I have been reading a whole flurry of comments about how Katrina Kaif “doesn’t look the same” after becoming a mother. There have been all sorts of comments, some even body-shaming her, after her pictures from a recent Ganpati event went viral on social media.
I can’t help but wonder what Katrina must be thinking as she goes through those comments. It’s not easy to be a woman. And it’s even tougher being a mother.
I am a mother to twin toddlers – a girl and a boy. It’s natural that I go through all sorts of emotions in a day. And that’s what brought me to this column, which I am calling The Millennial Mom.
Yes, that’s the best I could do with the little thinking space that remains in my brain as a full-time working mom of twins. In case you all
have better name suggestions, you’re most welcome to share.
Since this is the first post of my column, I’ll begin with how I got here. How I became a mom. Because that’s another story altogether.
It wasn’t a smooth have-unprotected-sex-and-get-pregnant road for me. We tried for almost five years. There was one early miscarriage and several failed attempts at fertility treatments – monitored cycles, medicated cycles and IUI attempts. Eventually, it was IVF that made me a mom, and my husband a dad.
When I was in my two-week wait after my embryo transfer, my doctor messaged me just one day before I was supposed to take the pregnancy test.
“Have you taken a test?”
Now, after years of failure, I didn’t want to mess anything up. I was waiting to take the test on schedule, and I told her the same.
She very confidently responded: “Take a test.”
So I did.
And there they were. Those two pink lines. Two tiny pink lines that I had waited to see for years and years.
I don’t think I can do justice to that feeling of seeing a positive pregnancy test by putting it into words. I was happy, overwhelmed, joyous, hopeful, cautious, nervous, scared – all at once.
After years of disappointment, even happiness came with a little bit of fear.
And then came the day of our first scan. I had butterflies in my stomach. I won’t lie – when I lay down on the bed in the scan room, one part of my brain kept thinking: What if I’m not pregnant anymore? What if this has ended like all the other attempts?
My husband knew.
He would smile and give me faith.
His approach of “It’s okay, let’s move on, we’re in it together” is what had kept me going through all those failed attempts at pregnancy. Somehow, he always managed to make sure that one disappointment didn’t become the end of our story.
And then came that first glimpse.
Two sacs on the screen. TWO. After almost five years of waiting, we were expecting TWO BABIES! It was confirmed – I was going to become a mom of TWINS!
Can you believe it? Imagine yearning for a baby for years and getting two instead?
It felt like the universe had finally decided to compensate us for all those years of waiting.
Except…
“Oh wait.”
My doctor suddenly said it, her eyes still glued to the screen.
The room went silent.
“There’s a third sac.”
Wait. What?
TRIPLETS? THREE BABIES?
My husband and I looked at each other, probably equally stunned.
My doctor continued looking at the screen. “But it’s smaller in size than the other two,” she said.
And then came the words that would change the mood in that room completely: “We need to prepare for all possible scenarios.”
Just minutes ago, we were celebrating two babies. Now, we were staring at the possibility of three.
And suddenly, after five years of trying to become a mother, I had a whole new set of questions.
Would the third sac grow? Would it survive? Would we actually have triplets?
And, perhaps most importantly, would my body be able to carry three babies?
I walked out of that scan room with three babies on the screen, a million questions in my head and absolutely no idea what the next few weeks had in store for me.
I thought the hardest part of my pregnancy was finally over.
Clearly, I had no idea.
