Emmanuella NtaObeten

Miss-carriage

That afternoon when you swiped your finger through the myriad of suggestions goggle presented, nothing in Nsukka prepared your fragile mind for the reality you would come to experience 24 hours later.

First, it was the dancing headaches that pushed from the left to the right side of your head, beating drums that made you hold your head in a salute. You gulped some paracetamol, pleaded the blood of Jesus three times and rubbed the anointing oil your mama bought at a crusade ground on your forehead.

Somehow the pain in your head managed to escape the anointing oil, it fell into your stomach and your belly began to burn. Goggle tagged this symptom preeclampsia.

You have been pregnant for 20 weeks, you now spend more time in the shower, rubbing soap lather on your bump and imagining Ebube’s kind of shiny skull on the baby. You screamed a loud “tufiakwa” then followed by “ my baby will have plenty hair, biko!”. Ebube, the child next door was born without a strand of hair, her mother now rubs palm oil on her head to appease her deceased relatives she may have offended.

Your husband, you call him “di”, he kisses your bump very often and tells you about the “pregnancy nose” and how soon God would increase the width and height of your nose to allow you breathe in more oxygen for you and Chizaram, the baby in your womb.

You are happy, your “di” is happy too but the rising hotness in your belly has defiled the many cups of cold water you drank.

You ring the hospital because your mind is unstable, goggle says its a lot of things but you hope that the Angels your mama commands to follow you goes ahead and makes everything right.

You are now on the hospital couch, face up and your left hand is cupped by your “di”. He runs his palms over yours and warmth rushes over you. You turn your head towards where he’s sat and he gives you the “I gotcha baby” look.

The sonographer presses her equipment on your belly, looks into your eyes and says the most chilling words you have ever heard, “ I am so sorry but there’s no heartbeat”.

Life pauses at that instance. You are blank. Your mind tells you it’s a dream so you shut your eyes and yell into reality. You open your eyes and it’s still you on the couch with the lady still in your face but this time your “di” holds you down from running mad.

A few days later, your baby disintegrates into your pad. Large clots of blood sit on your panties. You somehow recognise the body parts that are in the pool of blood. The head, then something that looks like the placenta, the back or the tiny toes that would have been wriggling at you if you had ended up a mother.

Tears. Sorrows. Sorrows. Prayers.

An Immigrant’s Shock.

An oyibo man called me “my darling”; it wasn’t just once but several times as he spoke to me.

His sentences were punctuated by the endearment before he took a break to swallow saliva. It felt like he had cooked his words like a pot of okra soup and emptied a big sachet of “darling” into it.

“It’s okay, my darling, you just have to write your name at the end of the text over there, darling.”

I have never met him, never seen him. I woke up that morning and showed up at his office, and that was it.

My Nigerianess thinks it’s because of the red lipstick I splayed on my lips. I didn’t bother to layer the bottom part with a black eye pencil to tone down how bold it turned out.

My gap teeth, coupled with the shimmering red lips, must have been too conspicuous to ignore. Is he liking me in an ungodly way? I thought.

He comes again, this time wearing a smile. “Hey, darling, would you like a cup of tea or coffee? Milk or no milk, sugar or no sugar. Tell me how you like it, darling.”

I wanted to scream an Igbo exclamation, but I muttered under my breath, “Which kind of Wahala be this.” I smiled and told him I was okay and he needn’t bother.

“You sure, my love?” I smiled even more and nodded in affirmation.

I am in this office for an interview, and this man whose name I didn’t catch during our introduction seems to be the nicest person yet. He did say his name, but my ears let the word slide, and I was too anxious to ask him to repeat it. I was 20 minutes late for the interview because navigating through the new city was still a challenge.

“Darling, I have just spoken to the manager, and you will be called in shortly. Let me know if you need anything at all. Alright, my darling?” He walked away with a file carried like a Nigerian university undergraduate in his first year.

A few minutes later, I had my interview and was ready to go home. The sinner at the mischievous part of my brain thought he would ask for my number so that I could tell him that I have a man whom I am committed to, but he looks me in the eye and says something that sounds like an over-rehearsed line. “I wish you all the best, my darling. Goodbye.”

I waved him goodbye, and best believe, he is the kindest receptionist I had met. Mr. Darling.

Book Review ~ The girl with with the Louding voice by Abi Dare.

“…I don’t want to be having any kind voice, I want a louding voice.”- Adunni.

14 year-old Adunni shares her story with her voice, and in her own kind of English, in a way that keeps your cheeks laughing and eyes watering.

From being born in a poor home where she plasters unconditional love on her younger brother Kayus, to getting married off to a man with two wives.
Her dream of going to school and becoming a teacher is threatened and even with the glooming defeat of marrying Morufu, a rich taxi driver who holds her down with his “fire cracker” to lick the sweetness of her virginity again and again until she no longer feels pain but emptiness. She vows to win and tell her story.

“Not his-story, My own will be called her-story. Adunni’s story.”

She has dreams of having a loud voice through education. She survives Morufu with the help of his second wife Khadija who is also a victim of circumstance. Life tumbles for Adunni when her greatest help Khadija dies in her arms by the river bank in a strange village. Who would believe she didn’t kill her co-wife? Her story doesn’t add, the mob might come for her head, so she escapes to Lagos with the help of Iya and her brother agent Kola who traded her into modern slavery with no pay and very little food.

Adunni arrives Lagos to face more struggles. An abusive boss, big madam who hits her at the slightest provocation. Big daddy who is fascinated by everything in skirt and steals every opportunity to press himself into her. And a curiosity to unravel the missing Rebecca, a former housemaid in the house.

Adunni is every girl fighting to be heard and seen, pressing hard against the challenges and thriving against Rape, Sexual Assault, Child Marriage, Child Labour, Violence, Abuse.

The female characters in this novel hold some sort of shaky voices which was amplified by the author’s pen.
From Rebecca, who seem to be naive and watered by the lies of big daddy, to Ms Tia who knows what she wants but is slumped by the reality her husband kept away from her. The heart wrecking life of Khadija who tried to live but died finding a male child to “cement” her stay in her husband’s house or the rich and glamorous big madam who has got wealth but remains married to a jobless cheat who hits her and fills her with plenty rage and sorrow because she fears what society will say. These women at different points in life either try to give voice to their lives or deliberately give it up.
In all, you choose how loud you want your voice to be heard just like Adunni.

I refuse to die.

I refuse to die again, but the searing pain from the tablets she swallowed is targeting my left groin. It feels like a bulldozer tearing through everything in its path, squeezing the very soles off the foundation of muscles that support me. Breathing is difficult, so I crawl silently, one tiny step after another, to hide behind the fundus of the uterus, at the junction where it connects with the fallopian tube. I am determined to survive.

The last time I died, I was naive and ignorant. I didn’t put up a fight; I surrendered after just one pill, causing her to almost spill her intestines into the toilet. She defecated until I became dehydrated.

Last night, before she took the “termination” pills, I overheard them say, “We are not ready for a baby.” But even though I heard their words, nothing prepared me for the ruthless severing of my budding life, the violent uprooting from my implanted spot, and the blows I received from a certain drug I would later know as mifepristone. What a brutal fate.

There’s a rule that says we must wait two years if one of us dies at the hands of our parents. But Mother Nature had other plans, punishing me by exposing my convalescing self to the world too soon.

Who would want an ugly baby with burnt hair and dark lips? I haven’t yet recovered from my first death. I needed time to heal, to bloom and flourish, but who am I to defy Nature’s commands? I found my way back into her womb after an intimate night with her partner, the one she calls “babe.”

Mother Nature says I have a purpose to fulfill on earth, and my arrival will happen through this couple who seem to always blame each other for my presence.

“Why didn’t you take emergency contraception?”

“But I insisted you use a condom!”

“I pulled out!”

“…Your pull-out game is weak.”

Two strange people.

Here I am, again, holding on for dear life to the myometrium. It’s a better choice, even though the muscles slap my cheeks and pummel my heart when the uterine contractions begin. It’s still better than having Mr. Mifepristone and his accomplice misoprostol tear me apart and drag me out disgracefully.

I am hanging on because Mother Nature says I have a purpose. Please, pray for me.

#diaryofjournals