not end there. Kaiser had a thin moustache line. He looked a bit like my father. I was telling everybody that Kaiser was due in February but he had been born early and look how healthy he was. Kaiser had the weight and strength of a 5 month old. He was supporting his neck and sat well on my arm. And where did his clothes come from? I don't know. The dream ended there. Next day, I phoned up my mother...

Dear Kaiser, You seem to be doing so good. I am somewhere between 11 and weeks pregnant with you. We saw you on July 26, and you were measuring 3 days ahead! I think it was watching you flail and flap your arms that really got to me. Tears slid off my cheeks. I like the nurse in the hospital. She noticed my tears. It makes so much difference, Kaiser. People can be so kind in their silent understanding too. Last week, your Papa wished you 'Good Night' one night, and kissed my belly too another night. I have to tell you, I just could not control my laughter on the latter because it feel so weird. I call you Kaiser, but between me and Papa, we call you Baku. It was a name we picked from a movie we saw - 10,000 B.C. Nothing too impressive about the movie per se, but there were two kids in the movie, Baku and Tudu, and we simultaneously swooped up Baku. I was acting you out Monday night. Just like the way I saw you on the ultrasound screen. My food tastes have changed monumentally. ...

I don't really have an elaborate tale about why the ban on New Moon nights. It is explained thus: New Moon nights are especially potent for Tantric practices and Black Magic. I know that there is nobody on this planet sticking needles into a lemon or tiny doll in my name, but apparently lot of things are attempted on such nights. That is the source of the ban. MIL dear is just being super-extra-frills-added-cautious. Here's my strategy - Won't go out if it I can help it. Will go out and not tell my ILs about my trip. I want to be comfortable in my skin. I want to do things that appear okay to me. I don't want to just acquiesce because somebody else has some prejudices. So, I will follow the line till I can, and then, well you know me. --- On a different note, here is my 9w5d belly . (I am not quite adept yet at taking pics of my belly. I will improve.) You are not permitted to comment on the clutter in the background. :-) I would be 10 weeks tomorrow! 10 weeks!!! ^WiseG...

I have so many thoughts I want to jot down, and the past week and a half that I was posting my Flying Thoughts series, there were incidents and issues that went flitting. But, I did not want to disrupt the tempo and so I withheld myself. However something so happened that I would like to speak it out, before everything else that I planned to document. On Tuesday ( as in May 18th ), my parents ( who are currently in the US, spending time with my bro ) phoned up. My brother and his girlfriend have finally decided to get married, and the date would be fixed in accordance with their winter vacation. My heart sank. Of course, I am happy for my bro. Do you remember I had once spoken of a tradition where the toddlers of the family ride the mare with the groom ? Well, my child would miss the ride yet again. I do not have anybody to offer for that ride. My own brother would not be seating my child on the mare. How can this be? I missed out in the wedding of my DH's two cousins last year. I ...

Saturday was a very busy day for me, being the first day of our annual three day fest. I cam home around 2000 Hrs. and checked my mobile to find two missed calls from my mother. My mother never gives up. An ex-assistant of a very famous Infertility Specialist in a Real-Big-City has recently become her neighbour and my mother had taken my file to her for a peek. As usual nothing burning comes out from the file. But the fragmentation in the embryos seems to be the only clue. The doctor recommended a few tests. My mother asked me to get the tests done. I told my mother in an equanimous voice that there was nothing on this front that I wanted to do in October - November. My mother told me that if I got the tests done at my own end, we would be able to take it from there in December. I began to lose it really. See, my mother does not get the point. I don't want to do anything in October and November! Next, my mother told me that the lady angel had advised her that lifestyle change reall...

I have been meaning to see the movie for quite sometime now. And it happened last night. Several things strike me: ~~~Ellen Page is amazing. She really did not appear to be anything older than 16. ~~~How come the Dad is so cool about having a pregnant daughter? ~~~Juno’s boyfriend – what a twerp! ~~~Juno gives birth and gives the baby for adoption and both she and her precious boyfriend refuse to see the baby. ~~~That girl screaming – Every child wants to be borned ! ~~~What is the emotional, mental and physical aftermath of this pregnancy and giving up of the baby? Does Juno carry any guilt? Does she ever want to find out about Vanessa and her son? ~~~Juno and the boyfriend are shown singing and kissing in the fag end of the movie. It is as if Juno lost a year not because of the baby, but an exchange program. As if the pregnancy and the baby passed away in the blink of an eye. I am not being judgmental. Am I missing a point here? ^WiseGuy^

So, I wrote about this in another post , but was really whining about something else, so this issue became a victim of oversight. My hubby's boss is asking us to accompany him to a temple in his hometown. He is basically going there as a thanksgiving for the birth of his son (his second child). Apparently, as reported by him, the temple is a hit with both fertiles as well as infertiles. Fertiles go there to thank for the healthy offspring, and infertiles go there to get God to listen to their prayers. I have problems with that theory. I am not agnostic. I pray. I celebrate God in my own way, even if I am not hot on rituals. Believe me, I am an unusual entity in the kind of settings in which I am existing. My mother has elaborate rituals attached to her prayer routine. But she was not always like that. Over the years, she has discovered her own way. I too want to do the same thing. I don't want God to be heaped on me. If I come out with more rituals, it would be because my heart...

On my way home, I stopped at a place to pick up something to present S, my niece, as a gift for her first birthday. I was highly taken by a really cute cuddly elephant...so that got picked and gift wrapped. I also bought a really sweet pink bunny - for my baby . This is the very first time I have bought something for the baby. I say 'the' baby, as if it really exists. It does not. This is huge for me. I am not sure how much time will it be, before I can lay it next to my baby. Second, in my culture, nothing is bought for the baby before it is born because it is considered bad luck. Well, I am not sure how more bad can my luck get. So, what the heck, if I like it, I will buy it. Just bring me my baby. BTW, it is Tick Tick 2! ^WiseGuy^

Day before yesterday, dear MIL had a sudden/or not so sudden bout of deep empathy for me. She told me that she understood my position (being infertile in a rapidly reproducing world). She herself has fought it. Yeah, is it so? She told me that she had my hubby after four years of marriage and it's a long time to have kids. But let me reveal the secret fertility history of hers. She was not experiencing primary infertility. She did conceive twice before the birth of my DH, and lost both the pregnancies in the second trimester. Both the times, the miscarriage did not happen on its own - she had done hectic travelling and if I understand correctly, she jumped off a running train once and lost the baby. And another time, she started having contractions in the night, but waited for the morning to arrive and then used a bus to travel to the hospital. She delivered the baby before she reached the doors of the hospital. I would attribute those losses to carelessness rather than God's ...

My news is not a secret from you. Let me count the ways, Thursday brought us wrong news. The SIL of my mother's domestic help was 6 months pg and had severe jaundice. She lost her baby and is still unconscious. The day I had my ET, I told you about who all I shared my recovery room with. Well the other lady who had her ET on the same day (November 20) also tested negative. We learnt of a death (of a very young woman, under-30) in our close acquaintances. She was just out of labour. The baby has survived. ^WiseGuy^

I have not turned cold. No, I am getting these bouts where tears do escape me. Today evening, my mother sat down on the floor, laid her head on my lap and just kept her head down. I know she was seeking some warm reassurance from me. That is what I did not give to her. I would have balled out - cried like crazy and somehow I am not into public displays of my frustration with myself, with God (I really am upset with this guy) and with why I always have to have the harder path to achieving simple things that seem to fall effortlessly into other people's life. I could not give in. Who needs that reassurance more? Yesterday night, almost my whole family cried in front of me. Dad and bro had their share of tears when I was not there. But my mother followed me upstairs. I wanted to take a bath. She did not let me go till we bear-hugged. She was shaken. She was like - "Oh God, so many injections, so many tablets?". She almost feels responsible for me for having gone through this...

##November 20, 2008## Started the day by watching Sheryl Crow croon 'Everyday is a Winding Road'. Had an early lunch and went to the centre at 1350 Hrs. The procedure started at 1515 Hrs. I was asked to keep a full bladder for the procedure. Whew! No intracath, no anesthesia. Phenomenal! The procedure goes well and the doc tells me that I cooperated well. I hope I can say the same to my uterus as well! One wonderful thing was that prior to the procedure, my doc showed me where my uterus was and after the procedure, I got to take a pic of the 3 embies they put inside me. I remained on the operating room table for about an hour - just resting and then was transported to the post-operative recovery room. I have clicked some pics there, but as soon as I am able to transfer the pics to my laptop, I will show you what I saw for three more hours in the recovery room. I shared my room with another ET case and a lady who had an ectopic pregnancy and was bleeding. My doc advised me to li...

Case I: W got married and within three months she came to know that she had conceived. Why have a kid so early in marriage and for this simple reason she had the baby aborted. Later she conceived again and lost the baby in the fifth month. She conceived again and had a normal delivery. As of today, she is the proud mother of two daughters.[It is also rumored that she had found out that she was pregnant four months prior to her wedding and she and her fiance had disposed off the baby for the fear of bringing shame to their respective families.] Case II: W got married and was detected with a fibroid. Around the same time, she conceived and on some adverse opinion from her doctor had an MTP. A second opinion post-MTP concluded that she actually did not need the MTP(!). Second time she became pregnant, she delivered a healthy baby boy. Power of Contraception be damned, she conceived again within two years, which she promptly got terminated. Case III: W got married and because of lack...