Managing unplanned pregnancies

 

Mama T. was 47, a grandmother, when she suddenly felt very sick one morning. She tried the usual self-medication that many of us normally start with. She did not get better and had to see her personal physician, who ran a series of test–malaria, typhoid, infections, etc–but they were either negative or insignificant. Finally, the doctor suggested the unthinkable: a pregnancy test. “Are you out of your mind? I’m 47 and my last child is 14,” she screamed. But the physician insisted because “there is no harm in trying.”

The test was done and her worst nightmare was confirmed; she was nine weeks gone. “But how could this have happened? But I was…” The inquest continued until she accepted her “fate.” She was pro-life which meant only one option: keeping the pregnancy.

But the taunts, expensive jokes and curious stares were too much for a chicken-skin like her. Moreover, she felt, at 47, she needed special medical care. So she fled abroad where she stayed for a couple of years.

Unlike Mama T., Mrs. I. stood her grounds. She was 43, a very senior officer in her company, when her colleagues noticed that she was putting on weight. The weight-gain soon metamorphosed into a protruding tummy. Her last child was eight and she had a reasonably-sized family, so the pregnancy was probably unplanned. Her consternated colleagues asked: “Mrs. I. what is this?”

To which she responded: “How can you ask a woman who lives with her husband that stupid question? What does it look like to you?” She successfully warded off her “tormentors” while bearing her “fate” with equanimity.

Unplanned pregnancies are quite common with married people. Young couples seem to be the hardest hit. You see cases where the difference in the ages of the first two children is a year. Sometimes, a two-year-old baby already has two younger siblings who are not twins. Sometimes it is planned, but most times, it is caused by “accidental discharge” (Police’s accidental discharge causes death; a husband’s accidental discharge brings forth life, interesting!).

Normally, after child birth, it takes a while for the woman’s cycle to resume. Ovulation always precedes menstruation. If the couple has intercourse just before or during ovulation, the nursing mother can unknowingly get pregnant while still awaiting her first post-pregnancy menstrual flow.

Couples across board experience unplanned pregnancies. Those who use artificial contraceptives do experience failure or malfunction of these devices. What makes theirs worse is that they put so much trust in the contraceptives and throw caution to the dogs. Natural family planning is safer and more reliable, especially if the woman’s cycle is fairly regular and the couple has developed the needed discipline.

                                

The only problem is that sexual urge does not write letters or send SMS before visiting. So when it visits unannounced around ovulation, couples do “gamble.” Sometimes they get away with it; at other times, the wives must go on the nine-month (plus/minus two weeks) compulsory course.

I ran into one of such couples at a friend’s house. The woman had gone on two extra courses to increase her haul to six children. On each of the two pregnancies, the husband threatened her with divorce, dragged her before family members and church leaders, but she stood her ground. Today, the two youngest children are daddy’s, not mummy’s, pets. That is one of the ironies of life. Even though I was meeting the couple for the first time, he continuously urged me to beg the wife to forgive him for the way he persecuted her during those unplanned pregnancies.

As I wrote some time ago, children are like goals in a soccer match. Whether it is a Lionel Messi’s spectacular, or a defender’s scrappy or “manual labour” goal, they all count at the end of the day. Planned or unplanned, children are children. My people have this chauvinistic but factual saying: “you do not know the egg that will hatch the cock.” Some of these unplanned children have gone on to become massive successes.

But, married or unmarried, keeping an unplanned pregnancy does take enormous guts. There are so many things to consider: the cost of raising a child and the quality time you need to devote to ensure proper upbringing. You practically donate at least 20 years of your life to a child and the more children you have, the more time you donate, with the donation being heaviest at the earlier stages when the standard of care is highest. Childbirth and upbringing of children can also be very disruptive of careers, educational and financial pursuits, etc. Sometimes, you worry about what people will say.

                                                                         

That is why I doff my hat for every woman (married and unmarried) and husbands who have been courageous enough to keep an unplanned pregnancy (some call God’s creations unwanted pregnancies) in a world where there are far easier options. I just pray that God will look at this heroic deed, forgive them their transgressions (where applicable) and bless them with the resources to cater for these unplanned children.

A note of caution from the physicians for those in their 40s and those with quick successive births; every pregnancy and childbirth carry some risks, more so for women who are over 35 years. So take prior precautions, but if it happens, take your antenatal and postnatal serious. Quick successive births carry risks both for mother and child, so women really need to be cautious, whether these pregnancies are planned or unplanned. 

                                                 

For those conscious of their weight, quick successive pregnancies mean you do not give yourself enough time to shed the weight you put on during the preceding pregnancy before a fresh one. When the weight piles up over time, shedding it becomes a herculean task, accomplished only by the most disciplined and determined. When you see the number of our mothers/wives who are overweight, you get the eerie feeling that shedding weight is not one of their strongest points.