My Mother Writes a Post

45 years ago

I am 31 today.  My birthday and my 9th wedding anniversary.   No celebrations. Just marking one more year of waiting and longing.

31 years and 1 day.
Mina, my sister and her husband visited.  They say a very holy man -J.P. Vaswani  is going to be in the neighborhood.  I asked is he able to work miracles.  They didn't know.  I am going to go there and get his blessings. After all, I have tried everything. I fast every Tuesday-St. Anthony's Day. I say the Novena every Wednesday-Our Lady's Day and I say the Rosary twice a day.  No sign in 9 years if anyone is listening to my prayers.  Maybe this holy man will work a miracle.

31 years and 7 days:
 I met J.P. Vaswani. There was a huge crowd but I managed to push myself through. When I reached him, he was surrounded by people. In front of all of them I just joined my hands and said very fast,  "I want a baby." He nodded and smiled. Maybe he does that to everyone. I don't know. Maybe it will help. I don't know.

31 years and  1 month:
Mina's husband has landed a job in a very big hospital. He and Mina took me to see a doctor there. The doctor says I need an operation and I should return with my husband who will have to sign his consent.
I asked my husband.  He refused. "I  don't want a child." I pleaded, wept, begged.
He insists he doesn't want a child. His first wife, his love died in childbirth. He says he allowed me to bring 3-year-old Rachel, my niece here and bring her up and isn't that enough?  How to explain that looking after and caring for Rachel just makes me long even more for a baby of my own.  Rachel isn't mine. No matter what I do for her, she still runs away from me the minute she sees her mother.
I want a baby who will run to me no matter who else loves her.

31 years and 2 months:
Mina's husband says he is ready to pose as my husband and sign for the operation. It is Mina's idea. Mina has always been a daredevil.  But I am scared.  If I tell my husband he will forbid it.  If I don't and he finds out?  One time I said don't take another drink, he threw a plate at me. This is much more serious than an extra drink on Christmas Day.

31 years and 3 months:
In the end I didn't tell him but went with Mina and her husband for the operation.  I had to stay overnight. My husband thinks I am staying with Mina.  Mina's husband signed. The operation was a very small one. Don't know if it's of any use. After all the lies and deceit...

I am 32 today. 
I am pregnant. 
Was it my prayers, or J P Vaswani's blessing or Mina and her husband's efforts or the operation? Or did all of it lead to the operation? I don't know. But I am going to have a baby of my own. I told my husband of the operation and that Mina's husband signed. He said he doesn't want a baby and he doesn't mind if he never sees another baby in his life.  I don't care. I am going to have a baby of my own.

Mother.

P.S. Like all daughters the baby does run to me no matter else who else loves her.
That the baby also turned out to be the apple of her father's eye is a different story.

10 Reasons Why You Should Not Have A Baby At 21.

Greetings!

1.You lose every friend you had at 20, because you are married and pregnant, and none of them have even found decent boyfriends yet.

2. Your brain stagnates.  You find things like another prima gravida relating the agonies of constipation riveting. “I sat for hours and hours and then after all that I had a little, such a little, (measuring a nail width) bowel movement." (language edited).  Yes, I ACTUALLY listened to that and didn’t have nightmares about it until years later.

3. You are 21 but people take you to be at least ten years older than you really are. And you look it too.

4. All your friends are busy partying, traveling abroad, buying the most delicious clothes, making and dumping boyfriends, while YOU are busy with diapers, immunization schedules, trying not to get pregnant again, wearing your oldest and  only clothes, since you haven’t shopped for yourself in ages,because baby isn’t toilet trained and won’t wear diapers, and now that the hormones that raged at 20 have settled down, wondering what you saw in the man you married.

5.  Finally the babies you had when you were 21 grow up and you are now free and raring to go, but all your friends are either just getting married or with new babies and no one has time for you.

6.  You are taken to be older than your sister who is five years older than you because she has a 2-year-old, while your eldest is 20. (And nobody believes you when you say you’re not.)

7.  You want to take up that exciting job you have been longing to do for years, but couldn’t because of the kids, but every employer is looking for 21-year-olds.

8.  Your older daughter follows in your footsteps, marries at 20, and you become mother-in-law to a man who is just ten years younger than you, but calls you “Mum”.

9. You live in constant dread of being a grandmother, for god’s sweet sake, at 42!

10.And finally- because you never get to live! Because no matter how cute they look in pictures and what their mothers tell you, babies are the most selfish creatures on earth.  They take your life and make it their own. And they never give it back. Not even when they are 21.

You have fun now and listen to-