Free Custody by Manju Kapur

of the embryologist, the package worked out to 60,000 rupees, with a fifty-fifty chance of success. Other clinics charged less, but had a lower success rate as well. If that didn’t work, some people went in for a surrogate womb. She gestured to the pictures behind her: look at all those newborn infants conceived with our help. Here were some pamphlets on the subject.
    ‘Beta, just wait outside for a minute,’ instructed the mother-in-law finally, after she had followed everything the doctor said with the attention of a hawk, lazily circling the sky, alert to the movement of small innocent creatures scampering below.
    Ishita got up. She could hear the shuffle her feet made as she left the room and despised her leaden legs. As she sat on the well-worn chairs she noticed she was trembling. She knew why she had been sent out. Her mother-in-law wanted to know all the long-term prospects, all the financial implications, before she decided to get rid of her daughter-in-law. They called it the sword of Damocles. Its tip was now grazing her hair, she wished it would fall and slice her in two without further ado. Hopefully the doctor’s information would hasten the process, because she didn’t think she could live in suspense for very long.
    ‘Mummy says we must go in for the IVF,’ said Suryakanta that night, after they made love – the love that was never going to lead to a pregnancy.
    ‘She did?’
    ‘I told you she would be supportive.’
    Nobody had mentioned how painful the procedure would be, how tedious, how embarrassing. At the start of her menstrual cycle she was injected with fertility drugs to stimulate her follicles. The more follicles, the more eggs, the more chances of retrieval, the greater the chances of pregnancy.
    Every two or three days she visited the doctor, with hope in her heart. Her blood had to be tested, ultrasounds taken. Are things going according to schedule? Are there enough follicles?
    More injections. More hormones.
    When it was time to harvest the eggs, she was given an anaesthetic. To extract them from the follicles, needles were inserted through the vagina into the ovaries. Once they were retrieved, she could go home, pumped full of antibiotics. After this the action shifted to a laboratory, where her egg united with her husband’s sperm which had been collected, washed and prepared.
    For six days her baby lay in the IVF lab. Days of tension, days in which in the deepest recesses of her mind she allowed the faintest of hopes to flicker. She whispered to herself, my baby. Also known as an embryo.
    Back to the embryologist, back to the doctor, back to lying on her back and having a catheter inserted into her. The catheter which contained her baby. Three in fact, out of which one might develop.
    Prayers, prayers, more prayers. Please stay, please grow. You are my only chance of happiness. So many people to love you, just come into the world. I beg you.
    But it wouldn’t. Even with more hormones it wouldn’t.
    Her period. Her bloody period. Each sanitary napkin soaking up thousands of rupees, hours of energy, months of expectation, now to be wrapped in old newspaper and discreetly disposed of.
    Not so discreet was the reaction when it was known she had her period. No, there was nothing subdued about that.
    She hated this baby, hated it. Even living for a few months was beyond it.
    Ever since the fertilised egg had been implanted, Mrs Rajora had been asking every day, how do you feel, how do you feel? In her desperation Ishita had begun to feel nauseous, though she had yet to throw up – too soon, opined the mother, but God is with you, the biggest thing is not to worry, stress is very bad for pregnancy.
    ‘Never talk to me of miracles again, Mama,’ cried Ishita when she gave the news. ‘This is my karma. Nothing will break it.’
    ‘We can pay for another attempt, after all, these things are not so easy,’ said the father breaking his heart over his daughter’s despair.
    ‘There is