The path to parenthood can be long and lonely for couples who struggle to conceive. Some South Asian women, however, have found comfort — and luck — in a very special stuffed animal.
It took Shrina Patel and her husband Todd Grunow 2.5 years of trying to conceive before they finally sustained a healthy pregnancy. “I had one thing that I would have changed about the journey,” Patel tells TODAY.com. “I wish I had talked to people about it.”
Back then, Patel kept her struggles private, even from the sister she adored. At the same time, she would have to defend herself from her “stereotypical Indian aunties” who constantly asked her when she would start having babies.
After multiple rounds of unsuccessful intrauterine insemination, Patel and her husband tried IVF ... and it worked. At a photoshoot for her infant son, the photographer happened to bring a stuffed toy in the shape of Ganesh, the Hindu god of luck and new beginnings. He is also “the remover of obstacles.”
In short, Ganesh represents many of the things a hopeful parent desires.
Realizing that it happened to be National Fertility Awareness Week, Patel decided that she wanted to help give hope to other couples who were in the middle of their fertility struggle.
Patel contacted the co-founder of Modi Toys, Avani Modi Sarkar, and offered to host an Instagram giveaway in April 2019. In exchange for reading a blog about Patel’s fertility journey, ten women would win Baby Ganesh plush toys to bring them luck on their own path to parenthood.
“Our Indian community does not talk about infertility, but I have never understood why it is so taboo,” Patel wrote in her initial message to Sarkar. “I wish I had a Baby Ganesh during the process — it would have brought some light into my life at that time, and we certainly had some obstacles that we needed help removing.”
Patel is not a blogger, and she wasn’t trying to create any sort of social media moment. She’s a New Jersey teacher, and a grateful mom (now of two!), who just wanted to pay it forward.
One of the winners of that giveaway reached out to Sarkar in Dec. 2022 to share the good news that she had given birth to not one, but two healthy babies since receiving her plush toy.
Doctors said a second successful full-term pregnancy was unlikely in her particular case, but she wrote, “Here we are with our miracle again.” The winner, who prefers to remain anonymous, wanted to sponsor a second giveaway for 11 plush toys, since numbers with a “1” are considered lucky in South Asian culture.
Sarkar set slightly different rules for this giveaway: “Have an open conversation about IVF with your loved ones,” she wrote on Instagram. “Let’s dismantle the shame and confusion that surrounds it by talking about it more openly. Or at the very least, share this post to inspire hope in others.”
One of the winners of the second giveaway was about to undergo an embryo transfer. In Dec. 2023, she wrote to Sarkar: “I finally had a baby girl this year, thanks to the Ganesh I won last year. He brought me luck. I had vowed to give 11 medium Baby Ganesh to women in need of miracles.”
After receiving more positive news from followers, Sarkar has continued to share fertility stories and host giveaways. She invites women to share their story publicly if they feel comfortable. If not, she welcomes direct messages to continue the conversation and help women feel heard.
Comments demonstrate how comfortable women seem to be in sharing both their joy and their heartbreak with each other:
- "I am almost 40 years old, and a year ago I thought I would never be able to have the child I dreamed of having ... But by the gods’ blessing I’m currently pregnant with my first child and starting my journey as a single mom."
- "We put everything into one round of IVF, and by a miracle got one embryo and she’s our daughter. I know how difficult and lonely infertility can feel and I pray for hope, peace and that baby you’ve always dreamed of ... Ganesh came with me to my ICUs during both of my stays postpartum. Such dark times that were made lighter by seeing him next to me."
- "Trying to conceive since 2017, more than a few IVF cycles, two deliveries = two babies in heaven. Still waiting."
Sarkar never expected the response she received from these giveaways.
“Trying to conceive is a difficult subject no matter what your background is, but especially in the South Asian community, it’s something that you struggle with in private,” she says. “Luckily, I think women in the younger generation who were raised in America have a different outlook.”
Her Baby Ganesh is no longer just a toy. “Women in their 30s and 40s are looking at it as a symbolic, tangible token that they can keep at their bedside or in their purse at doctor’s appointments, and it has brought them so much comfort,” says Sarkar.
Patel and her husband hope that people who are trying to conceive hear their story and feel just a little bit better knowing that they are not alone. “We want to remove the stigma,” says Patel.
Sarkar says, “It’s amazing to me how this one single act is still paying dividends to this date.”
