Eleven years ago on this day I was huge. My ankles resembled over stuffed sausages, my cheeks hid my eyes.
I sat on a wooden bench in the Trust Hospital of Accra, sandwiched between many others in my bloated condition. The front door of the lobby was ajar, the power was out and air-conditioning was a far off dream. I wore chaley-wote (flip flops) and a multicoloured boubou, a tent dress that held me and my little one in, barely containing us as the sweat trickled down my back, my arms, my rotund tummy.
The sounds of the busy street permeated the hot waiting room, honking of cars, shouts of street hawkers and clouds of gritty dust made their way in amongst us.
After the lobby-wide morning prayer where we were all asked to stand (health status permitting), each of us was sent from reception to another cash kiosk where your appointment must be paid for in cash before joining the queue. Once paid, with our receipts in hand, the hours passed while we waited, some in silence, some clicking their teeth in exasperation, some chatting quietly, brought together by their shared predicament. So many women, so few doctors.
I was a volunteer and the only non-Ghanaian, non-African, non black lady in the building, apart from a Russian nurse that I’d heard about and had only seen once in my numerous pre-natal check-ups. I was not anonymous. But I was used to it.
Nine months before that, I had come home from a typical day at work. For me it meant moving around within the bustling craft market, sitting and chatting with the wood carvers, the painters, the trinket pushers about their needs and opportunities.
I took a tro tro into Osu, and walked up from the main road to the compound I shared with my husband’s family and various tenants. 54 of us in all.
The ladies sat out front of the compound gate, by the small shop that had been set up by a tenant, selling cokes and sweets and tiny plastic wrapped portions of peanuts and sugar and laundry soap powder.
They watched me approach and called to me. When I reached the group they were debating and jostling and laughing and it seemed I had provided the subject of their conversation.
“Kobi mami, (the name given to me affectionately in Ghana, as the mother of Kobi)
“Your face is looking tired”
“Yes look at her eyes!”
“And the walk. It is true.”
Me, clueless: “Good afternoon. What is it?”
In unison after a few giggles, “You are pregnant!”
They were all convinced also, in that African way, that it was a boy.
It seemed absurd. The consensus out of nowhere, the thought, the idea. Despite not having felt very well over the past few weeks, I shrugged it off. Later in the evening, we sat in our ‘chamber-and-hall’, the two rooms we had in the compound, connected by a doorway with a curtain, the overhead fan incessantly whirring above us. I turned to my husband:
Me: “Can you imagine, Aunty Maude and Josephine were outside with the other ladies when I came home today. They all said I was pregnant!”
Husband: “Well I’m not surprised. You are. I can sense it. It is good news, no?”
Me, with my cultural baggage fully in hand, wondering a.) how the hell does everyone know but me, and b.) how can this be my husband’s reaction, if it is indeed true?!
I headed to the pharmacy the next morning for a test. They explained that if you bought the test, they would do the test right there, and off they sent me to the grimy little bathroom in the back hallway. They took my urine to another room and came back with the positive symbol on the little stick. And there it was. They told me in a matter of fact way.
“Please the test is positive.”
“You mean I’m really pregnant?!”
“Yes please. Do you need a receipt for the purchase?”
So I walked back out into the baking heat of the street, dodging between the open gutters underfoot and the hive of life around me. I felt in a bubble. I could hear nothing. The world was just me and my news. The truth that it took a test to convince me, but that my African in-laws had known by intuition.
I was at once amazed, frightened, ecstatic and numb. My baby boy was on his way.
In the hospital on January 8th, 1999 I was very aware that my due date had passed and that there were dangers involved. My little kicking baby was in the breach position, and after giving my ribs a bashing for the past couple months, had not turned inside me.
My choice to stay in Ghana through the pregnancy haunted me on that hospital bench on that hot dusty day. What if I’ve compromised my baby’s chances? But he was a Ghanaian baby. His father wanted us to be here. His aunty, my angel Aunty Maude was a nurse and she wanted us there. She had always made me feel secure, calm. The hospital was a two minute walk from the compound, at the foot of our road, right on the main strip. It was a highly recommended hospital. But today there was a power outage. There were not enough doctors. The patients, like cattle, filled the hot pen. What was I doing?! Taking this whole African thing too far. I wanted to call my mom, so many worlds away. I had chosen a life that held no familiarity, no reference point for everyone I’d known back home.
So this was me, and I had shuffled up the benches over the hours, closer and closer to the door of the doctor’s office, until it was my turn.
I went in and was greeted with the doctor’s broad smile. He seemed tireless.
“Madam Holli”
“The boy is stubborn! I thought we’d have seen you in the delivery ward by now!”
He helped me up onto the rusty examination table and felt around with his warm hands.
“Ok, madam. He has not moved. The time is late. We will have to do Ceserean birth. You choose – tomorrow or the next day? I will make the booking.”
Oh my God. I had never envisaged a full operation in Ghana! The hospitals, the risks! The absurdity of choosing your child’s birthday?!
“Please, can my husband and aunty come in to the surgery? Will I be awake?”
“Sorry, no and no. This is a serious surgery and visitors cannot be permitted. They can visit you afterwards, during visiting hours.”
I knew right then this was not going to be like any of the C-section births I’d heard of in Canada. What happened to bringing your own music in, hubby with you, holding your hand, family in the waiting room to burst in a few minutes after the birth?!
My pulse pounded in my temples. There was no time, no other option in sight. I couldn’t run home to Canada. I’d have to trust this doctor and face this within the framework I found myself in. Baby nudged me back out of my paranoid frenzy, from within.
Me: “Tomorrow please. What time should I arrive?”
Doc: “You have to stay now, I will have them book you into the ward”.
I’d need to bring my own bed sheets, toilet paper, drinks, food, soap and towels, on top of all the normal things like newborn diapers and a carry home outfit for the baby….
My head was spinning. I told him my house was very close and I needed to go get my things.
So I walked back out into the baking heat of the street, dodging between the open gutters underfoot and the hive of life around me. I felt in a bubble. I could hear nothing. The world was just me and my news.
I was at once amazed, frightened, ecstatic and numb. My baby boy was on his way.
To be continued...
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