Disclaimer: This is solely my experience and it in no way invalidates (or validates) your own experience. So, when you read these words, read them as what I intend them to be — a testimony. If you must pick a lesson, pick the soul of it, not necessarily the experience. Selah!
The day is in January 2023 and I had just made a trip to Ibadan. The intention is to tidy up my long-abandoned thesis. A day into my journey, I started to feel uneasy. There’s this feverish feeling in my body and a nauseous sensation in my throat. I know what I have done, so, yes, pregnancy is on my list of options.
One evening, I couldn’t take it anymore. Accompanied by a friend, I located a hospital and I heartily share my symptoms with this middle-aged bespectacled doctor. He smiles wryly and says “Can you lie there?”. He checks me and he goes, “I think you’re fine. But just watch your symptoms for 2 weeks and we’ll know what it is”
Unsatisfied, I dragged myself out of the hospital.
Two days later, I’m in the restroom in my home in Lagos and the two lines on the pregnancy test strip I cajoled my husband to buy on his way from work are staring back at me. I had two options: 1. Keep the strip and plan a dramatic announcement to my husband. 2. Jump into the room and scream, “We’re pregnant” with all the excitement I could muster.
I didn’t choose any of the options. I walked like a Zombie to my sleeping husband on the couch and I said “I’m pregnant! Shola, I’m pregnant”. I don’t know where the tears came from but they came. “I know I wanted this and I said I was ready but am I?”
“You are confusing me o. I thought you said you were ready”
“I know! I know! It’s just new”.
“Let’s thank God! It’s here”
At this point, I’m seated on the bed in our dimly lit bedroom where we definitely committed the “crime” whose result is now tabernacled in my womb. I picked up my diary and I saw where I wrote in December 2022, the following words: “By September 2023, I’ll be carrying my own child”
I started to refresh my memory of my plans.
You see, I had heard a lot of gory stories about pregnancy and childbirth. I’ve heard good ones too but the gory stories are more. However, when I made the decision to have a child, I was very positive. I solidified this decision in December 2022. The same month I had just registered my company, The Mind Yard and was getting ready to start Coaching professionally. No, I wasn’t delusional! It was what I wanted and it was exactly what I intended to get. I had been so sure that pregnancy, for me, was going to be a walk in the park.
It was a limp in the park but let’s not hurry. A few minutes after I found out and still seated on our bed, my husband walked in. I suspect he may have taken a short break to think about the implication of what we just found out but if he was apprehensive, his face doesn’t show it. He looks at me and I ask him, “How do you feel?”
“I’m happy but I’m still processing all of it. I knew it was going to happen but it is here”
“Right!” I sigh heavily.
“Let’s just pray”
We start to pray and a few minutes in, I’m energised! “Let’s do this”
My husband looked at me, laughed and said, “This small boy has impregnated somebody”.
24 hours later, in the hospital, I realised I had been pregnant for over 5 weeks, in fact. I get my routine drugs and stop at a parfait shed to get parfait (I lie to myself that it’s pregnancy crave and I smile to myself).
On my way home, a wave of unusual fatigue blows on me. It unsteadies me but I manage to hold the forte till I get home. While at home, I take two spoons of parfait and it tastes nothing like parfait.
