There is a migraine in the background of everything I am holding in and I can sense the rhythmic pounding of a welder working right outside my bedroom window synchronising with it. The recent trigger must be the reason behind the migraine but I don't feel like diving into that abyss so I am looking for the sun in this dark fog.
The day is unfolding and I am looking for the words to express what went on on a Saturday like this seventeen years ago. I remember waking up heavily pregnant ready to annihilate the laundry that was piled up in a sisal basket two feet from my bed. It being my second bump, I was aware that I was in my last days but not necessarily my last day.
By one pm, the laundry was almost done and my contractions were knocking at the gates of my birth canal. I beared them as I finished with the muddy shoes. It was a rainy and cold season but for some reason, the sun shone the entire day and by sunset, I got to keep the last ray of it in form of my only daughter.
This I did alone and to this day, I still find how she was born unbelievable.
My eldest had taken three days of intense labour to accept the invitation to breath on his own. He was born tired and in one of the largest public maternity in the country. I was naively expecting the same with her and so I wasn't expecting her to show after just five hours of labour.
I didn't even read into the urgency of the suitation when my water broke at around two in the afternoon. I just took the necessary steps to put up with the indescribable pain then I would get back to whatever I was doing. My womb emptied itself as I did my untesils then went ahead and took a warm shower which in return made everything worse.
At around six in the evening, I was getting the idea that whoever was being born had decided the three days their elder brother took was too long and they were ready to push their way to this chaotic world. So my twenty year old self and her zero experience in midwifery took to the only three seater in the her humble abode and birthed her daughter there.
I remember how the floor turned red and my two old tees securing it's flow from the gap at the door. To the neighbours wondering where they heard a newborn wailing. To being guided by my own instincts through the immobilizing fear. To then requesting for help when it was all done.
And now, she turns seventeen today.
I have no words to describe the journey here as it hasn't been smooth but I am really blessed to have her in my life. She single-handedly helped me stay sane last year and I am now hoping to help her heal her experiences with boarding schools.
It is her resilience that still leaves me in awe. How she mirrors me in the most beautiful way. Raising a daughter is like pruning a rose plant. There are thorns yes but there also the roses themselves. A symbol of strength and fragility in one!
wambuku w.
