I am vexing big time.
Don’t ask, I repeat, don’t ask me who vexing don epp. And this vexing is not based on logistics either.
These days, you see, almost on a daily basis, stories that defy logic and medicine in the human interest and metro pages of most newspapers.
If it is not about how a woman carried a pregnancy for 18 months, then it is for 24 months. Truth is it is not possible because the placenta would be hard pressed to support a baby for that long. At other times it is about how a fifty-plus-year-old woman delivered twins without even her next door neighbour in the yard knowing she was pregnant.
You get a text message informing you of the delivery of twins by Mrs blablabla. Hia, Mrs blablabla that you saw about two weeks ago very unpregnant. You join in the joyful charade but the doctor in you would not let you be. You notice that, while the umbilical cord of one baby is shrivelled and has dropped, the one of the other baby is still fresh. shoo….dem be twins na? Tell that to the marines or to the birds whichever you see first. Mrs blablabla comes out to greet guests and her swag and hip swing nawa. And two babies passed through that pelvis in the last 48 hours. Shakira…come and see oh hips haff started lying.
You run into Mrs Okokobioko in the neighbourhood supermarket and she is all smiles. She tells you that at last, she has achieved the long sought pregnancy. She says it took prayers and some herbal medications. You ask how far gone she is… 8 months she says. This my doctor’s mind again and a quick observation follows. The expected weight gain is not there, her face looks full but her tummy doesn’t look anyway near 8 months. As if by intuition she asks, my stomach? Don’t worry….the pregnancy is in my waist. How about doing an abdominal ultrasound scan? No way… no machine can pick the pregnancy, it is spiritual. Doctors self, the spiritual controls the physical but una no go gree. Ok oh, I haff learn something new, pregnancies are no longer carried in the uterus.
So when is your EDD or expected day of delivery for the uninitiated? The maternity home would call and tell me. It’s all spiritual. My own is to be ready and I have bought all the clothes he would need in his first three months. All his? Yes na… It is a male child, that’s what I chose. They are spiritually powerful and make you have whatever sex you desire . Hmm, only that eh dey cost oh. Males are more expensive but then pikin better pass money. They haff come, they haff entered us and they are staying gidigbam. If I say baby and you add factory, na you sabi oh.
They are a product of our collective hypocrisy. And so long as there is demand suppliers would and must abound. So long as society continues stigmatising adopted babies, baby factories and miracle centres for babies would continue to exist, adapt and upgrade to make their ‘products’ more acceptable.
How else but to pass the prospective or intending mother through the charade of a spiritually induced pregnancy. In some cases, both intending parents are conned while in other cases they know and assist in perfecting the act. The baby must be seen to have been delivered by the mother so that ‘village’ people would be convinced that truly the baby is their ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ and not of unknown ‘blood’ and ‘heritage’.
Let’s seek to change our negative views of adoption and adopted babies and put an end to the degrading things and medically unethical processes women are passed through in a bid to ‘deliver’ a baby that is acceptable to us as our own blood and heritage.
Help stop my vexing. Abeg!