At the beginning, I was embarrassed. I was ashamed to be honest. I mean, what kind of story is this? How can I be saying, I sent out my house help because she got pregnant when I too had been looking for a child for such a long time and finally got pregnant?
You know, it sounds callous and if you had chosen to just go with the story everyone has been told, “She calls herself a Christian but she cannot forgive her househelp, she sent her packing…” then I would never have to tell my side of the story.
We live in a very hypocritical world, my sister, so far, nobody is asking, who is the father?
What does your husband have to say?
Is it true the rumour we heard about your husband sleeping with your maid?
No one has come to ask me. All I hear is, “Eiyah, poor girl, she worked for this woman and she sent her away just because she got pregnant. Is the girl not old enough to get pregnant?
“Shouldn’t a woman who claims to be a Christian help to set the girl up even if she would send her away?”
That is all I have been hearing since the trouble that began here a few weeks back
So thank you for calling to find out.
As you know, I have been without a child for many years. When I got married to my husband in church, I was older than him by seven years. I was..yes, I was desperate. You know. I am already 44 years old…so, yes, when I got married five years ago, I wanted to immediately have, even if just one child…but it did not happen.
I married a man who had no ambition. Well, I knew he had no ambition but I was doing fine in terms of working at a good company and over the years, I had a good savings. I also made small investments and bought a two-bedroom flat in one of the housing estates at Lekki…you know, where I live.
See, you don’t understand what it feels like when I go for meetings, old students, town meetings, family meetings and I do not have a husband or child to show that, yes, I have accomplished something. I did not buy a car fearing this would make men not want to marry me…I tried my sister. I tried because apart from everything, it can get lonely, many times. You will be telling yourself, let me have a husband so we can even be quarrelling together. Not so?
Three years after our marriage, my mother-in-law brought Rachel to come live with us. She said she was the grandchild of an uncle who had taken care of her and my husband when she had no one to help her and that if we could, we should send her to school.
Rachel was around 15 years old at that time.
I did not object.
I was an older woman who was looking for a child and wanted to please her in-laws.
Rachel’s school expenses fell on me, though not at the beginning. My husband was paying, but after the first session, he stopped and Rachel would come home to say she was sent out of class because of not paying her school fees. That’s how I began to pay it because this girl would be at home for weeks, with my husband claiming not to have money. I would step in and pay. After a few terms, I didn’t even bother asking him about her fees, I just paid.
Rachel began in JS3, so she finished after four years. In those four years, I know Rachel got pregnant once. She was in her SS2. At that time, I. honestly did not know.
What happened to the pregnancy? She removed it! And how did I know? She told me what she had done after she did it. When I reported to my husband, he said, “Thank God she did not die in the process.”
I said, “Won’t you ask her who was responsible? Won’t you give her serious warning not to go sleeping around ever again…won’t you show some authority over this girl?”
It became a quarrel and since I cannot claim to love Rachel more than her people, I let it go.
You know, this Rachel, I was never really close to the girl. She often gossiped about me with my mother-in-law. And whatever my mother-in-law said, my husband did.
My husband did not care about me. He would not come home on time, for a couple looking to have children, many times, I bribed him with money before he had sex with me.
Many, many times!
Sometimes, I buy shirts, or shoes, or …name it, to lure him home…this is after I have taken all the necessary drugs I had been asked to buy, o. Very expensive drugs, too. I did it because if I didn’t bribe him, then all my efforts would be in vain!
Anyway, back to Rachel.
For someone who had been looking for a child all these years, having another person tell you they got rid of a pregnancy was like being poured hot water. My blood boiled! She refused to tell me who was responsible for the pregnancy and even when I reported her to my mother-in-law, she said, “Children of these days are something else…”
I was concerned that Rachel’s presence in the same house would jeopardise my having children, especially given her harmful actions. I resorted to prayer, hoping to overcome the negative influence, but I was unaware of the extent of my in-laws’ control over my household.
My sister, hmmn. Story get k-leg.
You know, I finally got pregnant. That is…after five years of marriage. I will not even tell you what my eyes saw before this pregnancy!
But I got pregnant.
Then a few weeks ago, Rachel was cooking in the kitchen and began to retch like she would throw up. Because this is something I was also experiencing, this time around, I knew immediately she was pregnant again.
I went into the kitchen, switched off the burner and followed her into the room. “Rachel, you are pregnant again, don’t you dare deny it!”
I pushed and threatened and begged and when she refused to tell me who was responsible, I went about picking her things in the room and packed them into a Ghana-must-go bag, then threw them out.
Hmmm. There was nothing this girl did not say to me.
That was when she blurted out that my husband was responsible for the pregnancy!
Oturu gbeke!
I said, What!
But, let me be honest, I suspected it long ago.
There are some things you see briefly, and you say…ha, this cannot be true, they are family. Then you have dreams and you say, haba, this cannot be true, it is just a dream…
It turns out that, yes, they were relatives…but distant relatives and from what my mother-in-law said, there was nothing wrong in them having a child between them!
So, what it means is that the first, and second pregnancies were my husband’s. At first, I felt sad for Rachel because the way I saw it at first, she was a victim, she got pregnant at almost 18, and she was not exactly 18. Then at almost 21. She is an adult but I felt she was a victim. Victim or not, I had to look out for myself.
Of course, my mother-in-law was asking me to forgive her son and Rachel, after all, I claimed to be a Christian!
I thought my husband would have some sense in the matter, like even apologise and say, don’t worry, we will handle this…blah, blah blah…all he said was that if I sent Rachel out, he would follow her as she had no place to go and she was carrying his child. You know, it was a threat!
I told my husband I was not doing this marriage again.
He too began to call me names. He said I used him as all I wanted was to have a child and abandon him. I was like, see who is talking o.
You will not believe my husband cursed his unborn child. He cursed my pregnancy and said I would never have the child alive! His child!
I am heartbroken.
I am back to being alone.
I am praying I deliver this child safely and that there will be no complications. I have even registered at two hospitals…you know, just in case.
There’s no way I could have allowed Rachel to continue to live with us and since my husband gave a condition about Rachel, it was better he moved out, too.
So, I don’t know what will happen but I am a good person, I do not deserve what these people have done to me and with all the threats to my unborn child, it makes me have nightmares. I am just begging God to help me.