Shortly before the lockdown, before many of us even knew we would be on lockdown, I took my younger sister to get implants done, for family planning.
She’s in her mid-forties.
Why did I take a grown woman to get family planning?
Because she and her husband don’t have sense.
Today, they have six boys, as in six children; ages 16 to 3 years but more to the point, her husband is a maniac, a sex maniac and she, well, she must also like it but most importantly, my sister is not smart.
She is a little slow, if you know what I mean. She didn’t get much of an education because…well, she is slow. She’s not mental, just slow; which is why our parents couldn’t even get her to learn any skill even though they enrolled her at a hairdressing salon when school failed.
Her husband had travelled out of state for work in Abeokuta. He is an Electrician and someone had asked him to come and wire his new house, so he went to do the contract.
It was the following week that we heard that there would be a lock down and so he decided to come back home, since the place he was working at would also be shut down.
So, why were we hiding to do family planning?
The man is a mad man! He forbade her from any form of family planning, so we did it behind his back!
I don’t much like my brother-in-law. I would tell you that I was quite surprised when my sister brought him home and said he wanted to marry her; he seemed to genuinely care for her and I was happy for her.
Before we knew what was going on, my sister had dropped three boys in close to three years! fiam, fiam, fiam and it didn’t look like labour was a problem for her!
I was like, what? ‘Do you spend all your time on your back?’
She was just smiling like an idiot! That’s when I stepped in and told her about family planning!
She told her husband about it and there was no name he didn’t call me; from ashawo to home breaker. He accused me of wanting to paralyze his wife with vaccination and making his unborn children contact polio…he’s such a foolish man.
I said to him, ‘Papa Emma, after three children, you are still talking about unborn children? You haven’t heard of condom if you cannot let your wife do family planning?’
He told me point blank that he didn’t need my help!
Anyway, I waited for the right time and took my sister to get the injection. That’s how come she didn’t get pregnant for some time. I would assist her with money regularly so she could feed her children.
Then she stopped going for the injections or maybe her husband convinced her not to and piam, she became pregnant again!
See, this is my business because I sponsor many things for them. I help with paying school fees for three of their boys, yes, they go to government schools but who buys uniforms? Who pays for books? Even though they are government schools, we still pay, it may be a token o, but we still pay and if you are talking about three children.
Ehen so that is why I am involved.
Especially with the husband not being able to leave enough money for food.
My sister is the reason I am even involved in the first place; she said she needed money to do more business. How much was it then? About N10k, I supported her, again.
What her business was?
She sold iced block, minerals…biscuits, chinchin…small, small things, that at the end of each day, could hardly feed her boys; the business packed up after some time and why not? Where is the constant power supply to power the deep freezer to sell iced blocks? Or minerals? And the biscuits became breakfast and dinner most times when there was no food for the kids, so how could that have thrived as a business?
Many times, because of her husband’s idiocy, I would refuse to help but after sometime, I would be forced to help her because, she is not sharp like the rest of us and in fact after she once confided in me that her husband forced her to have sex many times, I knew I had to help.
I then decided that it was best to get her something more permanent, like implants, so I told her, whenever he travels out of state, we would go do the implants and she mustn’t say anything about it to him.
So, before the lockdown, we went to the family planning unit at LASUTH. I paid for her to have implants. How much was it? Just N1000 and it will last for five years!
I forgot about it until my sister called me a few days back, her husband wanted to kill her with constant sex o.
I said but that is his way na, what do you want me to do?
Abi o. You are laughing?
I can’t help her, she should woman up and take it, I just know that for once, this marathon sex as they say it is, will not yield pregnancy. For that, I am thankful!
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)