A Bitter Lesson from a Bitter Loss

Towards the end of '66, I became pregnant. Sometime in the first few months, I caught a very bad cold, probably due to the great fluctuations in daily temperatures that Poona is subject to [30*C during the day and 4* at night was a common phenomenon]. The doctors at the government hospital at Pimpri prescribed an antibiotic for that. During the fifth month, my uncle, Ramaswamy and aunt, Seethalakshmi [Chittappa and Chinnamanni to me] passed through Pimpri, after a visit with Malathi, their daughter in Bombay. Chinnamanni immediately told me I should seek another opinion as she found my lack of weight gain worrying.

There was one embarrassing moment for me when Chinnamanni stayed with us. She asked me what caste Gabbar Singh was, and when I told her he was a Garhwali, and that I did not know more than that, she knew he was not a Brahmin. She then told me that she would have to do her own cooking. I decided that I could not let her, our guest, do that and I would have to cook instead; but how was I going to break this to GS? Since I abhorred the idea of caste barriers, I could not tell him the real reason. I finally told him my aunt was very particular about eating food cooked by her own family and none other. He nodded in acceptance, and betrayed no anger, but I suspect he knew the real cause. A couple of years later, I had the same experience when Vaman's parents stayed with us for a couple of days.

Well, I went to the KM hospital where the most reputed gynaecologist in Pune was. She was concerned about the lack of growth of the foetus, and also a suspected faintness of the heartbeat. When she learnt that the doctors at Pimpri had given me tetracycline for my cold and cough during my pregnancy, she was very upset. That, she said, might be the cause for the poor development and might even have affected the heart. She added, however, that there was still a good chance of catching up and remedial actions. so, thereafter I consulted her alone and it seemed all was ok. She even okayed my going on a car trip in the seventh month, which was uneventful as far as my health went.

All this time our proposal that Iravati Karve sent to ICSSR was still pending, for which I was thankful. I did collect some secondary data in the meantime and pretested the questionnaires, but had to wait for the grant to embark on the study proper.

I was in the very last month of my pregnancy and Lallukka came down to Pune to be with me for the delivery. She and I stitched quite a few cute baby clothes. When I began having labour pains, and we called up the doctor, to our consternation, we were told she was away in Bombay as she was an examiner at a medical college there. She had not warned me, almost full term at the time, and somehow, it did not occur to me to ask who her stand-in was. I meekly turned to the government doctors in Pimpri. My contractions were obviously increasing, but surprisingly, I did not feel any pain at all, though I too could feel them as some sensation! Unfortunately, even after several hours and an injection to induce labour, it did not progress, and then they discharged me!

An interesting side observation: I asked Lallukka if this was how labour pains felt, and if so, why were they supposed to be so unbearable that most women screamed out again and again! Her answer, “ You know, Paddu, I can't remember – I've had four kids, and had a lot of pain each time, but now I don't recall the pain at all!” She added, “ Maybe that is how I faced up to each new pregnancy”

When I contacted my gynaecologist upon her return a few days later, she was furious. The doctors had no business to halt the induction process half-way, she said. They should have gone on to an operation. I thought to myself, well that is as irresponsible as your going off without clearly telling your patients who would care for them while you were away. But I said nothing aloud – so reverent were we in those days to our doctors! Anyway, she told me to see her every week thereafter.

So a couple of weeks passed, and when I worried I was going beyond term, she grilled me as to my last period, and she just would not believe me when I said that I was sure of my dates [due to my frequent travel in HLL, I had to be very precise]. She seemed to be used to women who were not so precise, and felt I still had time to go for my delivery. A couple more weeks passed, and then one day I noticed that my weight, taken on my own initiative, was less than it was the week before. Alarmed, I called up the doctor and she too reacted then with alacrity. Examining me, she found the heart beat a bit too faint, and so decided to do a Caesarian.

A baby boy was born, well beyond term, as the doctor surmised due to his withered state, and with a heart problem. She was however sanguine he would do well with help. However, he died within 24 hours.

Ramu and I were devastated, as were the two grandfathers to be [Lallukka had had to return to Madras during that long month of waiting]. There were still more problems to come. Nature had its way, and my breast-milk started flowing. To stop that, I was given an injection. However, it was not done properly, and I developed an abscess in my thigh, where the needle went in and I had to have that operated upon! All this made me most depressed. Both doctors had failed me and my faith in that profession was zero. As I slowly recovered, I turned my energies to the study, now funded.