THE BABY we NEVER HAD

We still remember that day vividly as though it were yesterday. We tried to take a step but the pains in the pit of our tummy hindered us from moving a muscle. The only muscles we could move were those on our face that worked together to portray anguish. We tried yet again but we were stuck. We bent our back involuntarily and moaned lightly. Our younger sister got perturbed and in the split of a second, we saw her move from exhilaration to exasperation.“Aunty, what is happening to you?” she asked with a shaky voice. (For some reason, our younger sisters call us Aunty).We had no answer for her because we were asking myself the exact question. She turned to our mom, “Mummy, what is happening to Aunty Pre?”Our mom quickly cooked up an answer for her:“Don’t worry, Mum. These things happen to women who have children. Don’t worry she will be fine.”The answer our mom quickly cooked didn’t feed our little “Mum’s” curiosity. As we kept on in our futile attempts to walk, we could see the tears welling up in our sisi’s eyes. Our tummy was in turmoil. It was like five invisible scissors were being used to make horizontal cuts across our belly. After the drama caused by pain during our first birth experience, this was the second time that pain was causing us to stage a play un-willfully. Worse still, this time around we had a bigger audience. Our audience consisted of friends and family members like us who had come to spend time with students at the Presbyterian Secondary School, Mankon.It was the official visiting Sunday at the boarding secondary school located in Bamenda, the capital city of Cameroon’s North West region. We cheerfully went visiting with our Mom, Dad, younger sister and girl number one who was a 9 month old baby at the time. Little did we know that our cheers will quickly turn into tears.That morning, we had noticed we had an unusual menstrual flow as we took our bath in preparation for church service. Sorry if we get a bit graphic here… the blood from our lady parts had very dark clots in them. We had never seen anything like that since we hit puberty. Though we didn’t feel even the slightest pain, we were distraught. So instead of heading first to church, we went to a mission hospital- the same hospital where we had our first baby.We were greeted at the hospital by some light-mooded Reverend Sisters who suggested that we got admitted. We told them we had an issue that needed urgent attention. They told us since it was a Sunday, there was no doctor on duty. They asked us to register at the hospital and get admitted as an in-patient to be seen on Monday. We felt their suggestion was senseless. What was the use of lying on a hospital bed for several hours with no doctor to see you? Was we supposed to depend on the air in the hospital wards for answers/healing?We probed them further and discovered that the hospital pharmacy was closed and there was no hope of getting any treatment if needed on that day. We advised myself and hurriedly gallivanted from the hospital premises and boarded a taxi to church for service. We were strong, sassy and sanguine and we were not going to let any misguided hospital staff put us down. We entered the church, clad in an old-fashioned pink skirt paired with something in the form of a blouse and found our way to the back pew where we sat with other mami pikins (nursing mothers). We were upset that we had missed our favourite part of the service, which was Praise and Worship yet we sat hoping to enjoy what was in store from us.From service, we went to our parents’ home where we lodged at the time. Mr N. was at his work station in a neighbouring country, Equatorial Guinea. In his absence we lived with our parents to evade loneliness. We narrated our strange blood flow to our Mom and she didn’t consider it anything serious. We took a nap that afternoon in preparation to visit our sister, Faith, fondly called “Mum” at her school. When we woke up from the nap, we felt blood gush out of us. Still, we felt no pain. So we cleaned up, put on a pair of trousers (pants in American English) and a glittering blouse and off we went to see little sis.We had not foreseen that our visit will lead to this session of agonising. There was we at the school campus flanked by fellow visitors, struggling to do a simple thing, struggling to take a step. As we saw the tears in our sister’s eyes, we knew our situation didn’t look good. The pains were excruciating and we were determined to go somewhere and see a doctor. We staggered to our Dad’s car where we managed to find comfort in the back seat. We drove off and made the first stop at a nearby private hospital with a huge building that stood out on the street where it lay. The nurse on duty asked us to sit and she struggled to take our temperature and do the regular things they did to patients. By this time, we were shaking, twisting our body and turning and the bleeding was getting heavier and heavier. Our uncontrollable shaking caused the thermometer that was put in our armpit to fall to the ground and broke into pieces. Ooops! The nurse was enraged and she didn’t hide it. We had more pressing issues to deal with than sooth an angered nurse over a broken thermometer. Our bleeding had thoroughly soaked the pad we were wearing and had begun to soak our trousers. A quick inquiry revealed that there was no doctor on-duty. We had to leave for another hospital. We zoomed to a nearby clinic. This time, the building was not outstanding but lost in the array of buildings on that street. As we staggered into the house with pale-looking walls, we were hopeful that our solution lied within those walls. Hope stared at us in the face when the nurse at the inquiry desk announced that the Doctor who doubled as a Gynecologist was present. We queued up to see him. This time, blood was permeating our trousers and painting the hospital bench. It was a sore sight.As we switched to a bench closer to the doctor’s office door, drizzles of blood followed us. Does embarrassment come any worse than this? Finally, we got into the doctor’s office and after he asked us a few questions and got some answers, he unquivocally announced, “You are having an inevitable abortion.” Those words… we lack words to describe how those words entered our ears then our heart and our whole being.He took us to another room and had us lie down on an examination bed where quick check into our uterus took the maddening pain away. He told us we needed to have a D & C to properly remove the remains of the foetus in us. He said he was not going to do that until we brought a deposit of 30,000 CFA Frs ( about $60). We left and in a few minutes, we were back with the required deposit.For the first time in our life, we went into a theatre. We saw the doctor introduce strange instruments into us. We let out loud screams. At the end of the day, we went home with the knowledge that we had lost a pregnancy we never even knew existed. We were shell-shocked and utterly devastated.Moreover, we were mortified to have been found pregnant when our first baby was just 9 months and still feeding on breast milk. How could we have been doing “that thing” when our baby was still so young? We felt guilty about thinking that our pregnancy was too early. We blamed myself for the miscarriage. Maybe we worked too hard. Maybe we were too stressed at the time. Maybe we could do something to prevent it. Maybe, just maybe!Till date, the thought of having lost a baby via a miscarriage lingers with us. No, it wasn’t just a foetus- it was life, a real person, our baby, our seed. We wonder if that human being was a boy or a girl. We wonder what he/she could have looked like. We miss our baby. We never had a chance to play and laugh together. The years pass and we think of how old our baby would have been. We never got to celebrate milestones together. If it is true that all babies lost via miscarriages go to Heaven then God please take care of our baby. Tell he/she that we love him/her.In our last two pregnancies, we have had the constant fear of having another miscarriage. Each time we felt an unusual pain, we shivered. Carrying a pregnancy till the end is a huge reason to be thankful. One too many women don’t carry their pregnancies to the end. And when that happens, they are deeply hurt. If you loose a baby, please take time to grieve so you can heal. We found these words that could provide some comfort:

Babies lost in the womb were NEVER touched by fear… They were NEVER cold…NEVER hungry… NEVER alone and importantly ALWAYS knew LOVE – sayinggoodbye.org

If you have lost a baby before, please share your experience in the comments below. You could be anonymous if you wish but please don’t be silent. Someone out there needs to know that they are not alone. Someone needs to hear your story, our story. Thank you for reading.