Her gender was her crime

Her gender was her crime. 

The story of Nupur (Name changed)

Based in Europe

Written by Nupur herself

Edited by Mallika Bhatia

Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.

Little did I know that 2012 would change my life forever. God had bestowed me with the bliss of motherhood. I knew this was special and it was the right time to welcome our bundle of joy. Our four year old marriage was culminating into one of the best phases, at least I believed so back then.

Unfortunately this was only what I believed. To my husband it was something that happened by chance and probably should not have happened at this point in our lives. We had discussed about having children in the past and considering the fact that both our families were pressurizing us, we did not have a lot of time to wait. Though we had never discussed the preference of a gender for our child. I didn’t even know a preference could exist!

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Me and my sister are still the strengths of our family. My parents never made us feel that having two daughters was a burden on them. We always got the best of everything and we believed not just in taking but also returning back to our parents. We tried to obtain good grades and always gave our best in every aspect of life, hence for me a child was a child, regardless of the gender. All I wanted was a healthy baby and within myself I knew I always wanted a daughter who could grow up be my best friend.

I got pregnant at the beginning of 2012 and I was overwhelmed with joy. My husband told me that I needed to be strong and had to make sure that I am physically fit during my pregnancy. I had always taken care of all the household chores ever since our marriage; buying grocery, cooking, cleaning, everything was my responsibility, even though I worked. It continued to do all that even during my pregnancy. In the second month though, while I was asleep I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. To my dismay I was bleeding heavily. I started crying and thought all my dreams, my future-best friend, my bundle of joy is gone. I couldn’t wait until next morning to visit the doctor, so I decided to go at night. I had always been to the doctor’s visit alone so far and this one too I went on my own. My husband decided that he needed his rest because he had an important meeting next morning.

Luckily the clinic was just a few meters away. The gynecologist did some tests and declared that the baby was fine. My little one even showed me a thumbs up during the ultrasound. I could hear a voice in my head saying, ‘mumma everything is fine. Don't worry I am here to make your world a better place’. The doctor did suggest complete bed rest for two weeks following. I took off from work and tried to rest as much as possible. My husband also tried to manage the household chores by himself, something he had never done before.

At the end of the first trimester, we got to know the gender of our baby. It was a girl. I was elated. I wanted to literally jump with joy but to my surprise my husband was NOT. He was very upset that we were not having a boy. He told me he had expected a son. He continued telling me how every family member in their extended family had a son and how my image would be tarnished in his family because I was giving birth to a girl child.

I was in shock. Here I was, on steroids to strengthen my uterus and protect my baby and my husband simply rejected the child based on her gender. This educated man who knew how genders of children are decided was blaming me for something that I wanted to celebrate. He said he was not prepared for a child and this was one of the biggest mistake of his life. I was too shaken to react. I was also questioning my decision of spending the rest of my life with this man.

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

Ours was a love marriage. I am from the South of India and he is from the North. Our customs, language, culture, everything is different. I had to work hard on convincing my parents to let me spend the rest of my life with him. Here I was, at this stage of my life when I needed to share my emotions with my mother, I couldn't I could not ask for her support, I could not confide in her. I could not get myself to tell her what her son-in-law thought about a girl child. So I just kept talking to my womb, I also tried to console myself that this will pass.

Everyday I heard new things from my husband, He would tell me about his friends who were lucky they had sons. He repeated multiple times how badly my husband wanted one too. He wanted to play cricket with his son. He even said that if we ever had another daughter he would divorce me, as if it was in my hands. I kept swallowing my tears everyday. I used to spend sleepless nights thinking about my future and yet in my heart I believed that this child would change our destiny.

Back in India we were a struggling pair of software engineers who could not afford neither a house nor a car of our own. The move to a different country was made because I knew we would never be  able to suffice the demands of his family who always had gifts on their minds. They had taunted me just before our marriage on how their son/brother had lost out on so many marriage prospects from girls settled abroad for someone like me. For me it was very clear that close to his family was definitely not the place for us to live in the long run. I had to get away, as far as possible. I managed to get an onsite to Europe first, eventually my husband followed me.

Going back to my pregnancy, overall it was very difficult. We were living in a foreign land without any support and then to top it my husband’s constant remarks and my weak uterus. It was all together a nightmare. My mother had come to help me out with the pregnancy and delivery. I was determined to give a normal birth. I used to tell myself that I can go through any pain to bring my child into this world. I crossed my due date with no signs of any pain. Eventually I was admitted to the hospital and given pain inducers. In spite of all the medicines there was still no signs of labor. I had to finally go through an emergency C-section and my daughter was born at Midnight.

Photo by rawpixel on unsplash

Beautiful child with twinkling eyes and red cheeks. My joy knew no bounds. My husband also seemed mildly happy. I could somehow see a streak of sadness on his face.

Now began the real nightmare, I was not lactating much and the doctors kept insisting on only breast milk. No matter what I did, the supply was not sufficient. She was also not latching well. On the second day of her birth she had already gone from 2600 kg to 2300 kg.  I was still trying to feed her when I noticed that something seemed amiss. My mother, who was with me went to call the doctors immediately. My child had shivered heavily and then she had gone numb.  We were told that she had had a seizure. She was immediately shifted to the Neonatal Intensive care unit.

My ray of hope was taken away from me, my stitches hurt, my heart sank and I had no clue what was going on. I was anxious and sad. I waited till the next morning before requesting the doctors to take me to her. She was in another building and they offered me a wheelchair as I was yet to recover from my C-section. I denied the chair and decided to walk to her. It was very painful but I had promised to go through any pain to see my child and I did.

There she was in the ICU with pipes through her nose and her tiny hands. Doctors declared that she had hypoglycemia and suffered seizures as her glucose levels had gone low. They extracted blood from her leg every couple of hours to check her level of glucose. I spent the entire day waiting outside. I could only meet her during feeding times. It was an emotional hell .

Photo by Marcelo Leal

I was soon discharged but of course I could not stay at home. I used to drag myself out of home,walk one kilometer until the train station and another kilometer from the station to the ICU. Every day I would return home at 10.00 PM with a heavy heart since I had to leave my child behind. This routine continued for a month post which she was shifted from the ICU to the normal ward.

The only communication I had at the hospital was how much intake of milk she had and what her glucose count was. It was painful, but I couldn’t give up. Was God was testing our patience or was teaching my husband a lesson, I didn’t know? My husband used to cry and pray to God to heal our child and keep her healthy. I am not sure why but I think it was because the stigma of having an abnormal girl child was a lot more than having a girl child.

Eventually she recovered and we brought her home after a few a days in the normal ward. It was soon time for my mother to go back and my mother-in-law to come. I was glad that she was coming as I knew she had experience with babies. We lived in a Studio apartment back then.

As a new mother, I was still learning the tricks of feeding and putting her to bed. Though every time I breastfed her, my mother-in-law would insist on giving her a bottle. She wanted me to get back to all the household chores. Instead of helping me she wanted to spend all the time with my baby. At night instead of sleeping, I would be expressing milk for her and yet I was not granted the liberty of sleeping during the day. My mother-in-law didn’t like people who slept during the day. Both me and my child needed rest which we were not getting. In fact I was being treated as a maid and was constantly taunted about how her son missed out in life by marrying me. How me or my parents never did enough for my in-laws and did not give them enough presents. I was told how we also needed to constantly buy expensive things for my sister-in-law and everyone in the extended family.

I was obviously not given the gold or clothes by them, as it is a tradition after delivering a child.
It was all getting too much for me. My husband was also acting weird and both of them together would comment on how fat I was getting. They started making plans of taking my daughter to India so that I could continue working and earning money for them. These were the toughest 6 month of my life. It was during this time when I realized that my financial stability was of utmost importance. I couldn’t depend on anyone.

I just kept swallowing my tears, my thoughts were also killing me from inside. Many a times, I thought of ending my life but then my daughter’s face would flash in front of my eyes. I knew that for her sake I needed to fight it out and emerge stronger than ever before. I took up running to clear my mind.

I restarted working when she was 6 months old and my daughter started going to the daycare.
I no longer loved this man, who was now the father of my child. My relationship with my husband was more like roommates. I could not forgive him for all that he knowingly or unknowingly did in the past year yet I had to stay with him because of my daughter. My husband was too busy with his work to pay attention to our child, who had started craving her father. She was my life but deep within I was very lonely. I had my office work, the household duties and the entire responsibility of my child. I had no one to express my sadness to. I never showed my anger and my discomfort to anyone. I just put on a fake smile all the time. That’s all I could think of back then. I often wanted to flee away with my daughter to a happier place. I then decided to start writing to vent out my feelings and it helped me greatly.

I believe it was my daughter’s luck that both me and my husband grew in our careers. We moved into a bigger house and things were finally falling into place when all of a sudden my daughter suffered seizures again while asleep. She was 2.5 years old now.

I was shattered yet again but the situations in the past had made me strong enough to handle this calmly. She was again admitted to the hospital and underwent MRIs,EEG’s. The doctors could not conclude what caused the seizure again. All reports were normal. She was put on medication which could not prevent the seizures but could  prevent damage to her body in case she encounters a seizure. Ever since then my life my revolves around her proper and timely meals so that she can have her medicine on time, counting hours to her next dose, making sure she gets enough sleep and that she doesn’t fall and hurt her head.

She is five now and for the past almost five years we have believed that her seizures were associated with her sleeping pattern. Recently though, an Ayurvedic doctor in India said that she has breathing difficulties due to enlarged adenoids and the seizures could be because of the non-uniform supply of oxygen to the brain. However, nobody has been able to confirm this yet through tests.

We are still fighting a battle! A battle unknown, a battle with no end. I am trying to forgive my husband, maybe it was a problem with his upbringing and the kind of mentality that people in his region are brought up with. I really wish his family taught him to love his daughter as much as he is asked to love his sister or niece.

I have always wanted a brave, intelligent, beautiful, smart and talented daughter and have tried my level best to support her in all ways. I don’t know what’s in store for her but I know she deserves the best. Me and my husband were both were bright and intelligent students in school and today we are trying in our own ways to make our daughter one.

Finally after 5 years the father-daughter have started to bond. I hope the bond gets stronger with time. I am trying to love him, it’s difficult and I don’t know if I can but I have decided to stay in this relationship for the sake of my daughter for now.

Photo by Juan Jose

I have also started to raise my voice against all the things that I am not comfortable with in his family; gifts, people, attitude, racism, competition, materialism. I have moved up the ladder in my career as well and have the confidence that if, at any point the relationship with my husband is not worth it for my child, I will walk away with dignity. I continue to run and jog to maintain my sanity.

I do sometimes wonder why only my daughter out of all the billions of children born in the world, then it occurs to me that may be God chose us because she thinks we are special and we are capable of managing difficult situations with dignity. God is helping us learn and grow. I have always been a very keen learner and believe that no matter how old I get, I will always continue to learn and embrace life as it comes .When life knocks you down either you stay down or get up. I chose to get up, no matter what and accept every challenge in life with courage and confidence.

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Disclaimer- The opinions expressed in this story are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily express the views of The Hope Tribe.