In Vacant or in Pensive Mood

It was exactly a day after I had finished bleeding. Exactly a day after I got out of doctor-ordered bed rest. Exactly on that day, my doctor had said the "baby" was no longer in my uterus, when she said I could go back to living my life as usual. Exactly on that day, my parents-in-law landed, so they did not see me in that condition. Exactly on that day, my mom called me to ask if I could go home and help; she needed to take dad to the hospital. It waa COVID; we hadn't identified it yet. Now consider the timing of this.  Had I still been pregnant or bleeding or on bedrest, I wouldn't have been able to go or be there for them. And that's a fact I cannot help but reflect on, often. Exactly on that day, I travelled the 34 kilometres to my parents' home. As mom took dad to the hospital, I took over.  There were two dogs that needed to be fed. My sister was in college and having her practical exams. There was the task of finding a cab for my parents after they were...

Before we got married, Arpit and I had decided to wait for at least two years before we tried to have a biological child. But two years rolled by too soon and we were not ready. We then decided that May 2020 would be the best time to try. But we all know how 2020 turned out! We definitely wanted nothing to do with bringing a helpless, vulnerable, tiny human into a world assaulted by a pandemic and we also did not want to be taking trips to the hospital during one. So, we decided to wait it out a bit more. In December 2021, we were able to take a trip. Things seemed like they were really improving. So, on our anniversary, we "did it"! We had assumed that it would take several months of trying to get pregnant but, in the early days of January 2022, I started feeling different. Arpit was sure I wasn't pregnant. I was sure that I was. It was time to find out with a home pregnancy test. I had taken such tests in the past (whenever I missed a period) but the result was a litt...