My Husband Lost Interest In Me When I Decided To Keep Our Baby
The instinct of motherhood is the same for woman and beast. We lie in wait, ready to pounce on anyone and anything that threatens to harm our young. Then, as quickly as we tense up, we shift and relax when the danger is gone, lovingly focusing on our offspring.
The lioness will always protect her cub. Without a doubt, I was a lioness.
I was pregnant before my first anniversary. I was twenty years old, in my third and final year of college, and like so much of what happened with my body, my pregnancy was somewhat mysterious to me. I knew as much about reproduction as I had known about menstruation or sexuality before I was confronted with those changes, which is to say, virtually nothing.
I didn’t want to be a mother, at least not at that time in my life. I was still reeling from the abrupt and violent end of my girlhood. Adding a baby to this turmoil felt impossible.
During my first appointment with the family doctor, I was ambivalent.
When I asked about terminating the pregnancy, the doctor, a woman, gravely told me that if I had an abortion, I would never be able to have children again. Disrupting my first pregnancy, she explained, would destroy my ability to conceive in the future.
I had no way of knowing what the doctor told me was a lie intended to limit my options for what to do with my own body. As a result of my inexperience, I believed her and went about preparing for a new life to enter my world.
Once again, I found myself pushed and pulled along by the powerful currents of life increasingly beyond my control.
Although abortion is very common in India, my husband insisted we have the child. Like my father, he saw his firstborn as a vital part of his legacy. Quite likely, he believed, as my mother had with regard to my father, that a baby would cement us together, creating a living, breathing connection between two people struggling to bond.
For me, the choice wasn’t between having a child and not having a child, but between having this child at this moment and never being a mother at all. I chose to continue the pregnancy and begin my journey into motherhood, however rocky and unpredictable it might turn out to be.
I didn’t feel ready to be a mother, but as my body began to change, I warmed to my new physical reality.
I discovered there was something genuinely beautiful about being pregnant. It didn’t have anything to do with people giving up seats on public transportation or smiling more in public, the social softening that sometimes comes with being visibly pregnant. Instead, it was something that happened purely inside me.
My acceptance of motherhood began the first time the baby quickened and I felt her fluttering kicks.
Suddenly, this tiny spark within became real for me — a small person growing and developing inside my body.
As I accepted that a new life was forming inside me, I talked to her often. I felt from the very beginning that she was a she, a daughter, my daughter. I called her, Mana, my mind, and had endless conversations with her about the world and who she might become.
Thankfully, my husband did not feel the same way my father had about daughters being inferior to sons.
As I taught myself how to mother, I thought often about the lioness and her cubs.
The lioness became a role model for me. I wanted to give my child what she gave hers, space to grow within an aura of protection. To do that, I had to learn how to stand back and wait — how to distinguish momentary challenges my daughter should solve herself from true dangers that required my intervention.
As soon as I decided not to get an abortion, my husband lost most of his interest in my pregnancy and in me.
Like the lioness, I experienced motherhood as a mostly solitary condition. I had a sense of insularity, as though my daughter and I were a unit unto ourselves. We were our own pride.
I completed my undergraduate degree during my pregnancy, even sitting for final exams in my sixth month. I was so big by that point that I couldn’t fit into the benches in the examination hall and had to get a waiver to write my exam in a teacher’s lounge where there was a single chair and a separate desk.
Despite the struggles I faced in the last six months of the program, I passed with honors.
Like my mother, I wanted to have my baby in a place that felt like home, which for me, was Houston.
My husband was pleased with this idea because it meant our daughter would have American citizenship. I was more concerned about having my mother with me and about the wider array of birthing options available at an American hospital.
So, I headed back to my home country alone to give birth. When I headed in for delivery and finally received an epidural, my baby abruptly stopped moving. She wasn’t progressing down the birth canal, and my labor slowed.
Doctors and nurses flurried around me, discussing which intervention was appropriate. Eventually, they decided to reach in with forceps and pull my reluctant daughter into the world.
As she descended, she suddenly gave an almighty kick — so hard it cracked my tailbone. With that final thrust, Bhakti was born.
Despite my strong bond with my daughter, motherhood was difficult.
One of the toughest lessons I had to learn was to care for someone else when I was hurting in so many ways. I couldn’t sit for the first three months of her life while my tailbone healed. I wasn’t able to breastfeed her.
However, like the lioness, I had an almost primal sense of responsibility toward my child. You are first. You are always first.
Rani Puranik is a visionary leader who has made a significant impact in the business, creative and philanthropic spheres. She is the Co-Owner, Executive Vice President, and Global CFO of Houston-based Worldwide Oilfield Machine.
Excerpt from 7 Letters to My Daughters: Light Lessons of Love, Leadership, and Legacy
Source: YourTango
