I put my tiny son, Naasei, on my chest and wept. He was so tiny he could even fit in my palm. He was so helpless, As I wept, I thought to myself, why me? Why me? I felt forsaken. In 2000, I migrated to the United States. I had been married for six years but we had no children, we had been trying for years. Then, in 2006, I conceived. How joyous that felt. I immediately started shopping for baby stuff, and when I learnt of the baby’s gender, my shopping intensified. I meant to give my child the best of everything. Anytime I passed by a shop window and saw cute boy stuff, I would stop to see whether I would buy it. I had started to put up a nursery in the house and had started to look up boy names. I had been starved of children for so long and I wanted to enjoy my son. I dreamt all day long about him, I looked at my scanned images of his almost fully formed body, how he would be handsome and intelligent, he would love football and race cars. He would be successful, my pride and joy. It was as if I woke up early every morning because of him. I called my mom every day to get tips on motherhood, on what to expect, on milestones, what would it be like when he was six months, and oneyear-old and all the milestones after that? How different were boys from girls in terms of raising them? I felt fulfilled. It was a normal pregnancy. Then, I went to work one day, and I felt a gush of water, woosh, just like that. They called 911, and I was rushed in an ambulance to the hospital. After two hours, the doctor said, “we have to take the baby out in order to save you.” And that’s how it happened. At twenty-two and half weeks, they told me they couldn’t save the baby. They left the baby onmy chest for 20 minutes, and then he passed, took his last breath, then they took him fromme. I wept. And wept. I looked at my hands, they were empty. The women in the maternal rooms just near mine, were probably holding their babies to their chests, were counting the fingers and toes of their babies, were assessing them to see who they looked like, pride on their smiling faces. The mere cry of a newborn baby pierced my heart to its very core. One woman had just been discharged and was going home with her twin children, amidst congratulations from the health staff. And there I was, empty handed. Empty. I spiraled into a very dark hole, unable to wake up in the morning, actually not wanting to wake up in the morning, and yet unable to sleep at night. It felt so unfair. Food did not taste like food, I letmyself go, unable to comprehend it all. It was my first experience with mental breakdown, depression. My first experience with grief; like real grief. What a traumatic experience it was. I wouldn’t even wish it on even my worst enemy. I had lots of questions for God. That’s when my faith journey really began. Heartbreak 30 The Birthday Journal
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