She visited me in the office with her year old beautiful baby girl, she had designed her hair with bright colored ribbons, and the girl who had just started walking was making noise with her trumpet shoes, the little girl so excited and playing with her doll. When the mother entered the office she gave me a big hug, sat down and started weeping, she cried well, I allowed her to weep as I gave her tissue upon tissue to wipe her tears. I carried her daughter who looked on unimpressed as the mother wept like it was the rupture and she was going to hell.
Bottom line is 21 months ago she was all set to abort her unwanted baby, she had inserted God knows what, and when it failed to abort, a quack doctor was arranged quickly to finish the deal. Her good friend who knew of the situation and who feared this lady may die contacted me and begged for my intervention. I am a Catholic and a proud anti-abortion crusader, but I don’t go stalking people or doing holier than thou things. Hence I had my reservations about going to the home of a young lady who wanted nothing but take her baby off. But my friend was a bit persuasive and finally after attempts to get her to see me in the office failed, I stood up, against everything I stood for and paid a courtesy call on this lady, in her make-shift place a day before the kiosk gynecologist was going to prod her nether regions.
I spoke with her, the resolve was rife, she almost drove me away despite agreeing to see me earlier. In the end, after many many hours of talking, after listening to long winding narratives and after applying all the skills and theories and therapies I could think of we managed to skip the first quack doctor appointment. We put in place measures for sustenance, started selling orange in the evening and MTN credit 2 cedis. We started seeking out spiritual support more, a Filipino priest in my church was instrumental, following me on our visits. We prepared for our baby’s arrival and soon we seem to be getting happier by the day, I had to play defacto husband and ensure ante-natal was done…I was happy.
To cut a long story short we have a daughter now, a lively little girl, her mother says she is her best friend and hates herself so much for being so close to aborting her. She came to the office to express her gratitude, though she ended up crying the whole time. When she hears the daughter’s laughter she feels like a monster to have wanted to “murder” her.
I promised her I was going to share her story, she is not rich, life has not gotten miraculously better, her family are still somewhat disappointed in her, and she still hasn’t met the social expectation of getting married before having a child, she still doesn’t have a responsible baby father, but one thing is certain, she has her life, she has her adorable daughter and she is hopeful and thankful that she has her…she didn’t plan for her, but now she understands her daughter is a gift, the most precious she’s ever had.
If you’ve had an intentional non-therapeutic abortion already, that’s okay, just make sure it is not repeated. Understand that as autonomous as we are, we frankly do not have the right to determine whether our children should live or die, fact that they grow in your womb doesn’t make you their creator or their landlady who can choose to eject them at any time; even when people are ejected from homes they are not expected to die, this ejection however has one aim in mind, to end life. Let’s protect the sanctity of life by taking a stand against deliberate, malicious non-therapeutic abortions. There is no such thing as an unwanted baby, if they are really unwanted then never ever ask your child to get you a bottle of water from the fridge, even they were not wanted initially, they eventually get needed just as the Creator intended. Let’s hail this woman for her strength and I hope this write up encourages someone to keep their baby even if the church asks her to sit at the back bench for not being married and being pregnant.
Yours truly,
James Mawuli Gawu.
