Baby Shopping

It was an extravagant psychic moment but the mystery was revealed in more commonsensical terms — it was February 2007, the flying stars changed, the east bedroom brought in the nine stars that heralded new beginnings, fertility, marriages, conception of intelligent children and childbirth and this was the only year 48-year-old Gita Kapoor, Feng Shui master to tycoons and superstars, showgirls and teen princesses, could have a child. The astral missive was clear — conceive or concur. There was a niggling crunch, though — the World Bank official is single, has fertility-anxiety and a history of romantic near-misses.

Then came another moment of enlightenment — this time it was the blinding white flash of technology, not heavenly illumination, which showed her the way. It took her on a transatlantic journey of petri-dish unions, donor dads, reproductive services, gene pools and genetic counselling, hormone washes and insemination couriers. "What is available is unbelievable," says the zesty Kapoor. "I was very clear — today, I wanted a baby first, the man came second. If I have not conceived naturally, heaven, earth and mankind were now pushing me in a certain direction. It was God's way of fulfilling my destiny."

Sure, who says you are bound by nature today? "It was a tough call," she says. "My fertility doctor told me it would not be a cakewalk. There would be a long and painful medical process, endless wait and several disappointments. But I was ready to take it on. I was on Mission Baby," she laughs.

Kapoor met her fertility doctor and passed her clinical investigations and tests with flying colours. She was given two choices. She opted for IUI or intrauterine insemination in which conception is induced in the body. She would go for in-vitro fertilization (IVF), conception on a dish, only if the former failed. She signed legal consent forms, medical-claim benefits and insurance papers and prepared herself for immaculate conception. The time had now come to find a donor daddy.

... contd.

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