Eat. Pray. Love

Restaurateur Rachel Goenka gets teary-eyed as she revisits her pregnancy, labour and life after Kabir...

- Swati Chopra Vikamsey

A baby was never part of our plan. My husband Karan, an investment banker with Goldman Sachs in Dubai, and I, a national award winning restaurateur, were at the peak of our careers. Karan had just been promoted to director and I was on my way to opening more restaurants. Work was so hectic that even after our wedding in 2014, I spent two weeks a month in Dubai and two weeks in Mumbai. Whatever time we had off, we spent travelling. Weekends together were a chance to let our hair down and really challenge what was left of our 20’s livers. We partied a lot, socialised with friends, and ate out any chance we got. Perhaps we were making up for all the lost time during our long-distance, seven-year courtship. We had spent a large part of our romance apart, and now we were determined to tick all those boxes. A baby, was definitely not part of our plan.

But like most plans are wont to, this too fizzled out. When I turned 28, I realised there was something missing. We had done and seen it all. The trips and weekends had become monotonous and well, boring. We had always said a baby was just too much responsibility. There were so many unanswered questions. Where would we settle (considering I was still travelling back and forth)? How could we give up the carefree lifestyle? But we were also deeply in love, and slowly we started realising that there is nothing more beautiful about two people being deeply in love than seeing that love right in front of your eyes: a tiny human being that’s half you and half your soulmate. A few weeks after Christmas that year, Karan said the two magical words to me, “Let’s try!”

I conceived after my 29th birthday. Karan and I had planned a fabulous trip to Italy. There were wine tastings, horseback riding through the country side, seafood meals, the works. Little did I know what this tiny little being inside me had planned something else instead.