When I got married to my husband in 1998, I had just turned 23. After marriage I was staying with in laws and a sister in law who was elder to me. I discussed with my husband and we decided that we will not have babies for the first year of our marriage. Apart from the adjustments with all the in laws in the family I was studying also. We did not use any contraception but we did use condoms.

Things moved fine for the couple of years. My spouse is a sailor. After my studies I sailed with him for almost seven months one time. Once I joined a full time job it was intermittent sailing with him. When everyone started asking about my conception with the baby three years hence, we seriously started researching on infertility. We bought books on the topic and of course the internet was great source. We had been married almost four years now.

We got ourselves medically checked first. Voila! I had PolyCystic Ovaries and wait the story gets even better, my husband had very low sperm count, varicocoele. We started treating my husband’s problems first. He got lots of tests done. Poor thing! He even had to be injected with medicines to boost the count. All the research we were doing said that the sperm count once low cannot go up ever.

I started thinking of adopting or donor sperm as an option. Both the options my husband vetoed. So we started looking at Artificial Reproductive Treatments. After our first meeting with the Doctor I lost my mental balance completely. We were slated for IVF – ICSI (In Vitro Fertilization-Inter Cytoplasmic Injection) .I cried days in days out. The whole procedure was medically very sound but when one has to go and get injected like a buffalo. It feels so demeaning. The Doctor’s Clinic looked like baby making machine.

What had I done to deserve this in my life? I gathered all my courage. In January and March 2003 I under went IVF-ICSI twice. I cried tears of blood both the times. The embryos did not turn into blastocyst. I failed two times. My husband went sailing very soon. We had to earn money that we had lost in the two cycles.

By this time my sister in law was married and had a baby boy within two year of her marriage. My younger sister got married. I was still childless. I am not saying I was pitted against them, but I felt something is going to be missing in my life if there were no baby. I was very depressed that year. In 2004 my husband became very optimistic about IVF ICSI and we went again to the same Doctor. I went ahead with no hope. I was prepared for the worst. I thought this was it if this doesn’t happen this time I am going to adopt many babies.

Aha! I got pregnant. After the confirmation I straightway went to temple to thank God for this, as there is no way I could have done this on my own. I had relatively easy pregnancy no morning sickness in the first trimester. I enjoyed my pregnancy to the fullest. The only thing that was not perfect about the whole episode was the climax which ended in C-Section. My baby girl Kashvi was born on 16th May 2005.

But I forget this entire ordeal when I see my 29 month old today. She is my darling; my inspiration, after all her desire to be in this world was greater than any of the forces in the world. She is my miracle of miracles, my sunshine and my survivor.