Miracle babies

Sitting in the hospital waiting for Bhateri Devi, the oldest mother to give birth to triplets at 66 years, my stomach churned when I saw her drag herself towards the ICU to feed the babies who are premature.
We had been to Jind earlier in the day to meet Rajo Devi Lohan who is the oldest mother in the world to give birth to a girl. In 2008, at 70, she delivered a baby girl at the same clinic.
It is a health hazard for these women. Regulations must be put in place before it becomes a popular trend.
We left for Haryana early morning to track thee women down and to understand why they go for the IVF at such an advanced age.
An edited version of the story appeared in the Sunday Express on June 20 in Section 2.

Chinki Sinha

Hisar, Jind

A little plastic baby doll in a swing smiles from the ceiling of the lobby at the National Fertility Clinic in Hisar. It is the sum total of the desires, the aspirations of the couples that walk in tempted by the promise of the IVF – pro-creation. Age isn't a restrictive force here. Motherhood is a limitless opportunity.

It transcends all barriers – infertility, age, situation in life. The plastic baby's arms are stretched out, the smile on its lips is permanent. It seduces the women, the men alike. The dangers, the complications then fade away, they get filtered out. What remains is the urge to procreate, to hold and rock the baby just like the baby that sits and smiles from the swing above. In this space, there is no getting into the right or wrong debate. It is only about demand, and the muchness of it.

National Fertility Centre was established in 2000 in Hisar by Gyanwati Bishnoi, a gynecologist. In ten years, the numbers of couples coming in for IVF has gone up exponentially. From a mere four or five couples, now the centre has more than 100 couples flocking to it per month hoping they can give birth despite all odds.

This is where Bhateri Devi came too. Twice the doctors transferred two embryos in her uterus. But it didn't work. In the third attempt, they transferred three embryos. All of those fertilized. At 66, Bhateri Devi from Satrod in Haryana became the oldest woman to give birth to triplets. She suffered. She went on the ventilator, she bled excessively. But the triplets were born. Complications were forgotten. In her village, everyone is waiting. For years she suffered the taunts, and she lived with the tag of being barren. Now, she proved to herself and to everyone else that she could have children too. Motherhood wasn't going to elude her.

National Fertility Centre is probably the only IVF clinic in the country that has the reputation of being the only centre where women of any age can go and conceive successfully. In its reception area, newspaper clippings adorn the walls. Boastful clippings from local media and national newspapers are everywhere. There's the miracle story of the 70-year-old Rajo Devi Lohan from Alewa in Jind who gave birth to a daughter in 2008. According to Dr. Anurag Bishnoi,Gyanwati's son and an embryologist, she is the brand ambassador of IVF in India. She is the oldest mother to give birth in the world at 70 years. Two years later, Rajo Devi's miracle tale dictates the directions to her village in Jind. There is the happy picture of Inder Devi who also gave birth to triplets at the age of 48 in 2007. Across the waiting area, the is Chameli Devi holding her twins she gave birth to in 2007 at 58. The story in the newspaper charted her painful survival and her miraculous achievement despite high blood pressure.

Almost all the stories about the elderly women trying the IVF as the last recourse to escape the stigma of being barren and not producing an heir, a must for a wedded wife, have a similar narrative. Their husbands married twice, thrice even desperate to get a child. Chameli Devi, the doting mother in the three-column picture, was her husband's second wife. From Santo Devi, his first wife, he wasn't able to produce an heir. So he married again. But Chameli Devi was unable to bear him children too. Then the couple discovered IVF and all was well, the narrative ran.

For Bishnoi, the criticisms that it is a health hazard for women at an advanced age to produce babies and that the doctor is acting immoral by helping them as it produces dysfunctional families where the child might be orphaned after a few years, are baseless. That the baby would be rendered motherless and fatherless too soon is not what is his call. He is only doing what is asked of him.

“That you should ask the families that want to go for this,” he says. “I am doing it because we can and it is what they want. There is a demand for it. We have the technology. We are doing it.”

A social change is in the works and this is what it is. Nothing less of a revolution, a change that is for the good. The IVF is the solution to the ills of the society. The rising numbers of people who are resorting to this technique is an indicator of its success and its relevance, he says. “It is changing the conservative thinking that women should be blamed for the problem. The attitude is changing. Every woman should have a child,”

Bhadur Ram, 60, sat hunched in the waiting area of the centre. He came from Hanumangarh in Rajasthan with his wife and neighbors to the centre hoping for a miracle. Nothing less than that, he said. He married twice but none of his wives could conceive. The second wife Lilawati is much younger than him. But at 40 years, it is like swimming against the tide if you hoped to conceive naturally, he said, his neighbour translating for him. As Lilawati waited inside for the tests, Bhadur Ram was suspended between hope and dejection. He had tried the shammams and the babas who promised healthy children in exchange for sacrifices and rituals, doctors who prescribed pills – red, green, yellow, blue. Nothing worked. Then, he found out how other women in his town had got pregnant despite being pronounced as infertile. It was the IVF. He bought into it. For Rs. 90,000 for the first injection, it was expensive but he would do it.

At first, the IVF when it was introduced in India as the other option was not a popular recourse. But over the years, its success in a society where stigma about childless women in deeply entrenched has permeated the economic stratas, the rural-urban divide, and the inhibition of the people. It has cut through the barriers. It is the the miraculous cure, the best gift of science to them.

“At first they looked down upon the IVF. They thought it was never clear if the father was the real father. But now having read in the newspapers about the older women successfully giving births, I know this is the option for us,” he said. “I don't want to die without having babies. I have to leave something of me behind. An heir, and a name.”

Bishnoi, who joined his mother's centre soon after he finished his medical training, says.

“You know they tell me that panchayats here now tell the man to try IVF when he approaches them for permission to marry for s second or a third time because his wife is unable to bear him children. Now panchayats interfere. IVF is heralding in a change that's positive. This is showing to a man-dominated world that money can be spent on women's treatment and that they should be given a chance before being relegated to the second position. Now the societies are accepting that there are techniques and they are worth trying.”

He says they don't guarantee that all women who come to them will be able to bear children. “We can tell them results are good,” he says.

More than 20 percent of the women that come to the centre for IVF are above 50 years of age. Around 40 percent of them are in their 40s and the rest are less than 35 years of age. Yet another doctor in Hisar where there are two IVF clinics disapproved of the centre's practice. Govind Fertility and Research Centre came up in Hisar three years after the National Fertility Centre was founded. But Dr. Manju Khurana said they never encourage women more than 40 years of age to go for IVF.

“It is about right and wrong. You can play God. There is technology available but with technology there is the question of responsibility,” she said. “What kind of a family it will be. Imagine the child who will have to grow up knowing their parents are not there for long. It is a very selfish thing. It also has initiated a dangerous trend. Complications can happen at that age. The government must intervene, set up a cut-off age, an upper age limit. The guidelines are ready and they will be submitted soon. I guess the age we have proposed is around 45 or 50 years. This isn't healthy. See, IVF is a positive thing like ultrasound. But look at the flip side of ultrasound when it started being used to determine the sex of the baby. Then the government cracked down on the clinics that did it. Something like that must be done with regards to IVF, too. At the bottom of it all, it is a question of right or wrong. You can do it but should you do it. That's the question we must ask ourselves.”

In Haryana, there are around six or seven IVF clinics. In the country, there are more than 150. The first IVF centres were established in Jaipur, Delhi and Mumbai in 1991. Then these centres mushroomed everywhere spanning rural, semi-urban and metropolitan cities. One has come up in Bhatinda in Punjab. But a lot of people desirous of having a child still flock to the National Fertility Centre because of the success stories. There are no regulations for IVF that exist in India currently. This is the baby boom of a different kind.

Anyone can become a mother. The test tube baby has arrived and infertility can no longer subdue their spirits, their being. No longer will they have to live with the tags – barren, infertile, un-woman like, a traitor to her husband and her species. For the women, it is the ultimate dream, the eventual fulfillment. After all they were created for a purpose. That they should procreate is what the God mandated. The technology is only the means to that end. Nothing is without God's will. This is what he has willed, Bhateri Devi's husband Deva Singh said.

“She told me even if she dies while doing it, it is worth the try,” he said. “It was Bhateri who asked me to marry twice. My children are beautiful.” Deva Singh promised Bhateri the world for the children. He bought her gold bangles, he said. “She can ask me for anything,” he said. “She has given me what I yearned for all these years.”

***

In creating life, Bhateri Devi started to lose her own grip on it. Blood gushed out. It just won't stop. Breathing came in spurts on the night of May 29 when the 66-year-old mother gave birth to triplets in Hisar in northern Haryana.

At the National Fertility & Test Tube Baby Centre, they moved her to the ICU for the night. She was on the ventilator but she survived, her husband said.

Bhateri Devi who set a world record for being the oldest mother to give birth to triplets bled through the night and days after.

Yet another operation and she survived. The bleeding stopped eventually. But it took its toll.

As she walked to the intensive care unit of the Java Hospital in Hisar where the triplets weighing 1.2 kilogram, 1.1 kilogram and 780 grams are kept, to feed the babies, she almost dragged herself. Her face , wrinkled and crumpled as rivulets of sweat ran down her cheeks, looked haggard.

Outside in the hospital's lobby, a crowd of scribes and locals had gathered to see her. A celebrity now, Bhateri Devi lashed out at the media. She doesn't want the attention. She already went through a lot.

On the night of the operation, she was moved to the ICU. She had difficulty in breathing and according to doctors, she was on the ventilator. But the triplets emerged one after the other. All three embryos that were implanted in her uterus fertilized. Bhupinder, Isha and Bhupesh are premature babies born one-and-a-half months before they were due. Every two hours, Bhateri Devi goes inside the ICU where the triplets are lying in an incubator along with several IVF babies, to feed her children hoping they gain weight fast and she can return to Satrod, her village, and celebrate. That would also mean more loans. Already her husband took out a loan of Rs. 7 lakhs from a cooperative bank in Hisar mortgaging his land. It was all worth it, he said.

He saw the triplets once. He cried when the doctor at the National Fertility Clinic told him the babies had arrived. He had waited for a child for 48 years.

“We put everything at risk. This is god's wish,” he said, sitting inside the Room no. 104 at the child care centre in Hisar. His phone rang constantly. Relatives had been camping at his house, waiting for the children to come home.

Not that Bhateri Devi didn't anticipate the dangers. The couple knew their third attempt was a huge risk. No, the doctors at the clinic didn't tell them what the operation involved. They conducted the tests, said Bhateri could conceive and that was it. At the same clinic, the couple had tried conceiving twice before. But they weren't lucky. In the third attempt, the doctors transferred three embryos.

God was more than willing, Deva Singh, 70, said.

“Children are important. I hope I live until 100 to see them grow up,” he said.

Deva Singh, her husband, who married thrice so he could produce children, was a little nervous at first.

But the temptation overrode any concerns. At least nobody would taunt him in the village saying the couple was unable to produce children, that they didn't have an heir. Adoption was never an option for them. They wanted their own blood and flesh no matter what it cost – lives, limbs, anything. In yet another village, a 72-year-old woman is trying to hold on to life. The house in Alewa in Jind is a landmark. This is where the miracle happened. A pair of pink sandals with Cindrella's pictures was brought in by the visitors who haven't stopped coming to the house. Upstairs, in a closet, boxes of new clothes and toys are piled up. All are gifts. Rajo Devi holds the little fingers of her 18-month-old daughter Naveena, almost grips them. She isn't prepared to let go.

Rajo Devi Lohan who gave birth at the age of 70 years also went to the National Fertility Centre. But she developed complications. Two months ago, she started to bleed again. The couple went in for another operation recently. The bleeding has stopped but the woman is too weak. She tires too soon. A couple of years ago, a neighbour had brought in a newspaper clipping about the success of the centre. It even mentioned the women who had successfully given birth at an advanced age in Uchana. So Baba Ram, 75, went with Rajo Devi and his second wife Omni who he married because Rajo couldn't bear children, to Uchana. They were convinced and then the three went to the National Fertility Centre in Hisar.

Omni, who is Rajo's younger sister, had high blood pressure so the doctors said she couldn't. But Rajo could. They didn't warn them about the complications that could develop later or during the birth.

“We only go ahead in cases where the women are strong and healthy. We do thorough check-ups and then allow,” Dr. Bishnoi said.

Naveen was born in November 2008. The father sold off his buffaloes, his cart, and mortgaged his land. It cost him around Rs. 5 lakhs. They threw a grand party where guests from neighbouring villages came. Almost 2,500 guests ate at the celebration, Baba Ram says.

“Blood is thicker than anything. I am against adoption. The child is not your own. He will not take care of you,” he says. “I know we are old. But Omni is there. She can take care of her when we are gone. We have relatives who can do that. The child is a toy. We play with her the whole day.”

Two years later, the debt hasn't been repaid. Rs. 50,000 is remaining. But the family is planning on a grand birthday celebration again on Naveen's second birthday. After Rajo Devi's miracle feat, a biological wonder, two other women in their forties also went to the Hisar centre but weren't able to conceive. Baba Ram waited for almost 40 years for a child. Now, he wants to live till eternity. Rajo Devi wanted to go for a second child through IVF. The couple wanted a boy. But then complications developed and the uterus had to be removed.

“We can die sitting here only. The fear of death shouldn't stop you from trying for a child,” Rajo Devi says. “I am happy I could do this before I died.”

The anguish of living in a village where people referred to you as the family that didn't have children was gone. It was a relief. Baba Ram's sperm was fused with an anonymous donor's egg. But it was in her uterus that it began to take shape. It was hers. It emerged from her.

“The baby belongs to the uterus,” Bishnoi says. “This has been happening for years. Only now people are able to admit it because awareness about IVF has increased.”

As the child suckled at her breast, Rajo Devi's face lit up. A few moments later, she collapsed on the bed. The daughter ran around her. But her frail fingers had already lost their grip.