There is moss creeping up my father’s wall. Despite the blistering heat and humidity in evenings that leaves everything dry, it thrives and creeps on. It always reminds me of pain that crept up my spine. It was unstoppable and kept coming with the determination of mad bats; slowly, thief-like, until it colonized every cell of my body and I tasted the iron in the sea of death.
Fact 1: I am an abnormally courageous human being
I used to think myself bold but this description of me is laughable. Courage made me once confront a burglar who had broken into our home. I was brazen enough to exchange a few words with the startled stranger. So, at nine months pregnant, I used to think it was courage that made me hop onto a motorcycle and be driven to hospital, but here I am thinking that it was not courage. It was stupidity. Utter stupidity.
It was an abnormally cloudy day and I had been chatting with my big sister. Had it been any other person, I would have put my phone down and slept off already. This late into the pregnancy, sleep was all I had strength to do. I loved sleep. Sleep loved me. We seemed for the time being eternally wed.
‘I have a feeling you are going to give birth tomorrow or todays’. She, like my mum, has the ‘tongue’. She spoke and it happened. She had prophesied doom on my first relationship and as we entered the sixth month of getting to know each other like she had said, we parted ways. She spoke my cat to its death and on my dog as well. There are countless other declarations over the years that had passed through her mouth only to become experiences in my life. Nevertheless, for labor, I was armed. I had been informed it was war and this was my second time on the battleground.
Unlike my first time, this time the shooting pains on my lower back were milder and less pointy. The first time had felt like someone had a sword and he or she was piercing it through my uterus repeatedly.
‘I am ready whenever the kid is ready,’ I sent back.
The cramping as if in response begun. It was mild but consistent. I did not bother going back to sleep but waited for morning to come. I was too calm and my nerves, unlike the first time, were not so frayed that I was going to wake up the entire household. No. I would handle this like a pro.
Fact 2: Pride is an emotion made for fools
The last months of my pregnancy saw me tottering back to my parents’ house. I had a toddler and a new one on the way, I needed mummy.
The need that had brought me back home was apparently not enough for me to tell them that labor was underway.
I hated fuss, and I was the most nonchalant person I knew. I needed zero bubbly energy right now.
I went. Showered. Greeted my mum. The cramps were beginning to make me smile automatically. I grabbed a bite and went to discuss money with my little brother who handled my finances.
My hospital bag was packed and I was sure I was in labor but I did not know for how long or if I would be eligible to give birth that day. I left the bag behind, held my neck high up and told everyone I was going to book a bed at the hospital.
‘Do you feel anything?’ my mum asked. She had noticed my automatic smiles, and having had nine kids made her sense something was up.
‘Not really’
They had been my right hand this entire time; I did not want my entire weight on their shoulders. They had done too much. I had this.
Fact 3: Village women know everything
During my first trimester, I sat down with two other women in the village side where I had my home. One had a curly haired new born. The other was in her first trimester like me. I had gone for the harvest in my garden after which I sauntered over to my neighbors for a quick chat.
‘When you know your labor has started, get a *boda boda up to the hospital.’
‘Why?’ I had asked beguiled.
‘Every time you are dumped into Museveni’s potholes, the child is drawn closer and closer.’
The daredevil in me took this tidbit and munched on it for months.
The day to exercise my meditations was here. It was already sunny by the time I stepped out of the house.
Another cramp… they were becoming longer and longer. I stood by the roadside and held my hand for the motorcyclist who was coming from a cloud of dust. Mercifully, he stopped.
After carefully informing him that he would not be paid if he involved me in an accident (I had one at six months pregnant already when I was on a motorbike) I sat and off we went.
He was a delightful fella, making jokes about children and how the men who abandon theirs are low-grade citizens. Seeing me by myself had given him ideas about the father of my unborn. He made jokes about the government and the newly concluded election in which the president was denied his God-given opportunity to rule. All this while he drove through dust, huge potholes, and went down steep hills. It was so scary as the cramps had ceased but I felt the baby move differently now.
What if I gave birth as he maneuvered his way past the land offices? There I saw many idle men who had woken up, dressed nicely and told their wives they were coming to work only to loiter outside the land offices hoping for a gig or two. Many people were like that around government offices.
Would these men be able to help me birth a child if this crazy boda boda man dropped us in a ditch that left the baby out?
Fact 4: Be insured
I had left home with the sole intention of booking a bed at one of the hospitals.
The first hospital that was recommended to me was –
- Accessible
- Clean
- Air-conditioning worked
They wanted—
Health insurance, which of course I did not have. No one who sells poems once every seven months does.
The father of my kids did not either; he surveys lands for a living. They are suspicious of any paperwork that involves terms and conditions.
The kind receptionist wanted payment in a lump sum. Where on God’s green earth was I to get 2.5 million shillings? I asked the receptionist if she could excuse me as I made a phone call.
I made the phone call all right, by halting another boda boda who I gave directions to the Anglican hospital. It was cheaper; more crowded and was where I had been going for my antenatal checkups.
The one time I did anyway.
When I showed up to the very doctor who examined me the first time, she was almost busting at the temples with anger. She asked where my husband was, I told her he was in a bush somewhere.
We needed to do this and that test… we needed to check this and that… By this time, the cramps were real pangs that would come and last for a minute. I had to catch my breath, bite my teeth and concentrate on its passing.
‘How long have you been feeling like this?’ she asked noticing how hard I tried to hide the telltale signs.
‘It started at six.’
‘Did you bring your mama kit?’ ‘You are giving birth today.’ I was floored. I called home and told them. Sent my husband his text, the few friends who loved me enough to want to know as well cause we were about to go to War. In addition, I was not prepared to lose.
It then hit me. A cold blow sent me into fits of panic. I was alone in a hospital, in labor. I began calling my husband. I called like six times. Then sent him a text. For reasons I do not know up to now, there is a specific need for your spouse that arises at that time. And I told him so. I needed him and he was not there. That is how the first brick fell from the wall we were.
Fact 5: Family first
When I could not get hold of Hanson, I called my sister. She was home and I had left her specific instructions on coming. In case I was detained at the hospital. My bag was packed and everything else I needed I could get at the snap of a finger…
The pain was now consistent but I could walk with it to the cafeteria. I was so hungry.
I ordered lunch as I waited for my sister to beat the afternoon traffic and reach in record time.
Even as I was seated and eating, the pain was becoming atrocious…This baby and I had discussed… she was going to be gentle. Gentler than lambs. Gentler than clouds. Gentler than whispers of the afternoon wind.
I had matooke and rice with mixed soup. I was addicted to mixing funny flavored sauces. Beans with meat and leafy veggies being my best.
I finished eating and just as I was getting out of the cafeteria, my little sister Lora drove through the hospital gate. I was so happy to see her. The strength came back in my bones. Now I was ready for war.
Fact 6: There is a reason why it is called labor
I learnt why it is called labor, this second time around. After my little sister came and we were assigned a room. She bought me a few items as toiletries from the hospital boutique. This was not normal backache; it was fire travelling up my spine causing me to clutch at whatever was within my reach. I went in the bathroom, took a cold shower to calm the pain and it helped a bit. I sat down for seconds relishing the new freshness I felt in my entire being and like a sharp bolt of lightning; sharp shooting pains assaulted me in my pelvic area. The moment I stood up, it started to play the creeping game again, but this time it was shooting not creeping.
Lora, being the novice she was, tried to comfort me. To this day, she does not know how close she came to being slapped at three in the afternoon for absolutely nothing other than trying to do the right thing.
I was taken in for my first pelvic exam. I never had these with our first son but I was looking forward to them.
They were not exams. They were moments of torture that enabled the nurses to know how ready I was to push. Apparently, I was already seven centimeters. Yay uterus! This surprised them. The village women’s trick actually worked.
It was downhill from then on. The pain came in degrees. Excruciating to unbelievable to every sort of adjective that can imply high. I wailed. Actual guttural wailing and I remember thinking in those rare moments when it subsided to a manageable degree: “Man, I’m never going to spread my legs again.” The third brick had fallen from the wall. We were slowly crumbling.
Nevertheless, I had to focus, wringing my thoughts away from straying on that lane was a labor pang in itself but I focused on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. A crippling numbing pain on the sides that had me howling like a dog burnt by molten polythene. I clutched on the sides of this adjustable bed and as if on cue, a kind nurse came and started rubbing my back. ‘Okay breathe in, yes like that, you are a champion ma’am.’ I sucked in air through my teeth and the pain dulled a bit. I could feel my toes again. I lay down for a bit.
A man doctor entered the ward and saw me lying on my sides. He came and took my chart. ‘Uhm second gravitas.’ Whatever that meant. ‘Prop her up, let her remain seated.’ I hauled myself up to sit on my ass. The doc came and spread my legs, which under any other condition would have been a cruel breach of his ‘doctorate’. Spreading my legs eased the pressure on my back but it did not do wonders for my pelvis.
Fact 7: Labor nurses are the cruelest bullies
The doctor who usually treats the boys used to be a pediatric nurse, like my mummy. She once narrated with glee in her eyes, how she spent her night calls delivering babies. Sometimes she was alone and five women were ready to push yet there was only a single doctor around. ‘It was those who made the most noise but whose babies were already in the canal that I demonstrated my string move to,’ she said.
‘What string move **musawo?’ I, out of sheer curiosity, had asked.
‘When one is done pushing and there is a tear, and they need to have an episiotomy, the next order of business is being stitched up.’ She spoke. ‘I would get like thirty inches of string and wind it around both my hands, then show her that all of that was going to be used in stitching her up if she didn’t shut up and push the baby. It didn’t take even ten seconds, and the baby was already born.’
I had a cruel nonchalant nurse attending to me; doing painful pelvis exams that left me feeling like a bulldozer had passed through me. She had tinted red hair, which was cut short to perfection. I was looking at her as she spoke with others and they all orbited around her. She was in charge. The next pang came as she entered and I screamed. It lasted for a cool eternity, it seemed. I was going to die; this baby was going to kill me. Life was slowly being drained out of me.
‘Let me check.’ She was pushing me back onto the bed for another exam. I closed my legs and begged her not to. The exams were much more painful than the labor pains. They were excruciating fires that she lit and could stop if she chose. I wanted her to stop.
She slapped my legs, ‘Do you want to leave here next week?’ She arched a perfectly lined eyebrow. Piercing me with her furious glare. I nodded my no. My voice was hoarse by now and I felt too weak to put up a fight.
Before she could begin checking though, a violently painful cramp came from deep in my lower back and colonized my entire body in a single second. I was lost in an ocean of pain and in that moment was sure I was going to drown in it. I wanted to poop so very bad. The red head came and checked between my legs, then whacked me again. Spreading my legs as she did because when the pain came, I closed them off tight trying to keep it together.
‘She is going to kill the baby.’ She was speaking to the other nurse, who came and held my other leg in place.
‘I want to poop,’ I shouted.
‘Poop, Mercy, you can poop.’
I pooped and I felt something slither out of my entire body.
The pain stopped immediately and the nurse showed me a little alien looking thing, which was my newborn baby now. It had balls. I heard all my hope for a baby girl being flushed down the toilet in the next room.
Fact 8: If you are reading this, you were born by a woman
Your mother is your mother. She is a god. Whether she has raised you every day you have been on earth or not. I realized with my second born that motherhood is a choice and a decision a person makes. Motherhood is earned the day you discover you are pregnant and choose to give the baby a place to grow in your body. I love my mother. After I was wheeled out of the ward into my room, I looked at my mum and felt tears come to me. She had nine of us, one via C-section, lost the twins and buried one of our brothers.
She humbly wears her scars; has stood by us each day of our lives and we take for granted her time and love. It’s a war some never win; she did. In addition, because she did, when I felt like I was going to drown in that ocean of pain inside the labor ward, I remembered her. I paddled on; this is why I am here. This is why I can share this.
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*Bodaboda is a Luganda word for bicycle
**Musawo is a Luganda word for a doctor or medic
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Image: Adobe AI remixed