And Then Mama Said ... by Tumi Morake

Author:Tumi Morake
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781776093359
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2018-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Lesedi was born in 2012, three years after Bonsu. This pregnancy came as a nice surprise. I had gone in for blood tests for insurance purposes, and was told I was pregnant. It was great news in a dark time in my life: I had just buried my mother two months before, and I was still in shock.

This was a busy and sometimes punishing pregnancy. I was emotionally exhausted and happy to keep busy so as not to dwell on the great loss I had suffered. However, I also wanted to be in the best shape for the baby, which presented me with multiple challenges. For one, I was in my first trimester and on a roadshow travelling between nine provinces in three weeks. It was one of those gigs that had been booked months in advance, so there was no getting out of it.

I also experienced severe morning sickness. The only food I could keep down was Ghanaian cuisine, mainly fried fish, shito (a sauce made from smoked fish, chilli and palm nut oil) and kenkey (a West African sourdough that is basically fermented maize wrapped in corn leaves). Everything else I had to eat with caution. I puked on planes and lived on ginger biscuits. I seemed to be surrounded by the one thing that made me sick as hell – coffee. Honestly, this pregnancy really highlighted how much coffee people consume, especially in the corporate world I was working in.

Luckily I had the most generous client, who upgraded me at every hotel and insisted I join his team in the airport lounges. He had just lost his son in a motorcycle accident, and I had just lost my mother, so we clicked. He was a thoughtful man, the kind I like to call ‘user-friendly’. Although he was really holding himself together, his loss had clearly broken him. I would notice him doing his best to hold on, but losing his grip in quiet moments.

The man moved me, as I could not imagine the loss of a child. I had a child and another on the way, and the thought that you cannot protect them from harm scared me. Connecting with other people’s pain is powerful. It somehow eases yours, making your experience feel less lonely.

In this situation, the moments of good laughter were made so much sweeter, like catching deep breaths in between suffocating pain. When showtime came, we made our presentations with finesse despite what we were going through. We did what needed to be done.

I was still doing gigs by the time I was as big as a house and ready to pop. It helped me cope with the pain of losing my mother. I was on top of my comedy game and addicted to the stage. I loved it; it made me feel more alive than ever. This time I got myself a doula so we could try for a VBAC – vaginal birth after Caesarean. I was told any healthy pregnancy had a good chance of ending in a VBAC, so I figured, why not?

Rosalia was amazing.

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