Semignorance is a word I made up that describes the state of incomplete knowledge about a situation or thing which gives false confidence and a false sense of security. Semignorance cost me the life of my first child.
When my dead baby was brought to me, I made my mum take off all his clothes, I needed to make sure he had no deformities. He looked so handsome, so fair skinned, very healthy looking and muscular. I felt his soft skin and it didn’t feel anything like dead. He was so cute but definitely not prepared for the kind of suffering i[we] subjected him to. He was buried same day.
News went around fast; the cry baby has lost her baby and almost anyone that knew me would have concluded that i wouldn’t survive it.
God matured me overnight and gave me His peace that excels all thoughts. I was so brave that my parents, the doctors, nurses and friends were all stunned. My mum kept a critical eye on me; she was later to tell me that my unnatural reaction kept her very uncomfortable. I wasn’t crying at all, that was strange because i used to cry about and for every little thing. Many of my visitors had tears in their eyes as they came into my room to see me but i comforted them , telling them that God will give me another baby. I still remember the look of surprise on their faces. Most of them quickly wiped their eyes in disbelief. God is wonderful and that’s all i can say. How else could i have done that?.
Till date, i can’t say why i didn’t cry or how it happened. I guess God made me numb because it was too dangerous for me to cry with the big abdominal incision that ran from the center of my navel up to my pubis. Of course it was an emergency C/S in Nigeria.
I remember my husband’s eye being as red as mature hibiscus flower and as swollen as an over ripe tomato. { i hope he doesn’t read this}. He tried so hard to conceal the fact that he has been crying all the way through, but i still noticed and felt for him. He had lost a friend, his first blood, the baby he has been communicating with for some time although from the womb. I could tell that my husband’s voice excited my unborn child.
The first day i cried was the day my mother in law came to see me in the hospital, something just gave and i cried uncontrollably. My mum said to let me cry that it was ok for me to cry instead of keeping everything in. I cried again the day we went back home from the hospital. I couldn’t stand the sight of the nursery even though my mum had packed most of the baby things up. It was so painful, i missed my big tummy with nothing to show for it.
I was able to cope with the help of my mum, husband, mum in law, friends from the congregation and my siblings. My mum is a darling , she nursed me back to health without judging or blaming us.
We all went to stay with my parents and my husband went to work from there for about three months. My husband was very supportive, always tried to cheer me up, my dad kept reminding me that i was still a baby and shouldn’t worry about anything. I still had my bad days but all in all, God helped me to heal with the help of my support system.
Dear friends, i had a lot of strange dreams, i had some bouts of regrets, i have lessons to pick out from my experience but please allow me to talk about these in my next posts. Thank you all for being there for me. LOVE U ALL!!