Why Now?

Why now? Why so late? That was the first question the screening doc asked. 

And then a few others - acquaintances, neighbors, friends.

Quite frankly, it is because it was an accident. It just happened. 

We never planned it. We never wanted it.  

I was off the IUCD for a year. 

I was 40 and nearing menopause or so I thought. 

We were rarely rolling under the sheets. So all in all we just NEVER thought it was even possible now. 

But one day, one session, one sperm runs right across and meets the egg , says hello and BAM.......sets the ball rolling – literally. 

The Conception

We did go to the doctor that day. Lakshmi Maternity Clinic in Malleshwaram. Same place where I had delivered Tanvi. Same doctor too- Mrs Leela Rao, a Mangalorean. 

We people from South Canara have this implicit faith in people of our own region - whether it is medicine, food or any other service - we blindly trust their expertise. We believe we will get good quality service, and won't be robbed of our hard-earned money. How much of it is true - I can never be too sure - but by and large it has been true, at least, in my case.

The screening doctor did the preliminary question-answer round. When I said I am 40, she immediately retorted, "Why did you delay your second pregnancy so much? There are high chances of Down's Syndrome." The way she said it, it sounded so scary and so discouraging and I felt disheartened. I came out and told Sathya how the doc warned me of a possible DS affliction. He got angry, "Thika muchkond hogok hel avlige. Yaval avlu?" (Tell her to shut her ass and fuck off.)

But Leela Rao was as cheerful and sweet as she was a decade back. She asked if we were planning to keep the baby and was happy with the affirmation. I was prescribed Folic acid tablets till three months and asked us to come for the first scan next month. Sathya told her she had delivered him too and his daughter as well and now this baby. She smiled.

Sathya called up his parents and his maternal uncle and gave them the news. 

I came home and searched YouTube for what folic acid did and realized the tiny tablets were so important for forming what is called the neural tube of the baby. I kept watching the video again and again...the fertilized egg repeatedly dividing into smaller, individual cells, each cell later forming an organ, the spinal shape and the elongation of the embryo. 

Sathya and I brainstormed about when exactly did I conceive. 

With Tanvi, we were just three months into our marriage, we were wild and young and madly in love and crazily physically attracted to each other. So, with her, when the conception happened was never a question because there were hundreds of instances! 

But this time around, we were puzzled. I had removed the IUCD sometime in June 2016 after using it for 10 years. 2016 to 2017 it took one year for the miracle to take place. If the baby was one month old, it must have happened sometime in May. But when?

Last week of April and first week of May, we were at his parents house in RR Nagar as it was school vacation for Tanvi. And when a couple is into their 12th year of marriage, they very well know how infrequent their romp sessions are. So we could easily pinpoint the day of the rendezvous. So it happened on the 5th! Voila! We zeroed in on the exact day!!!!

We had returned to our home on the 7th of May, a Sunday. And we hadn't had another session till the end of May when we were in Paradise Isle in Malpe. We were professional solvers of conception mysteries!!!

Sathya said, "Nodu, ee kelsa punyabhoomi alli agide" (See, it has happened in a holy place, his parents house) He even remembered that Tanvi had gone down to play in the swimming pool that day! I laughed my heart out.