In joy and in pain
It’s a boy! Ladies and gentlemen, please join me to thank the good Lord for adding another male to Ghana’s population. Ablah has delivered a baby boy.
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All along, I knew I was going to have another girl. And indeed, each scan attested to that. So I bought lots of pinkish stuff. With the final puuuuuuuuush by the elderly Matron of the clinic, I heard, “good job! It’s a boy”.
Almost immediately, my pain vanished! The excitement was way too much! I had asked the Lord for a boy. Scans showed a girl. And now,…
I know you may be asking, “is he bouncy?” Yes, indeed, he is. In Ghana, every baby is bouncy, or? Hahahaaa. I had him on Friday last. Let’s call him Nii for now. Once his sister is Naa, as surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, we will name him Nii.
My mother-in-law has started calling him Nii Friday already. I won’t be surprised if the name remains so. You should see him lying peacefully in his crib as I type; pinky-pinky boy. Himself and I … we don’t have a choice than to wear him pink stuff. Already bought, cannot be returned.
Labour was more painful than my first. I used to think the first cut was always the deepest; I have debunked that assertion. Whaaaaaaaat! I didn't have much pain until my water broke. The pain was so bad that in the middle of one contraction, I imagined that I walked away from my body.
I tried to picture myself walking at the Independence Square, free from the trafficking worries of life. I had a lot of cramping under my belly, not radiating from the top down or in my back. I felt like I was having one long contraction that felt like the worst menstrual cramps I had ever had.
With time, it was much more intense and it was almost all in my lower back. Every time a contraction would come, my lower back would slowly begin to seize up. It was kind of like the muscles inside were slowly twisting harder and harder until it became almost unbearable, and then it would slowly subside.
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It was so unlike my experience with Naa Atswei. The pain was like having your insides warped, pulled, and clutched.
Ooooh, I dramatised! I told myself I wouldn’t “display”, no matter the pain. But when my threshold for pain was crossed, I had no choice than to express myself like any woman in intense turmoil would. But the moment Nii Friday’s head popped out, I, like a lousy actress, had forgotten my lines.
Whilst lying in pain on the delivery table, one nurse who was a witness to my role from start to finish teased when she looked at me and asked, “how many babies more?” I could have given her the slap of her life there and then. What a question to ask in the middle of such agony!
Well it’s all over now. Obodai is more excited than I, already discussing how the two of them will go out and spend more time together than he’s done with Naa. It’s all good! Looking at my baby, his tiny fingers and toes, his innocent face and cries, I feel like having another not too long after weaning him.
But I am not growing any younger. I have heard how complicated some pregnancies could become for women my age. Well, if the Lord blesses me with another, why not?
In my excitement, however, I have one main worry – circumcision! I am dreading the act. Each time I think about it, it makes me cry. I’m not joking. I’m serious. I look at his “dingus” and I’am thinking, “what at all will happen if this foreskin isn’t removed?
Won’t it function as expected?” And oh, so many thoughts have crossed my mind.
Thoughts of my friend Kuukua’s son come to mind a lot … and it makes me more sad and scared. The “Wanzam” (local circumciser) who did the cutting did not crop the foreskin back far enough.
So with the passage of time, a new hood grew over his “dingus”. At age eleven, the boy had been circumcised twice. How barbaric!
Obodai becomes livid each time I register my displeasure at the necessity of circumcision. “Didn’t the doctor say he would be using the Plastibell Circumcision Device for the procedure? So what’s your problem?” I try not to retort each time he honks me down the way he does when I mention the way I feel about the pending exercise.
Fine, I’ve been told that babies do not suffer so much pain from Plastibell Circumcision. But the thought of my baby’s foreskin being cut longitudinally to allow it to be retracted to enable the head of his penis to be exposed, depresses me.
“Would I be able to stand there watching a ligature being firmly tied around the foreskin, crushing the skin against the groove in the Plastibell?”
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I can’t bring myself into imagining how the excess skin which would protrude beyond the ring would be trimmed off ... and how my baby would cry at the slightest change of his diapers because of the sore. But it is a phase I must face. This too shall pass.
Once a while, I think of how I would have felt if Obodai’s mother had refused to make him go through what I think is painful for any child to endure, and give thanks to the Lord.
Indeed, this too shall pass. My baby cries. If you will kindly excuse me, I shall be back next week.