From Rakhi Kapoor, a renowned physical therapist and antenatal counsellor with over two decades of experience in handling normal pregnancies, assisted pregnancies and pregnancies involving various risks, the popular book Infertility, Impatience, Intuition: A physical and mental guide to aspiring parents will help couples who are planning a pregnancy or undergoing infertility treatment to increase the possibilities of conception.
Pioneer News had the opportunity to chat with Rakhi after the success of Infertility, Impatience, Intuition and here are some of the excerpts from our conversation.
1. What inspired you to write this book?
By profession I am a physiotherapist who pioneered the concept of prenatal counselling in India. The concept of attending a course on healthy living and wellness during pregnancy was a westernised one. I formulated an Indian version of it and have been guiding thousands of couples over two decades through my centre Dwi Maternity Studio in Chennai. I have authored innovative books like a book on pregnancy for Indian Fathers called Expecting Daddy Delivers which has been translated into Hindi. A book on mental health for young expecting women and moms called Mums Mental health and Mile Stones.
With the advent of the COVID-19 disease, my consulting moved from in person to online sessions. Along with guiding nervous and clueless expecting couples I also had couples who wanted to defer their pregnancies because of the uncertainties of the corona virus and its effect on pregnancy and babies.
While I started consulting couples on postponing their pregnancy I met two categories of people. One were young couples who had no issues with their health and fertility but wanted to postpone starting their family. The second category was older couples who were racing against the biological clock and facing delays and difficulties to conceive.
It is then I realised the pain and the difficulties that these couples were having in order to start their family life. As I was simultaneously consulting young couples to keep themselves fit and ready to start a pregnancy even in their later ages of their life, this gave me an insight to bridge the gap between youth, vitality, biological clock, aspirations, career choice and late pregnancy. That’s how the idea and the inspiration to write the book Infertility Impatience an intuition came about.
2. What challenges did you face while researching and writing it?
This book required a lot of research about infertility and the procedures that could help eliminate this issue. The challenge of writing this book was not about stating the process or the causes of infertility but providing a solution. So I had to keep in mind the reasons why couples needed to defer their pregnancies resulting in getting in to a race against the biological clock. This book needed to be balanced about the concepts on how an individual could manage their physical health and also their various concerns like completing higher education, career, life goals and emotional to start a family.
Hence it was quite a challenging book to write. It was difficult to find an apt way to present the content for couples who are facing infertility issues but also for couples who can fight infertility in the future if they have a head start. Finally after debating and rewriting many versions of the manuscript I divided the manuscript into two halves. The first half addresses the need and the process of being physically emotionally financially ready to start a family. The second half talks about what happens when couples hit a wall and are unable to conceive ending up with fertility issues.
3. What part of the book fascinated you the most as the author?
The most fascinating part of what this book as an author was writing this book not as an entirely technical concept about Infertility but introducing life lessons, self-help theories stress busting remedies and a holistic approach to living life providing information, emotional support and mental strength for aspiring parents.
4. What message do you want to convey from this book?
Infertility Impatience and Intuition is a book through which what I want to convey to the reader is that they should definitely address the elephant in the room, yes the biological clock does exist and it tick. One mustn’t race against this clock but go along sticking with this clock taking care of themselves so that they don’t run their body and mind before they can become parents. The next important thing is that I want to tell couples is that starting a family is one of the most pleasurable and soul filing experience in life. Starting a family should not look like a burdening task. With good planning and proper support couples can balance their professional aspirations and yet have family in their prime age.
5. What is the most challenging part for an author in general?
Most often you will hear people labelling an author as moody eccentric and anti-social. Yes authors can come around being aloof and introverted. An author in a crowded room may be found sitting alone in a corner and people probably think of that individual as a boring person and feel sad for them as they have no company.
But what they don’t know is that an author is continuously talking to himself or herself. An author keeps writing the manuscript of a book in their mind non-stop looking for an opportunity to pen it down on paper or their laptop. An author is always working round the clock. Hence the challenging part about being an author is balancing their life. They need to keep a balance between their personal relationships, social responsibilities and most importantly their own needs example sleep schedules.
You can catch me tired and exhausted and often declining social invitations. I would probably be exhausted or immersed in writing a piece of my manuscript hence I need to be left alone by myself. I have very few friends. My well-wishers and family have to be accommodating with this need of mine. That I feel is the most challenging aspect for an author in general according to me.
6. What are you working on next?
After having worked on this book which is a holistic guide for aspiring parents I had to complete the full circle of life i.e parenting and raising their children. Hence my next book is going to be on simplifying parenting and helping the future generations to have a strong emotional bond along with an enriched family experience with all the challenges in this fast paced, high pressure, time starved digitalised world.
7. What keeps you going as a writer?
After having authored twenty four books and had four Amazon India Bestsellers my twenty fifth book Now You Breathe – Overcoming Toxic Relationships and Abuse has been creating ripples. It has been awarded The Golden Book Awards 2023 in the category Powerful Relationship Guide.
I have been honoured with The Author of the Year Award 2022 in the non-fiction category at the National Achievers Award conferred in the constitution club of India, New Delhi; Ukiyoto Literary Awards ; Writefluencers Awards.
Many more International awards announcements are being awaited for this book as it has been nominated in numerous literary Award programs. As much as I am grateful for these recognitions, my heart melts when I receive a mail , a message on my social media handles with readers messages pouring in about how much they enjoyed reading a particular book of mine and how it helped them in real life .The need for me to express myself and b of value to the society and my reader keeps me going as you as a writer. I wish to continue writing even more meaningful books in the future.
8. If you had to suggest two books for Indian Youth, which would they be and why?
I recommend Indian youth to read are epic mythology and works on Indian history. The Indian heritage and culture is extremely rich and divers. The West seek and his thirsty for the knowledge from our Vedas to yoga the the Krishna consciousness Mahatma Gandhi and the Shiva and the shakti energy fusion.
The only thing I recommend readers to do is to transform themselves after reading a book. Every book whether it is fiction or the obvious non-fiction subject can be delved upon and the message imbibed in their hearts and mind to transform themselves.
So Why Ram :beyond the Lakshman Rekha and Flourish infinitely life lessons from Lord Krishna are two of my books that I would recommend to the youth, both men and women to read.
Infertility, Impatience and Intuition: A physical and mental guide for aspiring parents https://amzn.eu/d/47meV0M
