Wednesday, December 21 2005 16:26 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Nagercoil (TN): Days of crying and lamenting are over for Agnes, who lost all her four children to sea in the killer Tsunami, a day after Christmas last year.

Another Christmas and hope is back in her life as she gave birth to a baby girl on December 18.

And she plans to name her child 'Pratiksha' (Hope) which was the name of her third child taken away by the sea. "The baby looks like her," Agnes tells relatives who are thronging the hospital here to join the celebration of the new birth.

Agnes's husband, Raj, a fisherman of Kottilpadu near Colachel, is receiving the visitors with a stoic smile on his face.

The couple lost an eight year-old son and three daughters, six, four and two years old, in the waves that swept their home on the fateful day in December last year.

Agnes, 28, who went through the recanalisation surgery in February this year, is the first Tsunami victim to have a child after the surgery that many women having a similar fate had undergone in the past year.

Dr Indira Surendran at the Gopala Pillai hospital who treated her, says the child weighed 3.35 kg at the time of birth. "It was a normal delivery and the mother and child are healthy," she said.

A steady stream of near and dear ones from Agnes's village and its neighbourhood are visiting the new born with small presents for the infant.

The hospital ward is in a jubilant mood, as shining stars dangle in shops and houses on streets outside heralding the Nativity as Christmas draws close.

The hospital has done the 'Micro Surgical Reversal of Sterilisation' on six women who lost children to Tsunami.

Pregnancy in two women had to be aborted due to complications.

In Agnes's case there was no complication and she can conceive again if the couple wished, the doctor said.

Additional Collector G Prakash told sources that 25 women who lost their kids in Tsunami had undergone the recanalisation surgery in Kanyakumari district. Besides Agnes, three more have conceived.

The Government is providing Rs 25,000 as the cost of surgery to each woman, he said.