Words Count - 3300
Attached Song - Humdard.
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Surfraaz

"The placenta is covering her cervix partially. It's still not resolved", Priya's words ran my mind, revving up the fear implanted on my head, scrapping my heart more and more. I was preparing muesli for breakfast, accompanied by orange juice and quinoa upma.

"Neha" I shouted in fun, carrying the plates to our room. Chanting her name has become my favourite activity.

"What's up?" I saw her trying to stand up on her feet, holding the headrest of the bed.

"Complete your breakfast." I raised her museli for her to hold and pushed a spoonful of it into her mouth. She complained as I placed another spoon of it towards her lips. Turning it to me, she directed me to eat the content of the spoon.

While feeding each other, I observed her swollen feet and palms. "Didn't Sharda aunty massage your feet last night?" I asked pulling her feet to my thighs.

"Let me massage." I leisurely rubbed the hot oil on her feet and palm, slowly increasing the pace of my massage to heat up her feet. I saw her squirming, raising my eyes, I glanced at her.

"It's ticklish." She pouted, giving her palm for a massage.

"Your baby is irritating me." She complained.

"Must be your genes." I sleekly commented as a pillow landed on my face. Then, she furiously exclaimed,"I didn't tell you to love me, if you find me irritating!"

"Neha, listen to me." I urged her as she withdrew her legs back and wiped her vigorously flowing tears.

"You are my sweetestest wife, alright. You can never irritate me." I patted her head as she nodded.

"That's good." She exclaimed with a pout. She directed me to the kitchen and I complied by carrying her there. She plunged her face at the half-opened refrigerator. Drawing something out of it, she swaddled it in her arms, still nestled on my arms.

"Done?" I asked, to which she nodded with a cheeky smile. Carrying her back to our room, I plopped her on her bed to see the nutella jar on her lap. I facepalmed at the sixteenth nutella jar on her lap, till date within these 34 weeks.

Leaving her to relish her nutella, I made broccoli, carrot and aloo Parathas with green chutney for lunch and a bowl of sprouts with crushed coconut, jaggery, bananas, berries, strawberries and fresh pomegranate seeds. I also kept two ripe mangoes, some cherries, berries and two cucumber on the dining table for Sharda aunty to slice and give her, if she gets hungry before or during lunch. I kept the pineapple, laying on the table, away.

Eating at leisure, I completed my last minute preparations for the scheduled morning surgery. My alarm blared as I was close to complete.

"Time to get to work." I mused to myself, chewing the last bite. Washing  our dishes, I gave a call to Sharda aunty to come soon.

Upon her arrival, I directed her, "I've made her lunch and evening snacks. They are kept on the fridge. You just need to reheat it and give her. If she gets hungry before lunch, I've kept some fruits on the dining table. Dp provide her food in time as per her diet chart and take care of her."

Ascending the stairs, I got dressed and went to see her.

"Neha," I sat beside her, wiping her cheeks, nose and chin that seemed to have eaten more nutella, than what she would've consumed.

"Come here and wish me luck." Hearing me, she stared at me, ready to burst into tears. She hiccuped, wiping her tears at the back of her palm and muttered, "Don't go."

"Wifey, I've to go just for today. It's important." She nodded and pounced on me like a bear. She held me tightly stating stubbornly, "No, you won't."

"Just for today, please?" I urged her.

"I promise, I'll bring another nutella jar for you and we'll go on a short drive." I saw her eyes shining at my offer. She rested her chin on my chest, gazing at my eyes, tempted and impressed.

"Come back soon." She whispered, rounding her arm around me.

"I'll come back before dinner, alright?!" I hushed near her ears, kissing her gently.

"You are not seeing any girl on the hospital, right?" She pouted.

"Why would I see any other girl, when I've my beautiful wife at home?" I raised my brow at her questions.

"I can't live without you." Her glossy eyes met my warm, considerate ones.

"I also can't live without you, Neha." I hugged her, warmly as she whispered back,"I love you."

"Now, I need to go too or else, I'm fired." I made a sour face at her, making her laugh. Holding my bag, I descended the stairs waving her a bye. As I ignited the engine to let my car move on the road, I saw her standing on the balcony, firmly holding the door. Sending her a flying kiss and waving her a bye, I rode ahead with a smile.

Author

The dawn was only falling, and the air still carried the day's heat: there were couples walking along the Embankment, arm in arm, as the streetlights still lit; the students, some pedalling bicycles and some riding on the school vans with peals of laughter. It was bizarre to think for him, that they are about to bring their own child to life, to this colourful world, full of wonders; the feeling was surreptitiously enhancing his affection for every child, he witnessed on the road.

While driving, he was reminded of how his stomach had twisted and leaped at the knowledge of his seed, growing inside her womb; their bean of love.

He sped up his car, realising the critical surgery, he had to handle today. It would take him 8 hours at the surgery on a redo sternotomy patient with poor cardiac function, needing two valve replacements, several arteries bypassed and having an aneurysm in the aortic arch in the vessels to the brain, disrupting his blood flow to the brain.

'I hope, she manages well and takes care of herself' He thought, while parking his car on the hospital parking area.

He scrubbed in for the surgery and did the incision. Along with him were his folks, his team members with a bunch of nursing staffs. He was engrossed mindfully to bestow this surgery with his acme of acumenship, for it was his ticket to a better recognition as a doctor; that would lend him a give help while constituting his own hospital, that he weaved the dreams of.

On the other hand, Neha was aimlessly spending her time on jotting down crisp yet important notes from the video lectures of an online coaching platform, that her Patidev enrolled her in, to get in touch with her second year of M.Ch. in surgery.

To tend her intensifying hunger, she called Sharda aunty to bring her something to eat. She saw a plate of sliced mangoes, bananas, chopped cherries and berries, with a glass of pineapple juice. She wasn't needed to tell twice to gulp down the contents of the plate and finish the juice. Keeping the plate on the side table, she occupied herself with her studies, her mood refurbished.

Henceforth, there was a belittled movement, a contraction, a painful quickening in her, but it passed as fast as it came. She discarded that sleek crawling pain, regarding them as Braxton Hicks contractions. It grew uncomfortable to sit for her with the spirited movement of her little bean inside her uterus. She caressed her belly, murmuring, "Let Mumma sit. Be a good boy. Stop kicking, Mumma. Or else, I'll complain about your revamping naughtiness to Papa."

A wave of contraction hit her again, brimming her eyes with tears. She tried to sleep, facing her left, like Raaz asked to do when baby causes her trouble. But, it seemed to her, as if his solutions weren't working today, just because he wasn't there with her.

She shouted for Sharda aunty, but she wasn't at home, perhaps. She searched for her phone to dial him, but halted the next moment remembering that he would be in a surgery now and for the next eight hours. She chastely dialed the second last number on her recent call contacts and pressed the phone to her ear, tiredly slouching on the bed.

"Neha," her ears perked up listening a soft voice addressing her name.

"Priya, can you come over? I feel something is wrong with me." She desperately urged her to come to her rescue.

"Stay there with Sharda aunty. I'll come soon." She nodded, as if she was here to see her. Declining the call, she sat upright on the bed and searched for her furry sandals to go downstairs. "I must keep myself busy", She told to her own self to generate some courage to bear the pain alone.

She slowly padded down the stairs, one by one; she felt her Raaz scolding her for walking faster and descended the stairs alone. Though he was not there, his words and advices were coming to life in his absence.

She must keep herself busy: for the horror she has of staying still, of allowing blankness roll over her like a sheet and she was afraid, she will fall asleep beneath its comfortable confines along with their child. Each contraction inflicting pain on her and etching fear on her palpitating heart.

Her toe hit the base of the stairs and she bent over. As she did so, she felt something rip and tear. She stumbled and let out a cry. She fell on the ground, preventing any harm to her baby by dropping down on her elbow. The pain came again, making her gasp. In a moment, she felt Sharda grasping her shoulders with her capable hands, lifting her off the mess of the scattered onions, peas and potatoes to the couch.

"Beta, should I take you to the hospital?" Aunty asked her, patting her head after wiping her sweat and she rested her head on her lap.

"Yes." She gasped, the pain was wavering her courage and if scratching her interiors.

At that minute, Priya dashed inside and both of them took her to the hospital. The car ride was terrifying with her painful screams and the vice grip on the seat, her nails digging in the leather of the seat.

"Call Raaz," She screamed. She knew nothing but the waves of pain, the elasticity of draining minutes and hours, stretching out beyond limits.

Simultaneously, Raaz was engaged in the artery bypassing. The surgery wasn't even half-done. He tried to focus the best he can, that revved up the time duration of the procedures. It was when Dr. Riya entered the O.T.

"Dr. Mehta." She addressed him, to which he nodded for her to continue.

"Dr. Neha is in the labour room." She informed him, ceasing his hand movements.

"What? O.T is not a place to joke, Dr. Riya. She is due for April first week, she can't go for a normal delivery either. It's supposed to be emergency C-section." He retorted, not believing her.

"Raaz, She got admitted in the hospital an hour ago. Her labour got induced and she is already 5 cm dilated." She detailed him as his body tensed.

"About her partial placenta previa?" He asked, holding his breath.

"It's fortunately resolved." Bhavna smiled, relieving him of stress.

"It'll take more than eight hours for the baby to come out. Dr. Priya has administered Terbutaline to delay her labour for a few hours. Neha needs you, come soon." Bhavna proposed, as his face ashened realising he was handling the most important surgery of his life.

"Please take care of Neha and keep me updated. I won't be able to come now, I need to complete the surgery." He requested her. Nodding in understanding, she left.

'Time is really subjective', He had heard quite a few times but never experienced it himself. But, today he was living this quote. The pace of his hands fastened, his mind was in a rouse, pessimistic thoughts rushing in.

The charms of fame seemed so small, when his heart was thudding so bad, realising his wife was battling for life alone. Finally, the surgery was a success. Leaving the VIP patient under his team-mates for the post-op observations, he left. The labour room was on another block from the cardiology ward, near the O.T. He strided so he could reach his wife.

He reached the labour room to see Riya, waiting outside for him. He was already on his surgical scrubs; ushering him into the labour room, she took her leave. Pineapple juice induced her labour, he got to know from Riya.

On the flat bed, there she was flaccidly looking at him, her breaths coming out in pants and shrill screams, eyes shedding tears as she was covered in a hospital gown. Her eyes were shut forcefully, her fingers crumbling the sheet on the table underneath her as if she was still semi-immersed in a disturbing dream. The waves of pain only grew more, stirring her plaintively and not receding at all.

"Neha" He called out, fearing that he might be failing her. Her fingers held his palm in a rigid grip as Priya urged her to push harder; her screams fervent, impossible to comfort.

Wiping her sweat and caressing her hair, he assured her, trying to decompose her sedimented fear deep in her cells. To underpin those fears, she had clutched so dearly.

"You can do it, Neha." He urged her to push.

An hour elapsed. It was a long, harsh struggle. Then as the first streaks of dawn strayed past the broken edges of the blind, the child was born lifeless with no trace of a cry.  As she gazed at the still form, a shiver of horror passed over Priya after all that, she had promised! Raaz hesitated torn between his desire to attempt to resuscitate the child and his obligation towards his wife, who was herself in a desperate state. She seemed to be in a fitful doze as her face was etched with tiredness. Raaz could feel the fractional rise and fall of her breathing, barely aware of time. Her pulse rate was low, and soon she laid, mercilessly quiet.

The dilemma was so urgent that he did not solve it consciously. Blindly, instinctively, he let the child be taken care of by Priya and turned his attention to Neha, who laid collapsed, almost lifeless. His haste was desperate, a frantic race against her ebbing strength. He patted her cheeks as after a few minutes of feverish effort, her heart strengthened; he saw that she was reviving.

Over the last few months as their future plans came to his mind as flashes, he'd had this unsettling feeling that they were all angled towards something awful and lousy.

His eyes glanced at the tender newborn in the arms of Priya, their baby boy.

Reminiscing all those ways to resuscitate the neonatal, Priya studied and performed with Daksh, she returned to the treatment. Instantly she got on her feet and kept rubbing his back as he held the child by his legs.

"Get me hot water." Priya's shouting reached the nurse's ears, who quickly got to work.

After fifteen minutes, still no breathing came from the lax body of the child. A desperate sense of defeat pressed on Priya, a raging hopelessness. She felt Raaz watching her as she remembered him longing for a child as great as Neha's longing to become a mother. All dashed away now, futile, beyond any cure.

With a determined breath, she carried the limp child to Neha and rested him on Neha's chest as she heard Raaz's whimper.

Neha was barely awake as she tearfully embraced her newborn while Priya patted a warm wet rough towel on the baby's back. Then, within a few minutes, by a miracle, the pygmy chest, which rested on Neha's felt a short, convulsive heave then, another and followed.

"Raaz, come here." Priya shouted, giddily. The sense of life spluttering beneath his fingers made by all that unwavering striving, was so exquisite that it almost made him faint. Priya rejoiced as the child was gasping now, his limbs were playful and head was no longer laying spineless. The blanched skin was slowly turning pink. Then, precisely, came the child's cry.

Raaz held the child, close to him. Upon the huddled bed, he saw his wife, still smiling at them. Her hands were conjoined, her lips were mumbling something, like a prayer as her eyes shone like the brightest stars.

She seemed transformed to him; he was in awe of her, in awe of the conjuring trick she performed just now. Their tiny miracle. Their little one, swaddled on his arms was opening and closing his tiny fists, and Raaz was awestruck as his startling round honey eyes gazed upon him with a strangeness on its newly minted face.

Feeling the salty sweat of her forehead with his lips, he whispered, "Our boy." She murmured back the same huskily, drained of energy as her eyes glistened up; his long held emotions condensed into tears seeing her breaking down after battling like a fighter. The nurse helped her to latch the child to her breast for her first breastfeeding.

"How did I even consider our baby to pop out in a normal way when it has got your genes? He is bound to be a trouble packet." Raaz whispered, caressing their little one's head half-smiling as Neha fed him, throwing him a glare.

"I meant, he is always bound to take my breath away, like his mother." He said, supporting her back as he sleekly rounded his arm around her waist.

Henceforth, their boy was shifted to NICU for two weeks. The longing to get a glimpse of their child, and see him growing was tormenting them. Whereas, Neha's thoughts were tampered with being unable to express and breastfeed their child. The phase of refurbishment of their child was indeed hard on them but, they fought it bravely.

"We are going back home tomorrow." He expressed, hugging her tightly. Promptly, Neha inquired, "baby?"

"He is fit to go back home." Raaz smiled. A smile, that rowed on his lips without any efforts.

On a fresh spring, clouds sculling through a watercolour sky, blossoms weighting the tops of the trees outside the Mehta's Mansion. Neha was wearing a mint coloured saree while, he had donned a light mint shirt and black formal pant. Their baby swaddled on Raaz's capable arms, as his other arm held his wife's waist.

"Welcome home." Viraj along with Smita showered flowers on them after Arati as they stepped inside the house. Kiara and Buggie came towards them; Buggie ushered her mother towards us, who congratulated us.

Upon entering inside the newly decorated bedroom and seeing a little wooden cradle beside their bed, Raaz was ecstatic. Dreams seldom come true; but if they do, they make you feel the happiest. He felt it today.

After freshening up, he saw Neha feeding their little one, when his voice suddenly startled her, making her gasp.

"Have you thought of any name for him?" He asked seriously. The musky scent of his fresh shaving cream greeted his nostrils as he rested his head on her lap, just beside where Neha had cradled their baby; Neha's upper body rested on the bed's headrest.

"No. Have you thought of anything?" She mumbled, playing with his hair. She could see a small smile seeping into her face as her question sinned in him.

"Neeraz" He voiced out, as if tasting the texture of the name, coming out of his lips.

"Our ship name?" Neha laughed at his silly naming skills.

"It has a meaning too." Raaz protested, arguing like a child.

"Neeraz means a lotus." He added with a grin.

"I don't get the synonymousity." Neha complained.

"Neeraz. He grew like a blooming lotus in our relationship, and made our swampy relationship so beautiful, didn't he?"

"He did." Neha smiled at her little naughty, honey-eyed son, peeking through her saree's thin fabric with his big, curious eyes at his parent's conversations. A toothless grin and a small wheezing came out of him, his hands battling an unknown battle and legs on an air-spree. He was enthusiastic to pipe in his parent's little conversation; he was happy, seeing them so much in love.

Raaz leaned into kiss his dimpled cheeks, as he stubbornly grabbed his T-shirt, not leaving him. Carrying him in his arms, feeling him jumping in his arms, felt weirdly surreal.

"I love you so much for bringing this little bundle of joy in our lives. Neha, I can't ever thank you enough." Raaz basked in the moment as he leaned forward to transfuse his myriad of emotions along with her, their love morphing into a melting kiss as their baby boy was swaddled between their bodies.

- End -

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Endings are always painful. This isn't anything better. A whole year of weaving thoughts about their story, creating them, adding their signature styles and investing my time... Here, we come to the point, where they are all set to end their journey, happily.

A cliche start, over-emotional and tangled plot is what their story was, but they weren't flawed. It was their love, anger and trust issues, that were their flaws. Thank you for loving their flawed journey.

Please comment down your thoughts on the very last chapter.❤

Special thanks to divineEEarth , PriyaModak , ddrrrs2pt0, speckslife, Little_Scribbling, KritiSingla, user63051004NeetuGk, Adv_Sangeeta_G_Das, AparnaSawhney, RachanaJagadeesh, Shareena16, Tejaamtham, Lyra_Shine, mhkjmmu1, Ali_ya424, wittyspirit, Sobhan11, Shalusharmi, @shadowsingh839, sita12345 , ReaderDisha and all my silent readers for your support. Sorry, if I missed anyone.

I would love to dedicate the last chapter of this book to the birthday girl 123shreyasha. Happiest birthday to you, darling. May you be blessed with abundance and satisfaction.❤✨

I am really grateful, overwhelmed and elated at your growing support for my work. Thank you again.

Take care. Stay safe. Keep spreading smiles and till the next book, Byeeeee !!!

N. B - I am not publishing anything new till next year. So, I'm in for another vacation. Can't wait for my exams to get over and the year to end to meet you all again in another book. I would be lurking around here, so approach anytime you wish...

With lots of love and gratitude, I remain,
@Jyotirmayeedevi ( Biswa) ❤✨