She felt the hand come closer.
She knew what it meant. Holding her breath, she counted the seconds, wondering
what to do this time. It was the fourth time in two weeks and she had said ‘no’
three times already. Could she say ‘no’ again? Why was he so persistent anyway?
‘Do not defraud your husband’,
her pastor’s voice echoed in her ears as she felt the hand rest on her arm,
testing the waters.
But it was not like she
intentionally wanted to defraud her husband. It was raining outside and she wasn’t
near asleep so it could very well have been a perfect night. Except that they
had warned her.
Don’t bend o, don’t stand for
long, don’t jump or do anything
rigorous, avoid anything that will stress
you, don’t even meet with your
husband- rough play can break your eggs.
Pppppffff, very funny, she had
dismissed them at first, old wives’ tales that had no meaning. Until she woke
up to blood tricking down her legs, her brain trying to solve the maths- maybe
it was that time I bent to sweep under the bed, maybe it’s that time I jumped
while dancing. - It made no sense, but the eggs were gone, announcing the abortion
of her ‘yummy mummy’ dreams with their thick fat tissue-filled clots.
And it wasn’t the only time, it
happened again. The day after she had unavoidably taken a danfo and the driver
drove like he could not wait to die. Tump, bump, this way and that he threw her
till her back was hurting, her legs complaining. Barely 24 hours after, her
uterus emptied, leaving her heart with pieces of what was once hope.
Once beaten, twice shy. Twice beaten
and you start to believe anything.
So when she observed the
slightest sign. A pimple at that special spot, her bosom refusing to fit into
clothes and a nagging need to eat boiled groundnut, she was not bold enough to
take a test but she made up her mind to do her best. That was two weeks ago. Two
weeks of going home via Uber if her husband could not pick her from work. Two
weeks of using the standing shower because bending was out of the question. Two
weeks of hugging her bed whenever possible, careful to always lie on the left.
Except last Saturday, when her
phone had fallen off the kitchen cabinet. And oh, Tuesday at work, when she had
jumped at the news of her colleague’s twins. Like a flashback scene from a Yollywood
movie, it came back to her, her little flops here and there. Touching her
stomach, she felt assured. It was still too small to feel or even talk about
but her baby was there, regardless of all those mistakes.
The hand moved again, wandering
into dangerous territories and she knew she had to make a decision.
Hours after, her eyes opened to
his smiling face. ‘Thank you for last night, I really needed that’, he said. In
that instant, she understood. It wasn’t her place to secure the baby, in due
time what is hers would come.
Oh, she would try to do her part
but never again would she blame herself, regardless of what ‘they’ said. Mumbling under her breath she sauntered to the bathroom; ‘I will not cast my young, I will
not…’.
Four weeks later, tired of
expecting the trickle that had previously announced the death of her hope, she
sat in the hospital waiting room, starring blindly at the result in her hand.
It was confirmed, her baby had survived eight weeks and all the signs looked
good.
Smiling through her tears, she
sent her husband a message …’I’m Marylyn
Monroe tonight, you don’t want to get home late *wink*’.
Indeed, He makes all things
beautiful in its time- she thought aloud as she drove towards the lingerie
store.
Dedicated to all the would-be mothers who have hugged their babies in
their hearts but never in their arms. Keep hoping, hope maketh not ashamed.
Photo credit- Pexels.com
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