My Phobia
Many of you must have been wondering where I have been. Well, I recently had a baby.
I never in a thousand years thought I would ever be a mother. For some reason, pregnancy and labour scared me shitless. It became a phobia that I nursed and allowed to get the best of me.
As a result, when I got married in 2015/2016, having a baby just wasn't in the books for me. I never thought I would be a mother. I thought I could never love a child more than I love myself, because for me, that was the only reason any lady should want to be a mother.
The Pregnancy
Early this year, when I discovered that I was pregnant, it was a battle for me. A battle between removing the foetus and keeping it. I just didn't feel ready. I needed to be emotionally ready to bring a child into the world and I just wasn't feeling ready.
At about 9 weeks, I decided to inform my parents because that was the only way I wasn't going to abort the foetus.
Weeks flew into months, I had the worst first trimester, spat all through the entire 10 months, vommited like there was no tomorrow, heartburn from beginning to end, the nausea was epic!
As the due date approached, I became very scared. I wondered about a lot of things... If I would die during childbirth, what the child would look like, if he would be deformed (well, I wasn't exactly faithful to my prenatal meds), I wondered how having a baby would affect my business.
At some point, I actually thought it was a calabash inside me, because I just could not bring myself to believe that a human was growing inside of me...
But in all of this, one thing remained constant, I just wanted the baby to be fine even if it meant me not being fine.
The Delivery
On the delivery day, I walked into the theatre thinking, this may be the end of me or the beginning of a beautiful new chapter in my life.
When the baby was born and the doctor asked me if I would like to carry my child, my reaction was, "Ewww, God no! Please have him cleaned up. Thank you."
I felt nothing! Then it hit me, I am a mother! I panicked! How did this happen? I never even thought I would ever keep a pregnancy let alone have a baby.
For the first two days, I was too tired and the scary part was, I felt no emotion whatsoever towards my baby. I was beginning to feel that something was wrong with me. I felt sad. It felt as if I wasn't capable of loving my own child.
The Healing
And then it changed! The nurse came in on the third day to take the baby's vitals and she had a worrisome look on her face. The way I jumped out of the bed was enough to tell me that somewhere deep down, this was love in its purest form.
The baby was fine apparently, I was the one that needed healing. I kept thinking what if something happened to my child, I won't forgive myself for not showing the poor baby some love.
And in that moment, I felt love like I have never felt before. It was an overwhelming feeling.
That was the moment I got over my worst phobia. I would do this over again just to feel the way I feel now. Being able to love another more than you love yourself is the most selfless feeling in the world and I wont trade that for anything.
I love you baby Olamishile.
