by Gargi Mehra
In the summer that followed my wedding, I discovered I might never have children.
A constellation of pea-sized fibroids had announced their presence in a routine ultrasound. If I delayed conception, my gynecologist warned I might forego my chances of ever having a child.
My mother, as reliable as a clock in maternal matters, chimed in and urged me to conceive at the earliest. She had always wished for a magic wand she could swish and turn me into a baby-making machine. I held my peace in the doctor’s chambers, but on the way back home, I rounded on her. How could I graduate to parenthood at twenty-seven? I had not gone jet-setting for business. No opportunity to head a department had arisen. No magazine had profiled my hypothetical ‘rise to the top’.
If we women had our way, then motherhood would descend upon us only once we had tucked away a long list of achievements in the ‘Career’ folder. We would stockpile all our successes to reminisce over in the dead of night as we held an infant to our breasts while slumber settled on our lids.
The time had arrived to ask myself a probing question – what did I want?
A childless future stared me in the face. I searched within myself. Would I wake up years later and regret not having children? I didn’t have to dig deep to unearth the answer to that.
Eighteen months later, a cute baby girl entered my life. The years flew by and my daughter blossomed into a smart and happy girl. Even before she turned five, one question flew thick and fast wherever I went – when’s the next one coming?
Having a second child is like getting another degree – you nurture a vague memory of how well you prepared, but you’ve forgotten the agony and the blood-curdling shrieks you had emitted at the finals.
For me, the trauma of a normal delivery hadn’t yet ebbed. The screams echoed in my mind for months afterward.
As a working woman, I had toiled away in a cubicle through the bulk of my daughter’s formative years. My career blossomed alongside my child, one with tender loving care from me, and the other with little input from my side. I brought home an income that allowed us to indulge both my daughter’s cravings for toys and our yearnings for each new gadget unveiled in the virtual marketplace.
Did I want to raise another child in the same environment? Should I just deliver another baby and relinquish his upbringing to my parents and in-laws? They were the caretakers the first time around but now, they were aging – a fact I could no longer ignore. Could they chase away a toddler who has just learnt to stick his fingers inside the electric sockets? Would I again miss my child’s first steps because I’d be busy flipping to the next slide while presenting to senior management in an icy meeting room?
I considered the alternative. Could we let my daughter grow up sans siblings? I did not prefer it, for our heart lies with the clan. Close friends forge a togetherness that morphs into something resembling a domestic unit, but the blood ties of a close-knit family meant something deeper to me.
Ten years separate my sister and me. We were hardly ever roommates or even housemates, but we’re as close as two people who share similar DNA can be. She jokes that a generation gap separates us, but that doesn’t daunt me. Far better a gap than a yawning chasm of loneliness surrounding me.
But then I thought, giving birth to the child marks just the beginning. The mother’s job does not end there. We are not pizza delivery boys who ferry their goods to the customer and then drive away whistling a merry tune for a job well done.
The first time, the choice was wrested away from me. The second time around, I waited.
I waited until a sense of comfort enshrouded me.
I waited for my health checkups to return positive.
I waited until my doctor showed me the green signal.
And I waited some more, until the spark almost kissed the stick of dynamite, and then I defused the bomb just in time.
After nine months of suffering stress and anxiety about my impending delivery, a healthy bonny boy arrived and brightened up our household.
The age difference between my children is eight years.
The naysayers cluck their tongues, denouncing it as too wide a gap. I smile, and let it slide. I want to ask them: does it matter?
On the other end of the spectrum are those who look upon my experience as an inspiration for them to follow. After I gave birth to my son, a number of my friends pulled me aside to seek private counsel about having a second child.
I offered but two nuggets of advice – consult your ob-gyn, and follow your heart.
Gargi Mehra is a software professional and a mother living in India. Her essays have appeared in The Writer magazine, Literary Mama, So Glad They Told Me by Her Stories Project, Cocktails with Miss Austen, and other literary magazines across the world online and in print.
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