My Lady of the Lantern

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...

I would like to really really really thank everyone who has commented on the past few posts of mine...especially beginning from the June 8th post. For those of you whose e-mail address comes associated with the comment to me, I did hit 'Reply'. However, there are quite a few of you (and several new bloggers for me), who don't have an associated mail id, and so I could not get back to you. But I hugely appreciate your cheering for me. I would also like to acknowledge that some of you who commented have had it very very rough yourself very recently, and yet you came out to chirp with me. I am humbled by that. -- Dr. BS has an assistant called Dr. M. This past week, every time I phoned up to possibly be able to meet Dr. BS, the receptionist would told me that I could just as well book myself for an appointment with Dr. M. The thing is I did not particularly like Dr. M. Anyways, after I was ladled with another 'She won't be available today' , I decided to call Dr. B...

…continued from previous post… I think that I am so in-reined with battling infertility, that I do not know what I will do with being pregnant or the kid himself/herself. I do not dwell on this aspect too much, because I have an inkling that I would be *virtually* jumping with joy if I find that I am finally knocked up. But tell me, is pregnancy the same thing for an infertile as a fertile? Is the protruding belly of an infertile gazed at the same way as the qualified others? Would I be more nervous, more tight-knotted and more on the edge all the time? Frankly, I would love to live through pregnancy like her . She was an ideal because she tried to make it as normal as she could and I love that totally. But I am a different person, and my sides will reveal only when my IF-tainted body decides to enjoy the fruit of life. Secondly, my infertility would make my own family process my new status in different ways. The way I would be ‘looked after’ would be starkly different from the caring...

Have you worried that infertility treatment, or infertility itself, would cause problems down the line? In cow bits, if you are having a raving amount of time, maybe you could stitch a quilt on that question. When BabySmiling posted that question in one of her Thoughtful Thursdays , I typed in what came out spontaneously. But the question refused to leave me. It hung, and here I am doing something akin to pulling the question verbatim into a blog post for me. I think it is a question for which you will need to stand in my shoes. More importantly, for me, it is like the bubbling insecurities have resurfaced in visible tones. When I began, I had no idea. I had an idea, and it was just that sperm meets egg, likes it a lot and they wed in March. And a wee bouncing pooping baby sits in your lap in December. I will tell you a secret. I have always craved a December baby. I would have gone ‘Awesome!’, had I been knocked up to go for a finale in my favourite month. It seems silly, right? Now,...

I normally despise the gyan that some people give me for free on fertility issues. But there are also times when I hear genuine words. This is not something which was told to me yesterday or the day before. Month after month, I was a fallen wicket. One day I was sharing my frustration with my father and there was one small thing he said. He told me that maybe God was saving me from an even more severe heartache. (We have a neighbour, whose granddaughter was born premature and is special). So, I should count my blessings and never give up on my efforts, but I should never treat my failure as the most 'painful' possibility. In the series of who-needed-you advice, there was one aunty in my building who asked me to have sex on Poornimas (full-moon nights), because it would increase my chances of having a boy child!!! Whoa! Haw! Hum! ^WiseGuy^

This is one of the oldest family snaps - Me, Parents and bro J as the infant. I was 5 or 6 years old when this pic was taken (sometime in the early 1980s). For a long time I have felt that this photo is a portrait of what I and my brother became as adults. My brother became independent only when he went away to US for pursuing higher studies. I was always the break-free. Being the elder one, all the discipline and control tenets were tried and tested on me first and then experiences with me led my parents to suitably modify their techniques for the younger one. I went to a movie with my friends (I lied, was caught, and was slapped; but I had lied coz I would never have been permitted) when I was 17. My bro went to the movies with his friends at 13 (with due permission)! Anyways, the picture is from a family picnic organized by my father’s colleagues in the Anaesthesiology department. These picnics were annual affairs and filled with fun and laughter and a lot of chances at making good ...