#confessionsonsafarnamay: "My 29th Birthday"

Married for 3 years, the jibes and scorns had started coming my way for being ‘bold enough’ to plan when I want a baby. Hence, when the pregnancy test strip showed a faint red line on the morning of my 29^th birthday, my social conditioning made me feel joyful. After all, I was going to become a mom, and the occasion was joyous.

It was too early in the pregnancy though. My periods had been delayed for only 25 days. The scan showed an empty uterus, but the pregnancy hormone was rising. My gynecologist asked me to not get carried away in my excitement and return after a week. 

As the hours passed, my excitement of motherhood increased. Perhaps that’s what God has made women to be like. I was ready to host the baby in my womb and eventually welcome the little being into my life, and my arms. My husband and I started Googling baby names too! But this magical feeling didn’t last. One day while I was hanging out with my mom, I felt a tight knot on the right side of my lower abdomen. I was taken to the emergency room, where fresh scans discovered that my pregnancy was ectopic. Instead of growing in my uterus, my baby was growing in one of my Fallopian tubes. The only option my doctor had was to kill my child with an administered dosage of chemotherapy. While for my family,the child was already a distant memory and my survival the focus, I couldn’t believe that my baby was being treated like cancer. How could it be that my own child could prove to be fatal for me?

I mourned the loss of the embryo that was supposed to be my first child. But I didn’t even get time to feel the pain of that loss. I was sent home from the hospital, only to return because of continued pain. It turned out that the baby survived the treatment and that had led to an eventual rupture in my Fallopian tube. There was massive internal bleeding and if not dealt with right away, this would be the end of my life.

The doctors did their business and post the surgery, I woke up. But I woke up with just one Fallopian tube. The other had to be removed. Since I was no longer pregnant, I began shedding my uterine lining. My threshold for the monthly pain is high, since ‘desi’ girls are instructed to curb their screams and not make a big deal of their menstrual pains. However, this time, I couldn’t control it. For hours, I screamed like a lunatic, until the pain subsided.

In a short span of 20 days, I had felt more than I had ever felt before. I went through the joy of knowing I’m pregnant for the very first time, being scared about childbirth, realizing something is wrong with me, going through chemotherapy, a surgery, losing my baby and losing a Fallopian tube. I couldn’t believe the emotional roller-coaster I had been through. I couldn’t believe I had suffered so much physical pain. I couldn’t believe I could have died. My future pregnancies may be affected. Will I have another baby? When will I have another baby…..I now think to myself.

It’s only been a week and I am trying to search for my peace in my surroundings. My husband somehow doesn’t exactly understand my pain. And on the other hand, my mother’s over caring attitude is getting to me. Perhaps, it’s too soon for me to feel normal. I am irritable. I know women go through miscarriages. I didn’t even hear the heartbeat of my child, yet I am living in despair. There are women who carry a child in their womb for 9 months and then deal with still births. Some have healthy children and lose them while they are just babies. I know I am not the first one dealing with this. Yet, I feel I have the right to feel sad….at least for some time. Do I not?

Hope is a wonderful thing. Women are wonderful creatures, capable of bouncing back to life from all kinds of situations. I do think that I will bounce back…but as of now, even if I am being over dramatic, I want the space and the permission to dwell in my pain for some time. I am engulfed with darkness, it is not easy to live once you survive a near death situation. But perhaps, it will take a long walk through this darkness for me to eventually see light again.

By Anonymous.

Illustrated by: Fatima Baig. You can follow her on Instagram here.