THE CHAT ROOM : PART 11 – 20
PART 18
By Temi Akintade
The baby looked tiny, hairy, and pinkish. I was dark-skinned and so was Tayo. I wondered why she was pink but the doctor said it was the normal colour for babies.
The first time it suckled my brea$t, it almost felt like the n!ppIes were too large for the mouth of my eight months old.
Initially, they had deliberated on putting the child in the incubator but they realized that my baby was healthy, and looked like a 9-month-old even though she was tiny like the size of my arm.
But I didn’t like the fact that she cried almost every minute for breast milk. At first, I didn’t know if it was me or something different came upon me but I felt nothing towards my child.
The nurses had called it postpartum depression. But I wasn’t even sure if I was depressed but Frank and the nurses said I was.
On the day I was discharged from the hospital, mama Judith came and Frank gave her the baby. Frank told me that the doctors want me to go for rehab at a psychiatric hospital, or put up my baby for adoption.
I chose the adoption but Frank wouldn’t hear of it. He insisted that the baby would be adopted by him and mama Judith.
The doctors agreed and discharged me. Nevertheless, I started going to see the psychiatric doctor for rehab.
On one of the days I came to mama Judith’s house from the psychiatric clinic, she was rocking the baby and trying to hush her. As soon as I sat on the sofa in her sitting room, she dumped the child on my lap.
“She is hungry. Feed her.” Mama Judith’s nose flared and her eyes were wide. She looked like she was ready to beat me up. But I wasn’t deterred not even by my daughter’s cries.
“If she’s hungry then give her what everyone is feeding on!” I snapped and place the crying child on the sofa.
“You must be out of your mind. When do babies begin to eat real food? Answer me! Did your mother feed you with rice and swallow when you were a baby?” She yelled. Her children began to troop in and out to spy on me.
I looked away, unbothered.
She yanked the child away from me and nursed her with baby milk in a feeding bottle. “Imagine that you were ignored by your mother when you were born?”
I shrugged. I knew she was about to begin her endless sermon about loving and nursing my child but I didn’t feel anything for the child. “It’s no fault of mine that I feel no atom of love towards her.
All I feel is irritation or how else am I supposed to feel?” I could feel the nerves in my head threatening to burst.
“Let me ask you a question.” The child was already sleeping. She placed the feeding bottle on the table beside her and adjusted the sleeping child on her lap. “Paulina, tell me.
How did you feel all those years when your mother never bothered to show some atom of love to you before she died?”
Gradually a frown found its way to my face. Painful pictures of my mother and our past together flashed across my mind. I could still see the disappointment etched deep in her face when I told her about the pregnancy.
I could remember all her outrageous outbursts to me all those years that I had thought that she didn’t love me.
“I felt bad, angry, rejected, and neglected.” My voice shook, I was on the verge of tears but she spoke.
“That is exactly how this child feels right now. Rejected by you, neglected by you, unloved by you, her mother!”
My mouth gaped with surprise. “I didn’t know.” Tears started forming in my eyes by now.
“Do all that your mother was not able to do with you and make the best out of this girl. Whatever depression your doctor says you have.
Kindly reject it and begin to act like a normal person. You love your child! You have no depression! Say that to yourself!” Her voice was firm.
I repeated after her and collected the baby from her. For the first time since I gave birth to her, my heart squeezed in love for her.
I began to notice even the tiniest details about her like her curly black hair, her brown eyes which I wasn’t sure who she got that from.
But I noticed that she wasn’t as pinkish as she was when she was firstborn. She whimpered and opened her eyes. I was aware she was watching me but I was wondering what was going on in her mind at the moment.
“What will you call her?” Mama Judith asked. Her voice was thick with emotions.
I glanced at her. “Hadassah.”
A small drown appeared on her head. “Frank named her Joan.”
I didn’t care about what they named her. All I cared about was what I named her because she is mine. “Her name is Hadassah,” I said firmly this time and pressed my lips on her soft head inhaling the scent of baby powder and cream.
I was a fool to have neglected my child. How could I have hated her? “She is mine. And mine alone.” I told mama Judith as though reminding her of the obvious.
“You see there are many things that you must learn when it comes to motherhood.” She said.
I smiled. I knew them all. “Like cooking, taking care of my child, and teaching her how to love God, right? I know them!” My smile faded when she shook her head. The curly hair on her head shook alongside like bushes along the bush path.
“First thing you must learn is, your child is not yours.”
I frowned. If it wasn’t that mama Judith has been helpful, I would have walked out on her what does she mean by that? “What do you mean?”
“Your child is a gift from God. Scriptures say children are gifts from God. And what do you do with gifts?
You treasure them. Imagine I gave you the gift of a car to use until you become rich enough to buy a new one what will you do?”
This was new. I kept thinking hard about what to tell her. “I will take care of it.”
“Good. This child is God’s gift to you. You are to take care of her in the way of the Lord because she comes from God.
Many parents fail to know this and that is why their children end up as a nuisance to society and God.
Another thing you need to know is, you must love and know God for you to be able to teach your child how to love and know God.”
I sighed. She continued.
“You cannot be a Sunday Sunday Christian and except your child to know God. Have a relationship with God, then God will in turn teach you how to build a good relationship with your daughter.
Thirdly, begin to pray from now that God should teach you all that you need to know to become a good mother to your child and he should provide for you, the resources that you need to take care of your child.
Finally, begin to pray for your child’s adolescent phase because that is the age that the d’vil gets them the most. The d’vil got you in that age. And you will not want her to make the same mistake you made right?”
I nodded. “I’m so grateful for this. Thanks so much, ma. I never knew that motherhood entails a lot but I promise to do all that my mother was not able to do for me.”
That night, for the first time since I gave birth to Hadassah, I slept well with my baby by my side, on my small bed.
THE CHAT ROOM : PART 11 – 20
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