Year later,mother waiting to take back twins

“The nurses,ayas,media,neighbours — everybody has an opinion. Our decision to leave the babies here has become a fodder for gossip. Yesterday,an aya asked me what right I had to take back my children when I had dumped them here,” she says,adding that the birth of her daughters has taught her to shut out the world,and take her own decisions.

Their birth was not an easy one. She recalls how she was first at a small government maternity unit in her village,Churiya,and then district hospital at Betul transferred her,admitting inability to handle her “complicated” delivery. “I was brought to the Padhar hospital,where my babies were born,” she says.

That her daughters were conjoined was not disclosed to Maya for four days. When she saw them first tucked away under tubes and wires,“lying stuck together in the chest and stomach”,she says that she was fascinated. “I did not cry. I told the doctors to treat them. My delivery and eight days of stay in the neonatal ICU for the twins cost us Rs 60,000. We did not have a BPL card,” she says.

On the ninth day,after speaking to the hospital authorities,Maya and her husband,Hariram,initiated adoption proceedings at the district collector’s office,“donating” them to the hospital.

Maya’s father-in-law is a local priest in a colony of 10-12 Yadav families,known as Khabana colony,in Churiya,about 45 km from Padhar hospital. Her husband works as a farmer on their two-acre plot,growing soybean and wheat for a living.

“Many foreigners,doctors and Christian priests have asked me if my family pressurised me to leave my babies here. They take it for granted that because I am a village woman,my family and community leaders would have forced me into giving up my children,” she says.

So,why did she give up her babies? “I saw my family turning my babies into demigods. My father-in-law and other members of the clan said that these babies are goddesses,they should be worshipped,” she says. Fearing what would happen if she took them home,and worse,if she is separated from them,Maya decided to choose the only alternative available — leave them under the care of the hospital. Hariram agreed. “People are ready to ridicule us. But how many people know what it is like to be poor and to take such a decision? My wife can read and write Hindi,I never went to school. Why shouldn’t I trust her decision?” he asks.

Dr Gordon Thomas,part of the team that operated on the twins,says,“There was another case of conjoined twins in Karnataka recently; they died before they could be taken to the hospital for surgery. It is difficult to manage such a case. Where they stay,there is no mode of transport,the roads are flooded during rains,and who knows if the babies could have been healthy enough to be operated upon if they had gone back to the village.”

At Khabana colony,the mood is of jubilation after the successful separation of the twins.

Maya and her family live in a small cottage. Sitting on a cot with the elderly members of the community,her father-in-law Ramadar Yadav says,“My granddaughters will come home in a few months. We do not care what papers my son and daughter-in-law signed then. Now our entire village is ready to bring them back. They will be daughters of the Yadavs.”

“If the doctors have managed to separate them,I am glad we left them at the hospital,” adds Ramati,Maya’s mother-in-law.

After leaving the twins in the hospital,Hariram first visited them three months later. “I did not want to take Maya,because she was unwell,and I thought her condition would become worse if she saw them,” he said.

Two months later,Maya saw them. “They had beautiful names — Stuti and Aradhana. They were laughing,slapping each other. But they did not know me,they were so comfortable with the ayas,” she says. After that,the couple visited the hospital every eight-ten days to meet their daughters.

Now,a year later,their son,Praveen,two-and-a-half-year-old,plays happily in his grandmother’s lap. “After I started leaving home to spend time with my daughters,my son started growing distant. He is closer to his grandparents,” Maya says.

She wants to take Praveen to meet his sisters. “I want to take my son to Padhar and spend some time away from the village — only me,my husband and the children. I will take them to Padhar’s missionary boarding school. I want all three of them to become doctors,” she says.

Dr Prabhakar Thyagarajan,psychiatrist who has been counselling the couple,says,“Maya has taken the lead, and managed to take her husband and community along.”

Aradhana better,may be off ventilator today

The condition of the twins continued to improve on the fourth day after their separation surgery. Aradhana,who has been trailing her sister on the road to recovery,is likely to be taken off the ventilator by Monday. “We will change the dressing on the open wound on her chest once more,before taking her off the ventilator,either late on Sunday night,or early Monday morning,” Dr Sanjeeth Peter,cardiothoracic surgeon monitoring the babies,said. Stuti,who was taken off the ventilator on Saturday morning,has started taking milk orally. From Monday,doctors will start giving her other fluids. Doctors hope she will be out of the ICU by early next week.