The clinic smelled sterile, like most clinics do, but to Kunal and Riddhima, it was sacred ground that day. The room felt heavy with unspoken prayers, the kind that sit just beneath the tongue but never quite make it out. Riddhima lay still on the examination bed, her hand tightly clasped in Kunal’s, as the cold gel touched her skin. The whir of the ultrasound filled the silence. Dr. Sapna studied the screen with the calm patience of someone who knew how much weight a heartbeat could carry.
And then, she turned to them with a smile, a quiet, knowing smile that made Riddhima’s breath catch.
“You’re going to be parents.”
The world stilled. For a heartbeat or two, time seemed to forget to move forward.
“Really?” Riddhima asked, her voice a whisper, as if speaking too loudly would shatter the moment.
“Yes,” the doctor said.
That one word, so small and so simple, cracked open their world. It wasn’t just an answer. It was a sunrise. A surrender. A promise. That “Yes” was the seed of an entire future taking root in the present.
They walked out of the clinic with wide eyes and wider hearts, almost giddy. The weeks that followed were woven with dreams and quiet plans. Kunal began humming to himself again, pausing at shop windows to admire baby clothes. Riddhima often resting her hands on her belly in instinctive tenderness, whispering things only the child inside could hear.
The transformation was slow but undeniable. Parenthood was no longer just a concept. It was a presence. A soft tug at their every thought. A glow in their late-night conversations. They were already becoming. Every decision, every small kindness, every compromise was a nod to the life growing quietly within her.
And then, at six months, the music stopped.
It began as a routine check-up, just another scan, just another black-and-white image of their growing baby. But the technician’s smile faded. Dr. Sapna came in again, but this time her eyes were cautious. Careful.
“There’s something we need to talk about,” she said.
Words floated in the air like sharp needles.
“Placental insufficiency,” “severe brain and limb development concerns,” “quality of life,” “viability.”
The words didn’t land all at once. They hung in the air, waiting for Kunal and Riddhima to gather the strength to let them in.
“What does it mean?” Kunal asked, but he already knew.
The doctor sighed. “If carried to term, the chances of survival are extremely low. And if survival happens, it won’t be without suffering.”
There was a silence that tasted like metal. That night, they barely spoke. They sat in bed with the fate of their child in their hands in the form of Consent papers, holding on to what little they could understand. No parent should ever have to choose between hope and mercy. But there they were, at the edge of a cliff, with no good options on either side.
Riddhima looked out of the window as the light began to change the color of the sky. Her voice came gently, almost weightless.
“We’ll let him go.”
Kunal turned, his heart breaking in a thousand directions at once. But in her eyes, he saw something sacred. Strength not born of courage, but of love.
“Yes,” she said again.
That “Yes” was nothing like the first. It wasn’t celebratory. It wasn’t joyful. But it was full of dignity. Full of grace.
It was a mother’s “yes” to suffering so her child wouldn’t have to.
It was a father’s “yes” to being the strong one when the world was crumbling. That “Yes” aged them in an instant and softened them forever.
In the weeks that followed, they moved through grief with the awkwardness of those who don’t yet know how to wear it. The world around them continued. Honking cars, busy offices, smiling neighbors. But their home fell into a silence that neither music nor conversation could fill. They tried to talk, and sometimes they did, but mostly they sat with each other in the quiet, letting shared sorrow do what words could not.
Therapy helped. Slowly. So did time. And in the spaces between, they learned to breathe again; not like before, not as innocents, but as people who had walked through fire and chosen to feel every burn. Their love grew quieter, steadier. There were no more assumptions of forever, only the awareness that nothing in life is promised but everything can be cherished.
Riddhima began writing again, gulped down all her unread books. Kunal started working hard on his new project, went to Singapore for an on-site visit. They smiled more, though it took time. They took a trip. Let the sunlight in, little by little.
Two years passed like the tide, sometimes receding, sometimes rushing in without warning. And then, one morning, Riddhima stood in the bathroom holding a pregnancy test with shaking hands.
She didn’t speak. Just walked to the balcony where Kunal was feeding the birds, and placed the test kit on his hand. Their eyes met. No words were needed.
He looked at her. Then down at the test. Then back at her.
He didn’t shout. Didn’t laugh. Didn’t cry. Just nodded.
“Yes,” he whispered.
This “Yes” came with shadows. With trembling hope and unspoken dread. Every doctor’s visit became a quiet prayer. Every scan was a battlefield between belief and memory.
They didn’t prepare the nursery too early this time. They didn’t tell too many people. They lived moment to moment, breath to breath, heartbeat to heartbeat. And in those quiet intervals, they learned to love again, not because they were sure it would last, but because love, even if fleeting, was worth the risk.
When labor pain finally began, it arrived like a thunderstorm; loud and chaotic. Riddhima screamed. Kunal paced. Machines beeped. Nurses moved in and out like waves. And then, after hours of holding his breath, Kunal heard it; the cry.
The doctor turned to them, beaming.
“Yes,” she said. “He is healthy.”
Kunal crumbled into a laugh that sounded like a sob, falling to his knees, overwhelmed.
Riddhima, sweat-soaked and radiant, held their son to her chest, whispering through her tears,
“You came back to us.”
That “Yes” didn’t erase the past. It didn’t make the pain go away. But it wrapped it in light. In meaning. In redemption.
Their son grew up hearing stories he wouldn’t understand for a long time. Stories his parents spoke about softly, thinking he wasn’t listening. Stories about a love that never gave up. About pain that changed them, but didn’t break them. About how one small word could hold a lifetime of meaning.
Some “Yes”es are not just answers. They are turning points.
A “Yes” to hope.
A “Yes” to surrender.
A “Yes” to begin again.
And in the echoes of those “Yes”es, Kunal and Riddhima found the fullness of who they were always meant to be.
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