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.

* If you found this story inspiring then don't forget to share, comment, like and subscribe to The Hope Tribe.You can be the instrument of Hope for someone by spreading these inspirational tales. Thanks for reading, Mallika Bhatia, Founder The Hope Tribe

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.

Our child is hearing empowered- a family's special journey

The Story of an anonymous family

Based in the United Kingdom
Written by the family itself
Edited by Mallika Bhatia

On the first night at the hospital, while the other newborn babies wailed away in response to each other, ours just slept through like a dream. Wow, parenting is so easy, I had thought. The next morning, as it usually happens, the pediatrician and her team came around for the newborn check up. They were screening for the usual issues like her heart, sight, hearing and hips. Just like all new parents, were were anxious to hear what the doctor would say. After what seemed like an eternity, she said that our baby had not responded to sound. This was followed by her telling us that it was possibly just a fluid buildup, which was a common occurrence. They would check it again after 6 weeks.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Back home we enjoyed the new born days just like any new parents would. However the frightening thought that she could possibly have a hearing issue kept cropping up. The likelihood of the hearing impairment reminded itself to us in many ways. Friends told us about white noise machines for better infant sleep, the white noise seemed to have no effect on her. We were told about the calming effects of music that the rocking chairs played, it did not seem to calm her down in anyway. We started noticing her lack of response to any sound including our voices. I remember friends talking about avoiding gadgets that made a lot of noise like vacuum cleaners and mixers during pregnancy. It supposedly sent their little ones in a frenzy and made their unborn babies react by moving and kicking. We heard from some friends about how well their unborn baby moved in response to music. None of this happened to me during my pregnancy. No movements associated with sounds, back then I did not put much thought into this. It was just an observation that got archived. Though now it seemed to be like a missing piece in the puzzle.

Even days before the 6 week pivotal hearing test, my husband had started researching about the treatments for children with hearing issues. He kept assuring me throughout that there are options available. Cochlear Implants (CI), which help children with hearing issues hear well was always an option, in case our child had such an issue. This gave us some hope, since internally we both very strongly suspected that our child had hearing issues. However reading through the details of the procedure still bothered us. We were hoping that it would be a minor issue which could be easily fixed. After the tests though, the audiologist confirmed our worst fear. He announced that our daughter had serious hearing issues in both her ears. She couldn't hear from both.

Listening to the technician talk about my daughter's inner ear had put us in an unfamiliar place. He explained that her inner ear could not convey any sound to the hearing nerves at all. The most likely cause of this hearing issue was the untreated viral infection during my fifth month of pregnancy. I had asked the doctors for medication against the infection but hadn't received any. Hearing difficulties as a consequence of the infection was something that never occurred to us. Even though knowing about the solutions was reassuring yet the diagnosis came as a rude shock. No one we knew in our extended families or friends had this issue. It was unfamiliar and overwhelming.

Amongst the many challenges of parenting that one goes unprepared for, this seemed the most difficult for us. The sheer unfamiliarity of the situation made us helpless and frightened. We had to put her through a major surgery at a very early age. We had to additionally take extreme care with preventing infections. We had to make her learn languages through a device that we had only read about on the internet. The experts who were supposed to guide us, weren’t of much help. We were just handed information booklets which were far from the guidance we had needed. In addition, in the long run it did not seem straightforward and easy to find our way through the education & support system.

Those were ongoing struggles, for now we were enjoying our little girl grow up. We had many adorable moments. We had started trying many ways of communicating with her already. We combined talking and signing with animated actions. We used a lot of sensory motor play for her to perceive us. We could see that she took in all the associations and information, except the sound. She was able to interact very well with us in return through gestures and expressions.

We learnt a lot through this process. The children at that age have a huge capacity to learn. With fun filled interactions, one can communicate beautifully with them. We loved interacting with her. It didn’t lack anything because of the absence of sound.

The decision to have her fitted with Cochlear implants at an early age was something my husband and me agreed upon soon after the diagnosis. As parents we had to make sure she gets the best of solutions the medical community had to offer. CI technology seemed to be the best fit in our case. We also decided to have it fitted at a very early age, as we believe that early intervention can really work wonders with children. She was 10 months old when she was operated and the weeks leading to the surgery were pretty stressful, to say the least.

                 

We had to provide our consent through a lot of paperwork, understanding the possible but less probable list of risks. It felt very uneasy to put her through a surgery after being told about the million things that could possibly go wrong with it. I was with her while she wailed away when the anesthesiologists was trying to find her tiny veins to inject her. The procedure lasted 4 endless hours. It was hard to find mundane things to do in order to keep oneself sane during the surgery. We were in the hospital room with a silent emptiness, waiting for the nurse to call us to see our baby. Finally she came and informed us that our baby is in the recovery room and we can wait by her side till she wakes up. The surgeon had fitted the device in the skull above her ears. The device is supposed to send the sound signals directly to the hearing nerve, surpassing the normal hearing route. The process of hearing would not start till my baby had fully recovered from this major surgery.

A month later the audiologist would turn on the external speech processor. That's when we would truly know about the success of the procedure. The wait for the first response to sound was weighing on us. We had our cameras ready. When the first sound signals were sent from the computer to the device, we waited eagerly with our camera. There was no response for the camera to capture.

Some children can react this way, the audiologist had said. We were not so sure. We had exchanged notes with other parents at the rehabilitation centre and it appeared that most other children had reacted to sound when the first sound signals were sent. We did not have a choice then but to go with their trails and wait a good 6 months for any response from her. Eventually we had to escalate the issue with the hospital authorities. We internally knew something had to be different. Thankfully they carried out some reprogramming and we had her first ever reaction to a computer generated sound-wave. She cried!

The sound had created a strange sensation for her. Two weeks after that she turned around when I called her name during play time. This was her first response to a real sound and the first sign to us that the device was actually working. We were elated and hugely relieved that the surgery was successful.

The next step was for her to perceive language through hearing. This process took a good couple of months. As parents, we had to invent our own unique ways of making sounds interesting and meaningful. For instance, we associated a real life object with the sound (name), a sign to represent that, a toy that matched it and a picture card with an animated version of it. This multimodal association is something my daughter found very interesting. Suddenly there were many ways to understand the same object for her. Every time she paid attention to the sound during a game or an interaction seemed like a victory for us as a family. It progressed from just some sounds to a word, then to two words and finally at 2 years of age she started conversing!

Photo by josh peterson on Unsplash 

Our journey wasn't easy but we are really very thankful to medical technology that offers advanced hearing solutions to people with hearing issues.The parents of other CI fitted children are our biggest source of strength till date. They understand our struggles and emotions. We help each other through our experiences and ideas. It is amazing how little time it takes to bond with people sailing in the same boat as us and how much we open up in our conversations.

Our particular favorites are the parents of a girl, lets call her C. C’s situation is similar to our daughter's in many ways. We met their family through a support group agent soon after my daughters hearing loss was confirmed. C was 4 years old when we met her and if someone hadn’t told us that she used cochlear implants, we would have no clue about it. Meeting her and the confidence her parents instilled in us with their optimism was the initial big push we needed. The assurance that it will all be OK, as long as we put in the right efforts took us a long way.

Our biggest learning from our experience is that the primary responsibility of a child is with the parents. Relying completely on external institutions isn't sufficient. It is important to equip oneself with knowledge and understanding of the problem. It is imperative to gain information from as varied sources as possible. The onus is on us and we as parents need to be proactive for our child's development. Eventually it is our child and we are ones who can understand and do the best for her. What matters is not that she is born without hearing but how best we can work with her natural intelligence. Couple the child's intelligence with creatively loving interactions and they would transcend any limitations. It works both ways actually, when the child gains from these interactions and responds well, it is also motivating for the parents to give their best.

After all, it is only together that we can reverse the situation and make a child hearing empowered.


* If you found this story inspiring then don't forget to share, comment, like and subscribe to The Hope Tribe. You can be the instrument of Hope for someone by spreading such inspirational tales. -Mallika Bhatia, Founder The Hope Tribe

He is threatening and stalking me! Am I truly responsible?

The Hope Tribe
True stories of real heroes

The story of Anonymous 

Written by Mallika Bhatia 

I was all of 22 when I met him. Our families were friends and it is through them that we met. He was 8 years older to me and worked in a social research project. He was fun to be with, relaxed and a great friend to many. I was doing my Master's at that time. We had started by exchanging a few emails and slowly it turned into meeting occasionally. Our relationship grew organically and within a few months, we were dating. I wasn't looking for something serious and he knew that clearly. I was open about my intentions and feelings from day one. Over the months I started liking him more but I realised that he felt more like a buddy than a romantic partner.

I spoke to him about almost everything including how important it was for me to have my parent's approval when I finally decided to get married. Our age gap was a big enough reason for them to disapprove, if I had chosen to marry him. Yet I knew they were very reasonable people, if they believed that I really loved him, they would have supported me. The issue was never them I guess, the issue were my feelings for him, rather a lack of them. I had always clearly conveyed about our lack of a future to him. While I enjoyed the time I spent with him, I did not see us spending our life together. I liked and respected him and there was no way that I wanted to hurt him ever. Honesty was the best policy for me.

He always said he understood where I was coming from and I needn't worry about anything. He too, did not think of a future and did not believe in the concept of marriage at all. This arrangement suited us both. Still two of my closest friends constantly judged and questioned me every time I said he wasn't really my boyfriend, we were just dating. They had started calling me a fast girl who used boys for her own benefits. Since I had no doubts on my intentions, I continued with my life.

Two years had passed and I had started working now. I realised that my feelings for him hadn't gone any deeper than how they were when we began. I told him that I wanted to move on. I needed more from my life now, more from a relationship. He thought otherwise. He said we shall think about going our separate ways when something changes in my life. If I meet someone else or decide to get married. It worked for me, I must admit that it was very convenient to be with him. I could go out, watch movies, I always had someone to speak to and stepping out at night felt safe too. So with mutual short-term interests, we continued our relationship.

Soon thereafter I started noticing subtle changes in him. He would often comment on how lucky the man I marry would be. 'You are a complete package, they very rarely make women like you anymore. Successful at your work, great with family, passionate about so many things and so good looking.' I always thanked him for these compliments and thought they were mere observations by someone who knew me for so long. Never had I realised that they were not just compliments but an indication of what was going on in his mind. Within a few months, I started noticing that he would know when I would meet a friend or the details of conversations that I had, without me telling him about it. On asking him how he knew, he would casually brush my questions off. I too, did not think too much of it. He was a really nice guy and a trustworthy friend since so many years, I told myself. Soon the slips he made about information on me turned into an unapologetic act from his end. He had started reading all my emails and chats and did not feel the need to hide it from me anymore.

I was ashamed of confronting him initially. It was too embarrassing to question a guy who had been a part of my life for so long. I could not decide it if was fair to draw a line and convey it to him clearly. Slowly though, I had started to get very uncomfortable with the whole thing. His behaviour had changed drastically over the months. He had started questioning my moves and wanted to control my life. After a few months of grappling with feelings such as shame about questioning him, discomfort of being snooped on, fear of hurting him and loosing a friend for life, I gathered enough courage to tell him to stop. I changed my email password.

This made him very anxious. He literally lost it and stared telling me how I had used him for so many years. I was responsible for him falling in love with me so deeply and I did not have a choice now but to be with him. He changed.

I thought it was a huge shock for him, a sudden change, so I decided to be the patient friend that he needed right now. I believed all he needed was time to absorb what I had told him and he deserved my time and patience. In retrospect, that was my biggest mistake. He had interpreted this move as my being so madly in love with him that I could not see him hurt. He started asking me to marry him constantly. I spent hours on the phone explaining how I had never told him that I would be with him. On the contrary I had always made it clear that we did not have a future and he had assured me multiple times in the past that he did not expect a future as well. Somedays he seemed to understand it all and on other days he would threaten to kill himself if I did not marry him. It was becoming very distressing for me as well, the constant manipulation and blame. I slowly stared answering his phone lesser and lesser. He would still send me a lot of text messages and I would reply to just one out of ten.

He then moved on to tell me how ill he had become and how he needed surgery to stay alive. He would send me pictures of his unshaven swollen face and a list of all his symptoms. The doctors reports, the tests he had undergone and about his bleak future. He kept repeating that he would get better if I decided to marry him. I had started to feel bad for him, I had also started to feel guilty about putting him in such a situation. He had convinced me about me using him. I guess if someone repeats a lie a hundred times, it starts feeling like the truth. I had starting partly believing everything he had blamed me for.

I was guilty but I still did not feel any different about him. It became clearer to me everyday that I did not want to be with him. It had been weeks since we met and about 15 days since we spoke. He decided he had had enough and had to do something about it. One day while I was travelling with my colleagues for a presentation that I had to give, I got a few calls from him which I did not answer. When I checked my phone post my half an hour presentation, I had 22 missed calls and numerous messages from him. I panicked and decided to call him back. I was told that he is standing outside my workspace and if I did not meet him immediately then he would come inside and create a scene. I was respected at my workplace, moreover I was an unmarried single woman, I feared such a scene would ruin my future. I left my work hastily and sat in his car. Another stupid mistake I had committed here. I gave power to his threats and showed him my weakness.

As soon as, I sat he gave his gentlest smile and asked me how I was, as if there was nothing abnormal about our meeting. It drove me mad, I demanded him to come to the point and not to pretend that all was well and normal. He suddenly flipped. With a stern face he asked me again if I would marry him and when I said that he already knew the answer, he started driving like a mad man. He wasn't stopping on red lights, he was breaking too late and his speed scared me. He had continued to talk and was basically conveying that he would drive like this till the time I said yes to marrying him. If I still choose to say no then he would simply bang his car into a truck making sure we both die there and then. I had never seen death so closely until this moment. I was scared but I knew I could not show him my fear. I had realised by now that he was a mentally sick man and I had to choose my reactions very carefully. I had now started saying that I needed time to think. He kept repeating his questions, continued with his blame and drove like a maniac. This high voltage drama continued for about twenty long minutes. He then suddenly stopped talking and stopped his car in the middle of one of the busiest roads in my city. He took out about fifty different kinds of tablets and one long and very sharp knife from the dashboard. He told me very calmly that since my answer had not changed, he would drop me off and end his misery by killing himself.

He showed me a piece of paper which he claimed was a suicide note and it clearly stated me responsible for his death. I decided to first focus on the first part of his sentence, he had planned to drop me off. By the time he stopped his car, he had already popped about seven of those pills. I have no idea what they were but the entire experience had shaken me. I walked home in a completely numb state. By the time I started climbing up the stairs of my house, I could feel the blood flowing in each of my veins. I could still feel the heat in my cheeks when I called his brother and narrated the whole incident. He assured me that he will take care of him and I did not have to worry about anything, I just had to focus on myself. Then I called my lawyer friends and found out if I could truly be implicated if he died with such a suicide note. Post which I stood under the shower and cried for what felt like hours.

My life turned into hell from the next day onward.

Those were the days of text messages and the facility to block numbers had not existed. I had started getting 200 missed calls in a day. My phone was always showing a blinking envelope on top indicating a full inbox because he would just keep sending me disturbing messages. My work suffered because no one could ever contact me. My phone always came busy because it was constantly ringing. He had shamelessly started stalking me. Everywhere I went, he was present. Never approaching me but never trying to hide himself. It was as if he wanted me to see who was turning my life into a living hell.

I could not go anywhere, I could not speak to anyone, all I had control over was my email account. Mentally I was a wreck. I felt guilty and scared. I felt responsible and ashamed and reading all his messages made me feel worst about myself everyday. I had no one to share my misery with and literally believed that I deserved no friends. I guess I was living my own version of the Stockholm syndrome. He had not restricted himself to my personal life, he had contacted governmental authorities and made complaints about my work, claiming that I was a fraud. I had police and government officials coming to my home to check upon me. Those months were pure torture at every level. They were very lonely months.

Thankfully those lonely months also gave me a lot of time to introspect. Believe me when I say that loneliness can be a huge boon. Those were the days when I literally got to know myself, the days when I befriended myself and realised the strength I had within me. I started enjoying being alone, I started loving my own company. I felt so complete within myself and realised that I deserved much better. I knew I had to stand up for myself, no one else can. I had a new found self-love and resolve. I decided that next time I saw him stalking me, I would confront him.

The next day when I left my work place I saw him standing outside. Despite my resolve, I turned the other way and started walking. I felt my fear and habit were bigger than my resolve. He decided to walk behind me, something I earlier found very scary. He then called out my name, it was as if he was truly testing me, I turned to him and told him to stop bothering me. He did not listen and tried to hold my hand, that's when my inner goddess emerged and stood in front of him. I told him that if he didn't stop what he has been doing for the past eight months, then I have no choice but to report him to the police. He continued to tell me how sweet I looked and how much he had missed me. I listened but continued to walk, I had a plan in mind. Within five minutes, we were standing in front of a police van. I called them out, reported him for stalking me and got him arrested. I left only after leaving all my contact details and a detailed report of the past year that I had gone through.

I slept peacefully that night after almost a year. Though it still took a few months of working on my self to get over the guilt completely and realise that when a woman says NO, it means a NO.

I share my story today because I know many of us go through such experiences but never talk about them. I know many women feel responsible for men misbehaving with them, we feel that we might have driven him to the edge. We must have done something to deserve it. I want to tell everyone that this is as far from the truth as possible. Everyone is responsible for their own behaviour, your acts can never be an excuse for someone else's crime.



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When I learnt to hit back- the journey from being a victim to being empowered

The Story of Anonymous
Written by Anonymous
Edited by Mallika Bhatia

I have often thought that in school, if instead of trigonometry and calculus, they taught us basic values like self-esteem and self-love- the world would be a better place to live in.

I was a high scoring student. Mostly at the top of my class. My school report card always had straight A’s and glowing references to how brilliant I was. However in the end there was always a small line that read.....'But needs to develop self-confidence'.

I believe my childhood was difficult and troubled. My parents were basically good individuals but their marriage didn’t work. When all the fighting in the house stopped, there was only endless silence left. Both my parents had high profile careers, which meant I was left alone or with the maids a lot of the time. Surprisingly my sister who grew up in the same environment remembers her childhood as the most perfect loving one. So perhaps it could be me who was the troubled child, or a case where two people in the same situation can have very different experiences depending upon their attitude or maybe it is just good old karma.

At a time when most teenagers start planning their careers, My dream was of having a happy family one day - with lots of affection, love and laughter. Studying in the most prestigious college in India or doing an MBA- should have made me feel ‘brilliant’ or in the very least, at least good about myself. But I felt like a loser throughout.

I was searching for love in relationships and by the time I was 24, not surprisingly all my relationships had failed. About this time my parents met a ‘suitable’ boy's family in the church and decided we were a good match. He was based in Mumbai, very well-read, well-qualified and a high achiever. Our families met for a dinner when he was visiting and soon after we got engaged.

During the six month courtship, he would write me lovely letters and come down to Delhi every few weeks, when we would meet for family dinners. We were having the big fat Indian wedding in a five star hotel and my fiancé was moving back to Delhi, which was my city. It was all like a dream come true, until a month before the wedding when my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The doctors had given him only four months to live.

We went ahead with the wedding since it was all organised and paid for. Just after we got married, my husband changed. He rejected me from the start and I didn’t know why. I think I also lacked the maturity to deal with the situation. Instead of being compassionate and understanding and trying to find the root of the problem (Could he have been gay?), I just fought with him and created an emotional mess in the house. We were like two angry strangers living in the same space. Suddenly the bad marriage of my parents that I had so mercilessly judged, I began to have more compassion for…..

What added pressure to the situation was that my father was very sick and I was practically living out of the hospital. The one memory that comes back to me was when my father was in the hospital and getting electric shocks to revive him. I was standing behind the glass door, witnessing his body seizing. It was too horrible to watch and I decided to call my husband for support. I couldn't control my sobs when I requested him to come to the hospital. I really need you here with me, I had said. He said he could not come since he was busy watching TV! That day while my father struggled to stay alive, my already dead marriage died a little more.

Five months after our wedding, my husband took up a job in the U.S. and left without me. I never saw him after that. I moved in with my parents and became very religious. I prayed every day for him to come back and for my marriage to work. It took me a year to realize that he wasn't going to come back and I filed for mutual consent divorce. The irony was that he wasn't even present to sign the divorce petition- he had sent a paid representative who kept apologising to me for what he was being made to do.

So I was 25 years and divorced, and whatever little self-respect I had, now plummeted to the negative. Unfortunately it was a downward spiral from there. My relationships would not work, and at work I would be treated shabbily, I had friends who had problems and my relationship with my parents was rocky. Thankfully my father was still there with us, recovering.

Five years later, I met a man at work who I fell in love with. We started dating and soon enough decided to get married. My parents were dead against this match. For them it was about logic and economics, he was from a poor financial background, the only earning member of a family of six. They all lived together in a one bedroom lower income group (LIG) flat. His family was very conservative where women did not speak to men and almost lived in the kitchen. You are a south Delhi girl from a rich xyz School, how do you think you would adjust with them? My parents had asked me.

You only care about status and money, I had told them, where as I care about love. He cares for me, he gives me love and respect that the well-read husband you found could not give. I am marrying him, with or without your blessings, I had said. I had made-up my mind. Reluctantly, my parents got us married at the local temple with a few shocked relatives from my side and a whole completely alien lot from theirs.

The day of our wedding was the evening I was hit for the first time in my life. Physically beaten, my hair pulled, my bangles shattered, my face smashed against the wall, knife cuts on my back and my body treated like a boxing bag. There was no reason, if there was one needed. I was told by the females in his family that this was normal in marriages and I didn't have to make a big deal of it.

A new phase of my life had begun; he would hit me every evening without fail, and in the morning he would come with roses and apologize profusely. He would say he loved me deeply and didn't know why he behaved the way he did, a very smart Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. My self-esteem was so poor, that I believed if I was a better wife, then he would not get a chance to hit me. However like most cases of domestic violence, the euphoric happy moments were punctuated with horror.                 

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

Once just after four months of being married to him, he took a pillow and tried to suffocate me. I struggled with all the strength I had, I tried to push him away but couldn't and believed I was going to die. I stopped breathing and that’s when he moved away, picked up his already packed suitcase and left the house for a business trip, just like that. I went to a hospital but the doctors told us that they needed a police report before that could start treating me. I had no strength left, mental or physical, to deal with the police. So I just went back to my parents place.

My father was still struggling with cancer, and when he saw me walk into the house. He was beyond shocked. I remember in between his sobs he put disinfectant on my wounds. In the next few months just as I started regaining my health, my father lost his.

My dad's passing away was the last straw I needed. I had now hit rock bottom. Some months later I fell into clinical depression. For the next three months I could not leave my room. My mother had to quit her job to be with me. I did not even have the strength to lift an arm. I would have suicidal thoughts. I even remember walking into the kitchen one afternoon with the intention of stabbing my stomach with the kitchen knife. It was like I was on auto pilot and had zero control over what I was doing. As soon as the knife reached my stomach I think God's hand came upon me and I dropped the knife and went back to my room. I know I could have killed myself that day.

That episode shook me and helped me to realise that the time to make a change had come. I was a good loving person and needed answers as to why all this was happening in my life. I found a psychotherapist who started me on a richly rewarding journey to self-healing and self-love. We started with small steps to build my self-esteem. Together we worked on understanding what caused me to accept all that I took from the others around me. I realised that I had to love myself enough to get love and respect from outside. I learnt to take responsibility of my own life. I realised that I had to stop playing the victim in my life’s story. Each and everything that had happened in my life was a result of what I attracted from within.

I read all the self-help books I got hold of and with baby steps at a time, worked on courage to implement them. I attended workshops on self-discovery and betterment. I even went through alternative healing modalities such as Past life regression therapy which answered my questions as to why this was happening in my life. I became an avid Buddhist chanter and got a wonderful support group of friends. To this day I hold that when one has a really big problem in life, then family, friends etc. can help only to a certain extent. One needs a higher spiritual power ultimately.

I worked furiously to build my life again. It took me 8 years. I worked on each and every belief system that I had till now. Slowly my life changed, my friends changed, my work situation changed and my mental state changed. My father wasn’t there anymore but personal experience has shown me that one can heal a relationship with a person even after the person is gone. As an adult, my feeling unloved wasn't something I could blame on anybody. I no longer needed a relationship or someone from outside to feel loveable. I was happy with myself. I looked in the mirror and felt good about what I saw. For the first time in my life I was a confident person and knew how to draw boundaries.

And the outer world reflected what I felt from within. From being an unhappy employee who was always disrespected- I became the head of a department of a multinational company. My salary went up 150%. I loved my job and adored my team. I won global awards and walked down the aisle of my office with my head held up high. Each day was exciting and filled with possibilities and new potential.

Now it is time to help others who maybe going through similar experiences like I did, so I decided to share my story. I would like to be there for anyone who might be going through something similar. While I am proud that I made a success of my relationships and career, I am most proud of my unshakable belief in myself that was forged and built one day at a time. I know today that I have a solid foundation within myself.

And for those of you wondering about the family life that I so craved; when I stopped looking for love outside, I found true love. My husband and I have been together for a few years and we have a family of two dogs and a naughty adorable baby daughter.

Photo by Trinity  Kubassek from Pexels

                                             
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A pregnancy that kills- Awareness is the key

A pregnancy that kills- Awareness is the key

The story of Trisha Bahl 

Based in Munich, Germany

Written by Mallika Bhatia 

I know you know what a pregnancy is, but do you also know what molar pregnancies are?

Well, if you do then congratulations!
You are amongst the very few people who are aware of this condition.
For those of you who don't know, Yes, it is a condition!

When we are joyful and excited about bringing another human being into this world, that is a pregnancy but when the doctor tells you in your 8th week scan that there seems to be something abnormal with the foetus, you don't wonder what kind of a pregnancy it is, you simply worry.

'I doubt it is a normal pregnancy at all', my doctor had said. 'Let's wait for a week or two, to see if it would naturally discharge itself from your body', she had continued.

What went on in my mind was; I am losing another baby. Yet another miscarriage! Not even a regular miscarriage, here my doctor was actually waiting and hoping for me to miscarry. Were we not meant to be parents? Why did we have to go through it again? Why? My focus was just on the emotional pain. We had lost a baby in the 14th week of pregnancy just last year. Me and my husband had dealt with this trauma not so long ago and here we were in the same situation again, a year later.

After 2 very anxious weeks, I went to the doctor for a follow up. I had not bled or released anything naturally. Another ultrasound was done and the doctor declared that what I had was what they call a Complete Molar Pregnancy.

A molar pregnancy is a rare phenomena occurring once in about 1000 pregnancies. It is also called gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD), in which the trophoblast, that normally develops into placenta, grows abnormally. Simply put, it is a complication of the placenta occurring when eggs and sperm join together at fertilisation and it almost never results in a healthy baby. There are two types to it, Complete and partial. In the partial, there would be some abnormal cells and an embryo with severe birth defects, usually the abnormal cells would take over the embryo, destroying it completely. In complete Molar pregnancies, there are just placental parts, no baby, just a mass growing and producing the pregnancy hormone hCG.

The doctor told me that I needed immediate surgery.
Why immediate? Because if not taken out on time or properly, it could lead to cancerous threat to the uterus and to the other body parts.

The shift from the pain of loosing a baby to the fear of loosing my life was far too rapid to fathom. I couldn't process anything, I guess my mind had switched to an auto-pilot mode. From the doctor's clinic, I went straight to the hospital to schedule my surgery. It was fixed for the very next day, because of the threat of cancer.

That evening at home was one of the worst I had had in a long time. I was scared, shivering and numb. I was just 29 and not ready to die. I was not ready to face cancer nor was I ready to let go off my hope of a baby. The little sleep I managed was in the arms of my husband who did not leave my side for a minute. The next day after my D&C, the doctors suggested a biopsy to confirm a complete molar pregnancy. They needed it to assess the risk of cancer.

A week of waiting for the result seemed too long. I had so many things to recover from physically and emotionally. It wasn't a peaceful week would be an understatement. After seven days of fear, anxiety, nervousness, pain, sadness and anger, the results came confirming our fears. It was a complete molar pregnancy, increasing the risk of cancer several folds.

Just the next day I had to undergo a blood test to check my hCG levels. The results would define if I needed to start Chemotherapy right away. If the past week was stressful, the night we waited for the blood results was almost traumatic. I cried, I prayed and I cried some more. There were so many levels to my emotions, so many layers. I couldn't tell you if I was dealing with only the fear for my life now or the lack of a baby in my womb. I felt incomplete, as if I had done something wrong to deserve this, as if my body was incapable.

The test results thankfully reflected a lower hCG levels, which indicated a lack of cancer for now, if I may say so. I was relived but the doctors said that the risk continued. With that began an ordeal of weekly blood tests and scans. For three months, from July to September 2013, I spent one day a week in the hospital making sure I wasn't getting cancer. After the risk period was over, the doctors had told us to wait from 6 months to a year to try for a baby.

This ordeal had already got me thinking about the choices I was making. I realised that my body and circumstances were pointing towards a change I needed to make. There was something I wasn't doing right, something that had to be different about my attitude. Introspection was the best diagnostic tool I used.


Over the next months, I changed my life completely. My focus shifted from what I did not have to improving what I had. I started meditating, eating right, exercising and focussing on myself. I started enjoying each day as it came, getting the most out of it. I was happy now. The desire to have a child existed but it did not stem from a sense of lack, it came from a desire to love more.

Towards the end of my weekly blood tests

The next year 2014, as we were gearing to start trying for a baby again, my gynaecologist discovered that I had huge fibroids that she said needed a detailed view from a senior doctor. An appointment with a very senior gynaecologist was made. This doctor wasn't as polite and sympathetic as mine. He looked at my scans and said, “You can't have a baby. What you need is surgery to remove the fibroids. We may need to remove the uterus.” I was obviously scared, I asked him what if I didn't get the surgery? He said bluntly, 'Then you won't ever have children'.

It broke my heart but something internally told me to not believe every word he said. I guess it was all the work I had done with myself in the past year. I trusted my instincts much more now. I went back to my gynaecologist and told her all the details. Everything about what the other doctor had said and also what I felt internally. I told her that something internally told me that I could avoid the surgery for now. I wanted her to assess medically, what I felt mentally.

She throughly checked all the reports again, turned to me and said “Take a leap of faith, go ahead. I am with you and there is God up there.”

That is all I needed to hear. My instinct, my husband's love and unconditional support and my doctor's guidance is what helped me conceive naturally despite the fibroids.  They helped me go through a high-risk, difficult pregnancy, with several scares, bleeds, haemorrhages, and hospital stays.

The result is what made it all worth it.

All my faith resulted in chubby cheeks and a smile to kill

Have you ever desired something so much that no matter what it cost you, your desire still seemed worth it?

That is how it was for us. Those 41 weeks was what resulted in our beautiful daughter Anahita. our immaculate child. Who is now also a great older sister by the way.

                 

I share my story to help others going through a similar situation, I share my story also to create awareness about molar pregnancies.

I would like to tell you to follow your instincts, make informed choices. I would also like to tell you that there is nothing wrong with your body if you go through a miscarriage, it isn't your fault. Have faith in the Universe because there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
We may have to go through some trials and turbulences for our eventual mental and spiritual growth, for reasons unknown and out of our control .. but they help us evolve .. and make us what we wouldn't have become otherwise.


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A child or a career! Is that the only choice?

A child or a career! Is that the only choice?

The story of Nidhi Khurana

Spanning over London, Singapore and Munich

Written by Nidhi Khurana
Edited by Mallika Bhatia

'You can be a good mother and still follow your dreams, you totally can if you so desire.'

I totally believe in this statement today and I have achieved this belief by meeting some wonderful Mums over the years. Some mothers who go out to work and come home every evening to take care of the needs and desires of their families while others who stay at home and share their dreams of their partner and children. There are also mothers who have either changed their profession or adjusted their career path to dedicate more time to their loved ones. One truth is that, a mother never leaves her children at home, even when she does not take them along. They are all always with her in her heart and mind.

I became a mum eight years ago. I was blessed with my daughter, Khushi. I did not know or anticipate how my life would change forever. My feelings can be summed up in the beautiful quote by Iain Thomas: 'Everything has changed and yet, I am more me than I have ever been.'

My daughter and her needs were my priority and everything else including my career took a backseat. I had totally forgotten a part of me that was a trained teacher. Someone who was proud to inspire and be inspired by her pupils and fellow educators. I had forgotten about the days when I would call my husband during the lunch break just to tell him how much I enjoyed being at work. I was proud of myself for positively impacting so many lives. I considered myself lucky for having the opportunity to teach and learn from education systems across different countries. After Khushi was born, I was just happy singing nursery rhymes and reading stories to her all day. Fellow mums at toddler classes had become my best friends. Instead of my own future I had started planning for my daughter's future. My entire life was centred around her.

It was only when I started teaching again that I realised what I was missing in the last few years. Being in a classroom full of children was a state of bliss for me. It felt natural and it brought back a part of me that I subconsciously had missed so much. I had gotten very lucky when my daughter joined a pre-school, I was offered a job in the same school. Me and my husband felt that it was just the perfect situation as I could satisfy my professional needs while being very close to my daughter. It was perfect till it lasted.

Soon my husband joined a new job and we moved from London to Singapore. It was not an easy move for any of us. We had to leave our friends and our life behind. We had to start life from scratch.

After UK, Singapore was a whole new world for us. It took us more than four months to start feeling at home in this new city. We were lucky to have made a few friends as a family, the kids got along and so did the parents. For my daughter who was four years old now, Singapore offered some new challenges; adapting to a different culture, a more competitive school environment and making new friends to name a few. I supported Khushi in her new journey and together we took small steps in making Singapore our home. Once I was confident that she was settled in her school and had made friends in the neighbourhood, I started thinking of my life as a working mother again.

After discussing the prospects of joining the work force with my husband I started applying for teaching jobs. As luck would have it, soon I received an interview call from a school called,The Blue House Nursery and International Preschool. Just after the initial interview, I was offered a job there.

It was not the school that khushi went to, nor was it close to where we lived yet something within me pushed me to take it up. On the hind side I realise it was the best thing that happened to me in Singapore. I gained knowledge and experience of the Reggio Emilia Approach to early years education. I discovered how children learn best when they were allowed to explore and discover in a supportive and rich environment.I matured as an educator and an individual while working. At the same time I benefitted on the personal front by making some friends at work who are now my friends for life. I got myself back, all my parts, but it wasn't a journey without bumps.

Soon after I had joined work, there was trouble in my paradise. From the first day of work, my personal life went for a toss. My otherwise perfect daughter, started throwing tantrums. She would cry at the bus stop every morning, shout at children in the playground and she even stopped eating properly. She was finding every possible way to show me how unhappy she was about my being away from her for most of the day. I left for work before she went to school and came back two hours after her. She could not cope with the new situation and did not know how else to communicate it to us but by throwing tantrums. It was emotionally, socially and physically draining for all of us as a family.

As important as my career was, my child was more important. I wanted to work, I was happy to have that part of my life back but I couldn't let my daughter suffer because of it. I knew that I had to take the control of our family life back and decided to quit working. I went to my school management and described my situation, I told them that I would not be able to continue working beyond that academic year. My situation wasn't unknown to them as some of my work colleagues knew about my struggles at home.

It was hard for me to leave for work every morning with my child crying for me at the door. Even when I was at work I could not forget about the tears from the morning. I failed to be there for Khushi for the important events at her school. When she was sick my husband stayed at home. A teacher's job is less flexible as compared to other jobs. It is also more emotionally demanding as the children need to see you with a big happy smile to feely emotionally secure at school. A teacher is a big and significant part of a child's day at school and you can not take that away from them. While I was trying my best to put a brave face every morning, there were days when I cried at the end of the day because I felt I had not given my hundred percent. The toll it took on me was too high.

I thought that there was no other way but to quit my job. The founder of the school thought otherwise. She had been a working mother and the founder of this school hence understood both sides of the story. She wanted more and more women to be independent and turn their dreams into reality. She wanted to make sure that women lived to their highest potential, both as mothers and employees.

She asked the management to come up with a resolution to my situation. The solution was step-by-step and simple. As a first step they offered that I work for lesser number of hours making sure I could pick Khushi from school everyday. Thankfully I had decided to try the suggested solutions before quitting a job that was adding so much meaning to my life.
Trust me, just picking up my daughter from school everyday made such a difference in our lives. It is these small things that impact our lives in a big way. My daughter met me with a big smile at the school gates everyday, no more tantrums and lots of mummy daughter time. I was also offered to use my extra hours to attend events at Khushi's school so she felt that her mummy was a part of her school life too.

Our founder always understood the needs of employees like me. She always supported us and guided us in the right direction. She is a perfect example of how to achieve work life balance and be so calm and motivating all the time.

I was very touched when I was told that my daughter is a part of the Blue House family just like all the other children in the school and her well-being was equally important. Khushi was always a part of the Christmas, Chinese New Year and other celebrations at my school. She even started coming to drop me to my school. She never missed coming on a Friday to enjoy cake pops at our amazing Pantry.

I was happy spending time with her and still having a career. I went to read stories in her class once every term, I attended her class assemblies and other performances at school. Now I was there for her when she needed me and I was there for myself.

I worked with the same school for three years till we recently moved to Munich.

I would like to say to all mothers who are planning to go back to work to be strong and not to hesitate in asking for help. Suggestions and support from people around you when you face initial hurdles can change your path. Be flexible about the path but not about the dream. What I have learned from my experience is that, 'Happy mothers, make happy employees'.

* If you found this story inspiring then don't forget to share, comment, like and subscribe to The Hope Tribe. You can be the instrument of Hope for someone by spreading these inspirational tales. Thank you, Mallika Bhatia, Founder, The Hope Tribe