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| Pinky Ghelani-Raj and her daughter Aryana Raj. [PHOTOS: JOSEPH KIPTARUS/STANDARD] |
Having experienced three miscarriages, Pinky Ghelani-Raj talks to GARDY CHACHA about her pain and the importance of mourning your loss, hoping it will help end the taboo nature of miscarriages.
When you meet her for the first time, you see a woman whose life has been nothing less than a smooth ride. However, Pinky Ghelani-Raj has had to endure several life’s hiccups. For many who recognise her journey, her story is of strive, determination, courage and audacity to look through darkness and still be able to see a twinkle of light blink from the other end.
“I don’t like talking about it because it is very personal. When I do, it is in the hope that it encourages someone else,” she points out.
Pinky has been a model, successful in many ways having won Miss India Kenya title in 2004.
“I wanted to be a model at the age of 16. Modelling gives me satisfaction and I love strutting on the catwalk,” she states exuberantly.
At some point, she was a radio presenter and worked with two different radio stations. From 1998 to 2006, she earned a living talking with headphones across her scalp.
“I wanted to go into something that posed more challenges — it was just a decision I made on my own. I got married a year later and that was only a coincidence,” she says.
As we continue with the conversation, deep into matters of motherhood, Pinky gets pensive as she narrates the rollercoaster of emotions through her odyssey.
“I have had this history with botched pregnancies and it is quite disheartening. Some women would tell me that since it would happen at early stages, it was a lot easier to get over,” she poses with an irk of nostalgia. “I disagree totally: a life is a life — whether it’s still developing or already living; a mother losing a foetus is still losing a baby.”
Dashed hopes
The first time she became pregnant was in 2008, a year after tying the knot. Carrying life inside her made her feel exuberant. However, when she visited her doctor after eight weeks for a regular scan, the doctor discovered that the foetus wasn’t showing signs of viability, as it should have after eight weeks of development.
It turned out the baby she looked forward to cuddling and nurturing as it grew into an independent human being, was no more.
