My most favourite hobbies are reading romance novels and watching romance-based movies. I have read and watched dozens of such books and movies. I love them with the same passion that I love certain Nigerian delicacies like pounded yam served with well-prepared nsala or egusi soups that have assorted cow entrails, cat fish and okporoko (stockfish) in them.
Each time I read or watched such books or movies, I usually wonder whether some of the things written or acted in them actually took place or happened to real people. Sometimes too, I keep on assuming that some of those strange circumstances would never happened to me.
What about you? Do you feel the same way, too?
That was my belief until I strangely became a mother-in-law to one of my former boyfriends named Roland, whom I had had a baby for. Does this not sound strange to you? It might, but it’s true!
Roland was my first serious boyfriend after two previous failed relationships. Both of us were from the same state in Nigerians, Delta, but from different towns. While he was a native of Issele-Uku, I hail from Asaba.
I fell in love with him when we were in secondary school. He attended St. Michael’s College (now Adaigbo Grammar School) in Ogwashi-Uku, the headquarters of Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State, while I attended St. Martin de Porres (now Olomina Girls Grammar School), Onicha-Olona in Aniocha North Local Government Area of the same state.
I still remember vividly the very day he ‘toasted’ me, as if it were yesterday. I remember everything about our relationship because I loved him so much. In short, the love between us was as hot as pepper.
It was on the occasion of one of my school’s annual inter-house sports competition, which I participated in fully as a runner. He was then in class five (now known as Senior Secondary Three, SS3), while I was in class two (Junior Secondary School Two, SS2).
As our relationship blossomed, he fired me a heavy shot and I fell; I became pregnant for him. All my friends, both at home and in school, did all they could to make me terminate it, but I wasn’t ready to do so. Some of them, especially those who had become abortion specialists, even offered to prepare, free-of-charge, the concoctions that would do the job of expelling the baby that was in me, but I declined their offers.
I was afraid to procure an abortion for two major reasons. One, because my mother had always told me stories of the dangers and implications of abortion, especially to the girl or woman procuring it. And two, I’ve heard stories of girls who died while trying to get rid of their unwanted pregnancies. Since I made a mistake of becoming pregnant, I decided to suffer the consequence of carrying the pregnancy to fruition.
The factor that encouraged me the most against procuring an abortion, was the attitude of Roland, his parents and my own parents. In addition to my parents and Roland’s parents being against abortion, Roland, unlike some of the boys I knew, never, at any point, denied the ownership of my pregnancy nor suggested for it to be terminated.
As the pregnancy began to grow to the notice of most people, I decided to leave the school before the authority of my school could discover my condition and expel me disgracefully.
When it was time for me to be delivered of my baby, I dropped it as easily as the biblical Hebrew women – without any problem or complication. It was an interesting first-experience.
As soon as my baby-boy was old enough for me to be left with my mother, I returned to school, though not to St. Martin de Porres, but to St. Roses Girls Grammar School in Ogwashi-Uku. My mother gave me that second chance and I didn’t hesitate to grab that opportunity with both hands.
Story By Juliet Anazia, a senior staff nurse with one of the Federal Medical Centres in Delta State.
