Threatened miscarriages

They kept talking. It was their second born child. You could tell that they were friends. They brought her tea, she drank water instead. He drank her tea. Her heavy breathing continued,she kept talking in between. I could almost feel her pain, almost felt myself contracting as well.


The nurses were extremely friendly. I then remembered that I had wanted to be a dentist. Wonder if I would have survived through med school.If only the science part of my brain was in existence for starters.What is a science?

The baby came, I heard them call the time- 4.35pm.I could only picture what their faces looked like;almost pulled aside the curtain that separated us just to share in their joy (and put a face to their voices-multitasking). I didn't.
She had been 6 cm dilated last I heard and the next moment she was asking her partner to call the doctor.
"I feel like pushing," she had said.
"I am here babie, I am here," her partner kept responding as the doctors and nurses arrived-not enough time to wheel her to the delivery room.
She pushed around four times right there in the labor ward-baby came on the fifth.Her partner burst into tears,in a deep manly voice crying "my baby my baby" .The man I had heard calling another "kubaff" on a light note while on a call moments before.He was overwhelmed by the miracle of his second born child. You can never get used to it, I learnt from hearing him that day.
I shed a tear when I heard the first cry. It reminded me of the delivery of my son, my first baby and the joy in his father's eyes-how he planted a huge kiss on my face when he laid eyes on his son.

I was ready to birth my second one there and then, oh just for the joy of it all,but I remembered I was having a uterus in distress with pre-term contractions and about 17 weeks more of being pregnant if the Almighty willed.


Maternity wards are strange places.

You get naked and spread your legs apart for a set of eyes to peer at your formations as they check on the new formation growing inside you. Shaven or the glorious Karura Forest, cellulite filled thighs or no cellulite,fat thighs or thin, stretch marks or none, blackened inner thighs or evenly hued. It stops mattering because you need to be examined, save your child, save yourself. The thought of losing an unborn one is plain anxiety and distress, two in one.

Then the ward at night-the lights are on pretty much half the night and you know they aren't dim lights. Then your strange dreams keep you tossing and turning, on that one night when you have an injection aka drip stuck to you hand. You wake up at 3.44 am and gobble up the banana cake your mother brought you because your pregnancy hunger pangs strike with precision at 3.30 am like night runners and at the most uninvited of times. You try to toss and turn into being full-to no avail.
After filling up on the banana cake,your belly full with child notwithstanding, it finally dawns on you that you could ask the nurse on call to switch off your bed area lights.Yea at 3.44 am.Better late than never though.

Hospitals are strange places. They however frequently hold the healing we, on many days need.

The date was 10th January 2018.All day that day, it felt like the child I was carrying lay heavier than usual on the lower part of my belly.I was pretty uncomfortable all day but I dismissed it as the normal pregnancy shifts.
That night,into the morning of 11th January, at about 2.30 am,I was woken up by consistent contractions about 10 minutes apart.I couldn't assume Braxton Hicks.I checked myself into hospital by daylight. Turned out I was in pre-term labor.I was 23 weeks pregnant. My baby weighed a mere 718 grams he wasn't ready to face the world- God please don't let this happen! And He didn't, because He is a good God.The doctors did a good job at keeping him in there.I was in hospital for two nights,listening to women giving birth and being reminded that I would soon be the one on the table.

At 39 weeks, on the morning of 2nd May 2018-4 months later,I woke up and noticed some unusual discharge when I went to the lavatory.Since I was scheduled to go house hunting that day,I opted to put on a maternity pad just in case.(Those things are huge by the way for those who have never seen them.Too much information ey?Well I am here to give you information as you can see.) In the midst of all these gut feelings and precautionary measures, I also decided to finally pack my hospital bag and drive around with it.Again-just in case.
I got to Valley Arcade and parked on the road side to make a call to the agent who was to give me further directions on the location of the house I was to view.The moment I switched off the car,I felt a gush of warm fluid leave my lower belly.

My water had broken.

This threw me out of kilter for a short while. I called my then fiance and told him what was happening.He asked me to go to hospital.

In all irony,I was stuck between calling the agent and proceeding to view the house,(considering I had come all the way-and it made no sense in my head to just turn back) or driving like a mad woman to hospital lest I brought a human being to life in my Toyota Premio-not exactly your typical birthing friendly environment.

You guessed right(or wrong) -I called the agent.

Let me explain.

You must have gone through the gruesome process of house hunting.The continuous search for a house that will give you that aha feeling and you know right there and then that, that is THE house.Finding the right house is like finding the right partner..you just know IT IS THE ONE.Deep down I had a feeling this house would be it,even before I had checked it out.We had been searching and searching and to me,this one that I found accompanied by gushing uterus fluids,this had to be the one.It was a sign and nobody was stopping me.Additionally,I was not in any pain,at all. I finally got through to the agent and met him at the house.

You can guess that my greetings sounded something like,"Hi,I am Karambu. My water just broke.I got this though.Let's view the house".

I am sure he thought I said I was broke.He seemed a bit confused.
I wonder why.
Oh well.

I found a way to replace the maternity pad in the midst of that ruckus and comfortably viewed not one but two houses.As fate would have it,one of them was THE ONE.I took videos and sent them to fiance.It was THE ONE for him too although he did not like the idea of me perambulating Nairobi in my condition.
I was quickly done and supposedly started my journey to the hospital.Along the way,I remembered that I had not packed some few personal effects-my slippers to be precise.How do you walk around without slippers in the hospital?I therefore decided to go back to the house to pick them.The hospital was only a few minutes away from the house anyway.Once I got to the house,guess what,the uninvited hunger pangs struck.I was not in any pain still.I proceeded to make ugali and scrambled eggs and sat to eat.
A few minutes into my meal,as I was busy updating my 3 best buds in our Whatsapp group on what was happening, Rosemary called.(PS:Two of them had just given birth and the third one was still expectant.We had not formed a let's get pregnant at the same time association-it all just happened.I shall write about this some day)

Rosemary is my mother.She was the last person I wanted to speak to but she called almost daily during my last few weeks of pregnancy just to check on me. I picked up the call and updated her on the house hunt and my elation on finding THE house.In the process of chewing my ugali, my tongue may have slipped and I may have mentioned that my water had broken because the next thing I heard was her shouting asking where I was.(Damn that ugali) I told her I was at the house- eating.''I made Ugali and eg--..." Let's just say I was at the hospital reception in less than 10 minutes after that(with no labor pains but my ear was hot and certainly felt like it was in labor).She gave me a serious tongue lashing and I was asked things like "kama nakuanga sawa kweli"(if I am usually okay in the head really-loosely translated)
I could have sworn I had read somewhere that much as breaking of water is mostly an immediate harbinger of giving birth, if one's water breaks and no labor pains follow, one could wait out for a while before going to hospital-but that did not matter to Rossie.

I birthed our boy after 7 hours of manageable labor.
The labor pains came in dribs and drabs after being induced and I must say this here ladies- a big part of your labor experience can be managed by keeping a very positive state of mind.Your threshold for pain starts in your brain.Also,labor while standing or pacing,it is way more comfortable than lying down.
I can't compare the labor experience with my first son-19 hours to the 7 hours with the second.I obviously had the advantage of experience with the second.I was very intentional with what I allowed my brain to tell my body to feel through all those contractions.Of course you will scream at some point-don't get me wrong.
One of my best buds and her now fiance came and sat through that labor session with me. Another friend very very close to my heart was in that labor ward with me as well and actually came into the delivery room with me,and of course,my fiance-now hozband all sat with me.They were the ones whose hands I squeezed with every contraction, hozband was the one I 'insulted' during contractions for 'doing this to me' but this was the team that sat with me through one of the most memorable days of my life.

Today E turns 2.He is the most cheerful little boy.I honestly haven't had a difficult time with him nor with my first.They have both been relatively easy to take care of and both have very warm personalities.I cannot wait to see how the rest of their lives unfurl and I pray for a good long life to see the biggest chunk of it.

I am so grateful for,superbly honored and completely humbled by the gift of motherhood.

I pray for you dear man and woman trusting God for the gift of child(ren)..He will surprise you,quite pleasantly.Keep believing and doing everything you may need to do... and you know..having sex....remember to enjoy it.Wink!

Have a great day good people!