Let us celebrate womanhood. Let us celebrate childhood. Let us celebrate family. Let us celebrate humanity. Let’s Be Human. United We Are Family. Women are a symbol of strength and compassion. Medhavi, Vedant’s little sister has the power to unite with his brother.
As much as this case is about uniting innocent siblings, it is also about celebrating womanhood.
- With support of the donors, we are blessed with two children.
- With support of the surrogates, we are blessed with two children.
- With initial love and care of our grandmother, both children grew up healthy they are today.
- Medhavi is a lovely daughter, a woman. We look forward to raising her into a wonderful woman and we ask who should be cited as her role model? Our loving grandmother who raised her under frailing health at 67 showing great sensitivity and strength, hallmarks of a woman. We want to celebrate our grandmother’s sacrifices and out of this world courage. She embodies womanhood and motherhood.
- With the support of all the women around the grandmother, family and neighbourhood, Medhavi is growing up into a great woman. It takes a village.
Who is a woman?
Is it just the external appearance or the inside that counts or both? Is it the sensitivity? Is it the strength and sheer will combined with empathy and compassion for all? What is it we learn from a woman? What qualities makes a human a woman? Is woman someone who encourages you to share your feelings honestly or someone who teaches you to lie and suppress your feelings? In an intersex condition, based on first hand accounts by other patients, there is stabilization years after the treatment. They have every right to feel the way they want, just like a spousal caregiver of intersex does. When a person is going through a change in every way possible during a marriage, the circumstances are very different. The entire mind, body, soul, psychology, physiology and so many other things are changing. Trauma for all is an understatement. Years later after the treatment, the same person could be entirely a different person. While we can appreciate a scientific/logical explanation that the symptoms of depression, irritability, fatigue, tiredness, mood swings, aggression, trauma, crisis, etc. were caused by the medical treatment, it would be INCORRECT to claim they never happened and its effects in a young marriage and on an infant. What we hope is there is a scientific study on effects of intersex surgery during a marriage, typically when the person is in late 20s or early 30s. With scant to no medical data available, why is this medical practice being allowed to continue in its current state? In 2013, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture called for a a STOP on the the surgery and asked the medical community to stop lying. If it is torture for the patient and their parents when the torturous surgery is done on an unsuspecting child or a single adult, is there any trauma and torture on a spouse and child when same surgery is performed under lies during a marriage? Or they are less of human beings and do not count?
The Grandmother
When the vicious separation of kids had occurred, our family was in complete disarray. The tsunami of a lifetime had hit. First, Maulik’s parents found out a vicious and fraudulent divorce had been filed, second they found out the resulting trauma their son had weathered for a decade while cut-off from support, third they were left-behind with an abandoned unborn child, Medhavi, and what about their grandson, Vedant? All these tremors hit the family at the same time. The question was do we fight for the truth or go save a dear child’s life who had been abandoned? It is a question that will haunt anyone with no solution in mind. It is hard to imagine for any human to be put into this vicious situation, it might be better to be martyred in a war. At least the gun shot wound is quick and final. As the torturous moments turned into torturous days to torturous weeks, we had to make a decision. None of us was in a sane mind. How could one be? On the face, we put up a normal face but only we knew the tsunami that had hit us on the inside. To make matters worse, we could not even physically be with each other. As we sat on a conference call across continents waiting for a miracle, our loving grandmother declared.
I will raise the child
We all broke down and herded behind her like cattle. In one fall swoop the loving grandmother showed deep sensitivity to all around her and tremendous strength to be the pillar of the family. It was innate. That is a woman. That is a human. That is God working miracles in his own way. What followed after that was tremendous support and sacrifice from both the loving grandparents and aunt. Regardless of how it happened, the fact is Medhavi is alive, healthy and a happy child today. If we as a society enjoy Medhavi’s company, its due to her loving grandparents. They gave her the gift of life. Their life and sacrifices deserve to be celebrated. In an in vitro fertlization (IVF), sometimes grandmothers do serve as a surrogate to deliver a child. This is probably a global first where a grandmother had to raise a new-born IVF infant. There are grandmothers who raise infants because of mother dying in child birth or mother having a serious condition. This is different. IVF pregnancy does imply a deliberate commitment and intention on the parents part to have a child.
The health issues of aging grandparents to have to raise a new-born infant are too traumatic to list here. Their selfless love and sacrifices deserve to be celebrated.
Today, the loving grandparents CANNOT see their grandson, Vedant. With the rapid aging, they are looking at a possibility of not being able to see their grandson. Someone who is progressive, someone who gave more human rights than what law allows deserves the right to see their grandson, love him, touch him, kiss him.
Celebrate WomanHood
We want to celebrate the womanhood of our loving grandmother. We want to celebrate the womanhood of the kind donor and the responsible surrogate. These women have given us the gift of life.
We want to celebrate Medhavi’s womanhood. As Medhavi is growing up into a fine young girl and a lady, it begs the question. Who will be her role model?
Let us celebrate womanhood. Let us celebrate childhood. Let us celebrate family. Let us celebrate humanity. Let’s Be Human. United We Are Family.
