It’s been a while since I put up a post… Let’s just say life has been crazy! If you haven’t noticed, Mwalimu Rachel is celebrating mothers out there. It’s funny how when you think about one thing, all over a sudden everything around you seems to be about that one thing – Lately, I keep coming across stuff about what it means to be a mother. I don’t think it’s a sign – I’m not yet a mother, and I’m not yet ready to be one. But is anyone ever ready? Most of my friends who are now mothers would say it was an accident – a lemon that turned into the most satisfying glass of lemonade they ever had.
One debate always arises when it comes to unplanned pregnancy. Abortion, an all too real scenario in Kenya. I saw this post on Amira Africa, and I felt I had to share it… Here are extracts:
My mother…..my mother, was only eighteen years of age. To say she never intended for things to go the way they did, would be a lie. I know she saw it coming from the time she laid eyes on my father. Still she made up her mind to have him even though he had one already to all his own. This one time she walked in the supermarket hours before she went to see my father but she felt so shy and instead of picking up a packet of condoms she took yoghurt instead.
My grand uncle in red was two weeks late and she called my father agreeing to talk about it when they met in person. I was comfortable, I was not fully formed, and perhaps some cells, but I was a human being. I was ALIVE! Soon, I would be born. Soon I would change the world. Should I be a doctor, perhaps the first female president in Kenya? All in due time I told myself. For now, focus was on enjoying the comfort of the womb…my mother’s womb…
…But she was eighteen, halfway through school, she lived with my grandparents. I do not blame her and the mixed reactions that went through her that day. She was afraid! How can she tell anyone? Who will she tell? What about my father who had many to call his own, not my mother only. Then I felt her get annoyed for that one time she did not pick a pack of condoms. In that moment, in that crowded street she wept…
…When she called my daddy he said I am not his and if I am I must not be. What does he mean mummy? I do not understand. Maybe I will understand some day but for now let me lounge in my mummy’s womb.
I do not think that he was convinced that I was his though, because all he kept saying was that I could not be. That I will be pinned on him. My mummy was sad and she felt lonely. That night my daddy held her and she poured her heart to him, talking in between sobs. He understood her disappointments and he let her melt as they talked about me and what I could possibly look like. She wanted a daughter and at that point she named me. I now had a name. I was so excited if I had limbs I would have kicked, that night she slept in my daddy’s arms as he cradled her.
She woke up the next morning with a bout of nausea but my daddy ignored it and instead handed her seven thousand shillings and again he said that I cannot be. Mummy what does he mean for yesterday you named me. You said you love me. I shall not worry though; I know you will always have my back…
...She walked in to hospital again and I could hear her thoughts and I could feel that she wanted to run out of the hospital again. That is all I remember, in a few minutes I was no longer a human being. I was looking at my mummy but I was no longer in her womb. Where was I? Why mummy? So this is what he meant that you must not let me be?
I could see her guilt. She hated herself; I could feel it as I struggled to leave the world…
Read the full post on Amira Africa. There’s much more to it, and it’s worthwhile!
The thing that resonated most with me was the pain in mummy’s narration (if you read the original post, you get to see the whole thing from mummy’s point of view).
Abortion may feel like an easy way out, but you will always wonder about the loss of your child, and what would have been had you kept the child. It may not always hurt to remember, but you will never forget. It’s just one of those things that will silently haunt you.
And on that note, I sign off with this… (you must have seen it coming!)
