The Agony of Child birth.

Oni Afolabi Ajibola

‘Honey! Honeeey!’ She groaned. I pulled the bedspread over my body and my pillow, tightly closed, giving me some sexual feelings. Folaabiiii! She called out. This time loud and hard. She had never sounded like that since we got married ten months ago. I was wild awake now. ‘What is the matter?’ I asked Ibukun, my life and love. ‘I think our baby is coming’, she replied.
I rushed out of bed picking a spoon to open the door, but later found the keys on the stool. I had in my campus days swore never to cause her pains, but now she is in pain all because of my insertions. I opened the door dashed to open the car, starting and revving it immediately. I beckon the gatekeeper to open the gate. It was 6:13am; yet, the sweat coming out of my body is a little more than 11 litres.
I was back in the bedroom to help her to the car and she was already on her feet, but obviously in great pains. ‘Big girl’, I said and she replied with a smile. ‘And I didn’t want to do it but you insisted it’, I chipped in. I was happy that she was smiling in pains; at least it may reduce the pains. ‘Look at the way you are sweating, are you the one carrying the baby or me?’ She queried. ‘Both of us’, I replied and we both laughed.
As we got to the car, I kissed her lips and told her how much I loved her. I reminded her of her beauty and her invaluable relevance to my life. She gave a positive reply. It took us another ten minutes to enter into the car because of her legs. I took the driver’s seat and watched her uncomfortable in her seat. She started groaning again as I drove carefully through the gate even more careful with the pot holes and bumps. We were in Miracle Hospital, and I cried for the nurses to come to my aid. To my greatest surprise, no nurse was forthcoming. I ran to their desk asking for a stretcher or something, the nurse snapped back that she should be walked in. Devils! Murderers! I cried out in my mind. I dashed back to the car pretending as if nothing had happen. I helped her to the desk and she was at the mercies of those witches.
‘How many contractions?’, the nurse asked. She replied accordingly, obviously in pains. ‘Go and walk up the stairs for thirty minutes’, the nurse advised. ‘What?’, I thundered. The look from the nurse was asking what my business was in the matter. So, I answered; ‘I am her husband.’ She replied rudely, ‘I don’t need it; you may as well advertise it on the TV for the world to know.’
I need no Prophet to know that she is a witch with seventy-two Demons. I politely walked off her presence and obeyed her instruction. After walking for fifteen minutes, I was very tired. I pitied my wife considering the weight of the potty-belly and the pains she was going through before the exercise which intensified every second.
After twenty minutes of the life- threatening exercise, she seemed tired. So, I advised that we have a rest because I was exhausted myself. The nurse saw us standing. She thundered like the latest madman in Oluwalogon town, ‘Do you want to abort your baby? You this lazy bone! You cannot order her to work! Nonsense!’ After the downpour of insult, I reluctantly asked her that we continue carrying our cross. That was after I reminded her of my love for her and a beautiful kiss planted on cheek.
Thirteen minutes of walking, God provided water from the rock and the nurse’s response was that we should continue the walk. They eventually called her into the delivery room, so I thought, only for her to be out still heavily loaded. ‘They only checked the width of the door and it is still half-opened’, she said hiding her pains. ‘They should open it wide a little now’, I replied. ‘Let’s walk’, she said.

After five minutes, she started having series of contractions. She was led to the delivery room and she requested that I stayed in the delivery room. They half-striped her and I was very shy, especially when I was told that a male will be in charge of her. I almost told him to close his eyes.
She was groaning in pains as they told her to push. The nurses took turns commanding her to push, without allowing her to rest. On one occasion her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. I imagined how many minutes break I took when the omega is coming out of my anal opening. I felt her pains. A nurse shouted, ‘Doctor, let us tear this thing.’ ‘Tear what, Na cloth?’ I sapped back. The nurse gave me the most disgusting gaze of my life.
I asked God for forgiveness and prayed for intervention.
She pushed very hard this time. ‘That’s my girl’, I shouted to the notice of no one. Her eyes wide open, her forehead thoroughly muscular, her sweat thicker than blood, her hands shaking, her nose bony, her veins ready to burst out of any angle, breath ceased, tears on her thoroughly red eyes, the blood, the stiff neck, the enlarged ear, the erected hair and, then the cry of the child…

Written BY Afolabi Ajibola Oni

2nd July 2008
On OAU Campus