Dear Family,
Since news about me has been circulating for months now, maybe even years, who knows. I am writing to clarify for myself and to you: I am not going to have children. *Gasp* It is surprising, yes that an Indian woman is choosing not to have children, but it is true. I am not going to have children.
Let me explain further because I imagine so many of you talking about it in hushed whispers behind my back, on phone calls filled with questions of why or what happened, and oh poor thing.
I am not going to have children.
It happened gradually, actually.
When I was young, ten years old, I remember thinking: I am not interested in having children, I want to adopt. It was in my heart from that early age. Why a ten-year was thinking about birthing children? Well that is a much longer story, you see, as an Indian woman, marriage and children are must-haves, accomplishments not choices and even at that young age, I was trying to push my way into having some control over it. I wanted it to be a choice not a commandment. So for years and years, I sat around thinking I wouldn’t be a mother and accepted myself as is.
Then, when I turned 31, a close friend attended my wedding 3 months pregnant. Waves of should I, could I, rose and fell. Every time the tiny desire rose, I surfed the crest knowing eventually it would crash. When I was 33, another close friend declared she, too, was pregnant with twins! “Oh shit!” I thought, there is no way in hell I could do that, or could I? It’s now or never I told myself; I was 33 two years away from being a double high risk pregnancy. If I did it now, it would only be a single high risk pregnancy. Without certainty, a million questions swirling, I said okay yeah, let’s try. With little motivation and one week of insane possibility, my body along with my husband’s said “no”. One word, simple. No. You can’t, won’t do this the standard way.
Now I could do this the IVF way; however, it became a choice. It was the first time in two years of trying to get pregnant that I came back to this place of choice. For two years, I didn’t have a choice on when to “try”, I didn’t have a choice on if I was in the mood to “try”. So this new freedom was quite liberating like speeding down Rock Creek Parkway during non-rush hour times.
I sat back and chose, my body over the rule. The rule that my body is meant to birth, meant to care take, meant to obey, meant to be remain attractive in the eyes of others until I die, meant to, meant to, meant to.
Family, I know there are many rumors about my body circulating in those same hushed whispering circles: she got a hysterectomy, she has PCOS that’s why she has so many chin hairs, she has endometriosis, she may have miscarried, she should get IVF, she should go to a fertility specialist, she has RA. She. She. She. All these rumors about my body only. I ask you: what about the other body involved in this process? Have you been spending countless hours researching about his body or just mine?
Here’s the truth: I chose at the age of ten because I needed to feel like I had control over my body, to have freedom over my body. I chose at the age of 36 because I knew I am meant to be a woman, earth mother who would continue to work for, with the children of the world–adult and young. I am meant to be a writer, artist, activist, a whole woman as is, perfect.
The no I heard four years ago was actually a yes pushing me to see myself honestly.
Warmly,
Dream2write
