UAE-based expat: ‘Forget what society says, do what’s right for your family’

“My first pregnancy was quite tough because I had some health issues and gestational blood pressure fluctuations,” she recalls. She decided to return to India to deliver her baby and chose a small hospital with limited facilities because it was closest to home. Because of the high blood pressure, the doctors decided to induce labour a month early, she recalls.

Scared and worried, Sonal checked into the hospital where she was bombarded by painful medicines to induce birth. Then came the epidural. “Because of the epidural [was given for the pain], I could not feel any sensation while pushing, so there was a lot of tearing, which I realised only later on, when they stitched me up,” she recalls.

The next three months were a nightmare, she says. “Post giving birth, for about three months I couldn’t get up because of the tears. I struggled to eat, I could not use the washroom, I couldn’t feed my daughter; I had to put her on alternative feed so I would feel very guilty. I used to just stay in my room and struggle. So my family also realised something was wrong and asked me to see a doctor. I went to my gynaecologist and she suggested I visit a psychologist, who could maybe give me some tips to help me get my life back on track. So I went for six to seven months. Gradually, I came back to myself. But it took me a very long time. I used to feel like I’m a failure as a mother. I used to criticize myself all the time,” she says.

Sonal recalls the tips that helped her through her low period:

Journaling: “She told me to maintain a journal. She said, ‘We can’t change our past. What you think you are lacking are just some skills that can be learnt. Like, if you feel you are not a very good cook, you can learn how to cook. If you think you are not fit enough, you can join some classes or Zumba. Do some meditation.

Rationalising: “Write whatever comes into your mind, because you might be overthinking and later on I realised that things I used to get tense about – like guests or relatives coming over, those things wouldn’t happen. Or things didn’t happen the way I thought they would. But I used to be tense for that time.

Dreaming: “Then she said, what do you want in life? What are your goals? What do you enjoy doing?

Taking action: “Instead of doing something negative, I started doing something constructive. So once I started doing that, I lost weight because of Zumba and gym classes, I felt confident and happy.”

Over the next year or so, Sonal developed hypothyroidism, for which she’d need medication. This meant that the second time she got pregnant, it was after multiple trips to multiple doctors and various courses of medication. “So I had to lose weight and do exercises and do many Ayurveda treatments to get my fertility back. And then I became pregnant with my second, a son,” she says.

This pregnancy was easier than the first but when it came to delivering her baby, she returned to India. “I thought I’d get help from our parents and the nannies there,” she says, adding that while she chose a better hospital, her birth experience was still terrible owing to a rude doctor. Once she saw her son, however, she says: “I thought my family is complete so things were okay. Then we moved to Dubai. After my second child was born, I wasn’t getting my menses, but some of my medicines were birth control, to regularise my period. So I didn’t take any other precautions.

“The third time I got pregnant, I wasn’t aware that I was – I kept going to the doctors saying it’s an acidity issue and I was breastfeeding my son, so I thought nothing like that could happen. They couldn’t diagnose the trouble. Finally, after two or three months when I finally went to India for my kids’ holidays, we got a test done and I realised that I was pregnant. I was not prepared; I had begun to work; I had a full-time job. And I was very disillusioned about pregnancy.”

As she battled with herself about her next steps, re-envisioning her life with a new kid, she found herself under attack. “Everyone told me, three children in India is a big thing and that too to raise them abroad. They asked me how I’d manage and kept pointing to the negatives,” she says. “I was scared that everyone will laugh at me, what will they think?”

However, she was determined to have this baby. Once again, she gave birth in India, this time leaving her baby with the grandparents as the couple moved houses and got their older children settled into routines.

“Because he was the only kid in the house, he developed behavioural issues. And when finally he was school age, we got him here -- there were problems of adjustment between his siblings and him because they were used to living without him and he was also used to living without us. There was separation anxiety, because he wanted to go back to his grandparents. So we had to show him to different doctors to get checked, because he was having tantrums at school and stuff. And then I had to leave my job, because with three kids it was not possible.”

Drawing from her last brush with depression, Sonal decided to connect with a psychologist, then she got her family involved. “I took many parenting sessions and I [visited] many healers, because while I had those thoughts of shame; the ‘What will people think?’, I also thought, ‘I don’t have to care about people now, I have to care about my own family’. So I went through many rounds of counselling and then I tried to parent them well.”

It’s not like daily tussles have disappeared, she says. “We can turn it around.

“When I think back, I just want to tell women that they should [learn about and] plan everything. I got married at 22-23, I was very young. I didn’t know anything and I didn’t find out anything. I thought pregnancy will be a joyride. Kids are cute and I’ll play with them. But that was very naive thinking. You know, giving birth is one thing, raising kids is another, and especially if you are living abroad, you have to think about the full spectrum,” she says.

And you have to think about yourself. “I was very naïve, I just gave up my career at a young age; I feel if I had concentrated on my own career and then given birth and then gone back to the same place, things would have been better … still, I’m fighting through everything and I’m trying to now educate more people, because now I’m a motivational speaker, I’m an author. Now, when I go for any corporate events I tell them, ‘You are an expat woman and you have two or more kids, okay. But you can’t give up on your life just because of what people will say. You can still build your career. If I can do it, they can also do it. It’s tough. But we can turn it around,” she says.

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