Before pregnancy became real, I think I had only ever imagined it through the lens of what I had seen around me in India. A God Bharai was part of that picture, family gathered together, rituals led by elders, and the quiet understanding that this was one of those moments life paused to celebrate properly. But pregnancy happened for me in the Netherlands, and slowly I realised that this chapter would take a different shape.

Pregnancy in the Netherlands also came with traditions that were very different from the ones I had grown up associating with this phase of life. The idea of a gender reveal, for example, was something I had mostly seen in videos before: balloons, cakes, envelopes, and people gathering for a moment built around one small piece of news. Baby showers, too, felt like something from another cultural setting: more games, more casual gatherings, less ritual, but still clearly centred around celebrating the mother and the baby. At first, these seemed like borrowed concepts rather than something I had naturally imagined for myself. But living here changes the way certain ideas arrive in your life. Slowly, they stop feeling foreign and start feeling like options. And somewhere in that, we realised we did want to celebrate, just in a way that felt comfortable to us.

Our Gender Reveal: The First Big Moment

The gender reveal was probably the one celebration I knew I really wanted to experience, partly because I was aware that this was something unique to having a pregnancy outside India. In India, finding out the baby’s gender beforehand is not part of the process, so this already felt like something I would only get to do because this pregnancy happened here. And since we often talk about moving back to India in the next few years, I also had the quiet feeling that if there is another baby later, this may not be an experience I would get again.

So by the time we went for our 19th-week scan at Amsterdam UMC, I had already decided that I did not want to know immediately. I asked them to write it down and seal it in an envelope instead. Bringing that envelope home felt surprisingly significant. I remember placing it in our puja space, in front of our idols, partly because it felt right there and partly because I knew if it stayed too close, I might give in and open it before the party.

The reveal itself happened at our home on 13 July 2025, and I ended up enjoying the planning almost as much as the moment itself. Before the party, I had organised a simple boy-or-girl voting setup for everyone coming over. I had even asked our families in advance, Rishi & my parents, my brother, and Rishi’s sister and brother-in-law, to send in their predictions so that when the answer finally came, it felt like everyone had already joined the guessing. I also added a few small games, including baby pictionary and one of those old wives’ tale gender prediction rounds, which made the evening feel playful without needing much structure.

For the reveal itself, we asked Ravi to open the envelope privately and fill a balloon with either pink or blue confetti based on what was written inside. That way, even until the final moment, neither of us knew. And when we finally burst the balloon, blue confetti came down around us, answering the question everyone had been building towards all evening: it was a boy! It was a simple moment, but one that quietly made the baby feel more imaginable in a new way.

Baby Shower in a Different Country

If the gender reveal had been built around anticipation, the baby shower arrived with a different kind of warmth. The baby shower felt different from the gender reveal in one important way: this time, I was not the one planning every detail. Before this, I had already helped organise baby showers for two friends, and for both of them, I had naturally become the game planner, thinking through activities, small details, and ways to keep the gathering lively. So I already knew how much thought goes into making these celebrations feel easy for the person at the centre of them. Which is probably why it felt especially meaningful when that same care came back to me.

On 21 September 2025, Anuja and Sree organised my baby shower at Anuja and Ravi’s house. Friends filled the room, games took over the afternoon, and there was the easy laughter that only comes when people already know each other well. By the end of the day, we had also gathered a lovely set of gifts for the baby, practical, thoughtful, and somehow making his arrival feel suddenly very close. What stayed with me most was how naturally cared for I felt, even while being far from home.

Different Traditions, Different Timing

There was no God Bharai this time, and that felt completely alright. Perhaps because I do not really see these celebrations as alternatives to each other. They simply belong to different places, different moments, and different versions of life. This pregnancy happened in the Netherlands, so naturally it came with things I may never have experienced otherwise: a gender reveal, a baby shower, friends planning games, and small celebrations shaped by the life we have built here. If a future baby arrives when we are back in India, then God Bharai will probably become part of that story. And in a way, that feels like a privilege, not missing one tradition but slowly collecting both.

In the end, I do not think I needed these celebrations to resemble anything I had seen before. What mattered was that they reflected the life we are living now, Indian at heart, shaped by the Netherlands, and held together by people who made this phase feel celebrated in their own way. And perhaps that is what this chapter will always mean to me.