It was Friday morning and the pain was so intense that all I could do was groan. Nte was frantic trying to get a nurse to help me.
Mum walked into the labour ward to a scene of mayhem. Walking past me, the patient, she went to Nte and said, “Hi baby is everything alright.” Regressing to a 7 year old school boy whose nanny had upset him, Nte responded “Mum, it’s the nurse, she’s refusing to check Yomi.” Again, ignoring the patient, my mum turned to the nurse but before she could get a word out, the big madam who was threatening heaven and high water, looked pleadingly and said “Mummy, please he has been shouting since, but there is nothing wrong with her, the machine shows there is nothing wrong with her. Infact let me show you.”
The nurse rushed to put on her gloves, and for the first time in 6 hours, physically examined me. I was 7 centimetres dilated. In the words of James Brown, Princess of AFRICOW, she was shockk. She ran past mum, hit a bell, called for a wheel chair, and got a second nurse to check me. I was 9 centimetres dilated and my water had broken.
There was no time for apologies or explanations, I was whizzed to the delivery room.
The delivery room was chaos part 2. Bids was my trained and prepped birthing partner, mum was supposed to be my doula, (I wanted to give her a fancy title) and Nte was the father of the child. That was also the order of priority for who would be in the delivery room with me. Bids knew the playlist, my preferred birthing positions and my desire to start off in a birthing pool. She was the first to be thrown out.
As I got ready for the baby to come out I put a pillow on the floor and knelt down. Mum started shouting in Yoruba, “My love please stand up, what’s the matter?” I explained “Mum, Pauline (my NCT Coach) had explained why lying on your back to give birth was the most painful and dangerous option for women.” I will explain the history of birthing positions another day. Mum continued to talk me off the floor and onto the bed where I still insisted on kneeling.
Suddenly I had this urge to push and scream at the same time. So I did. “Yomi his head is out, well done, good girl. Nte what are you doing on that side? Come over here, this is where the action is.” I panicked, “Mummy no, let him stay here, I don’t want him to be traumatised!” I still wanted to have sex after this experience and all my mystique was going out the window on this bed. “Nte come jo!” Mum insisted.
He listened to her and moved towards the rear.
I had erroneously opted for no pain intervention, I don’t know who gave me that evil advice. I was now screaming for an epidural. “Yomi it’s on it’s way” mum lied. Then instructed the nurse to play along with the lie. African mums can never be defeated.
“Yomi look its 8:45, your father-in-law said this baby would be born before 9am, come on let’s do this.” In my pain I still managed to ask, “because that is how people give birth in your village?” “Come on baby, push.” Mum pressed on.
Something welled up in me and I screamed. I screamed like something was leaving me. At 8:49am, Henry was born.
This morning, my mum and I stood together teary eyed as we listened to Henry give an acceptance speech on behalf of all the newly inducted prefects. My mum said to me “Yomi, it all started on a Friday, look at the time.” Through tear filled eyes, I looked up, at is was 8:45am. I looked down at the new Head boy, Henry, my son.
