Triggered Explosive

I didn’t have the slightest idea what parenting was all about even when I found out I was pregnant. I used to baby sit my nephew, severally, but even this did not teach me much aside from tying a diaper the right side up and feeding an over-playful toddler. If it went too far, and I couldn’t take any more, I’d throw in the towel; take the messy child to his mother and slump him on her lap. ‘Chukua mtoto wako!’ I’d angrily say in exasperation, and be glad I didn’t have to care if he ate or not. ‘He isn’t my responsibility and after all, his mom can give him nyonyo and get this feeding thingy over with already’. I would think to myself.

I was with my husband, (who was then my boy friend) at a clinic in Buruburu, where we went to have the pregnancy test done. We had convinced each other that home test kits could be wrong, despite the fact that these very same kits were our solace when we wanted to test negative. Now that we really wanted a child we could not afford to use the ‘wrong’ test kit.

The clinic attendant handed me the results shortly and proudly announced that I had tested positive. “It’s now your duty to take care of this child” she said. At that moment, I felt the weight of impending doom fall squarely on me. My duty? My responsibility? Hell no! It was unthinkable and I did not want to think anymore.  Mixed feelings were rushing disrespectfully though me, and for a moment there, I lost control of myself. Me? No longer a young girl? Now in charge of another human being? Whoa! Whoa! Just wait right there. That was a little too much weight for me at a go. I needed some air. Outside the clinic, my husband and I kept stealing knowing glances at each other. We knew we were ready for a baby but its presence suddenly seemed unwelcome and it took me quite some time to accept my fate.

Every morning before going to work and every evening before retiring, I would pull out the result slip from my drawer in my bedroom (I still lived with mum then), read the three-sentence contents, then fold it and carefully return it to its hiding place. This went on for a month, when I finally accepted I was indeed carrying a growing human being inside me. Time dragged too slowly and I decided to occupy myself. My extracurricular activities increased since aside from long walks, I measured the size of my belly every day, wondering when it would start to show. I went from buying bigger jeans, to painfully letting go of my size 8 tops and my skirt suits began looking like they belonged to a small sister I never had.

Finally I ballooned months later. I struggled to adjust to my new walking style and spent millenniums practicing in front of the mirror before leaving the house. Kids around the estate just had to confirm my size whenever I walked past them. They would scout around me whispering into each other’s ears. They probably were betting at my time of explosion. They would gaze at me as though they were counting down seconds on my triggered atomic bomb and their playing only resumed as soon as I was completely out of sight.

At this point I ate like a pig. I craved everything edible on sight; from paw paws to pumpkins; even the groundnuts that Rasta ate to cool off his marijuana and bhang mix intake looked scrumptious to my eyes. His green stained teeth did not nauseate me even once. My favorite though was pawpaw which Pesh is now allergic to.

After a lot of impatience, time was finally up and I was almost due.  I became an ant at the last minute, scrubbing floors and almost cleaning clean dishes. I had no clue I had episodes of false labor with all with all the busy bee duties till one night at 4 am when a sharp pain sliced right through me. I was startled awake  and the first thing I checked was if I was bleeding. I wasn’t. I had slept over at my boyfriend’s place so I turned to see him sleeping peacefully to my untimely labor pains. The pains were on and off and when they were on, hell was on the bed. I writhed in pain as I turned from side to side, trying to bear them. At one point they were too much I decided to awaken the sleeping log, who mumbled something about going to hospital, then turned and continued snoring. As the pains increased, I opted to wail instead of keeping it all inside me. It reached a point where I began hitting the log, not to wake him up but to keep the pain from making me go insane; he never woke up anyway.

Suddenly at 6am the pain was no more. I was completely worked up and the only thing was sure of was that I wasn’t sure I would go through the real labor the following week, leave alone parenting. I turned to my side I fell into deep sleep.

9 thoughts on “Triggered Explosive”

  1. J’aime vraiment votre article. J’ai essaye de trouver de nombreux en ligne et trouver le v?tre pour être la meilleure de toutes.

    Mon francais n’est pas tres bon, je suis de l’Allemagne.

    Mon blog:
    rachat credit simulation aussi forum Rachat De Credit

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