PREGNANCY

I promised to dedicate my next post to pregnancy, so this is it! When you get married, especially in this part of the world, everyone expects to hear the cry of a baby in nine months time. In fact, that topic rules most of the prayers for the marriage. However, nobody exactly prepares you for what you are going to face in order for those prayers to be answered.

Being pregnant for the first time, you are introduced to a different world altogether. This new world is governed by endless set of laws. Some of which you will have to learn to obey such as avoiding some drugs,strenuous exercise etc. Others you are forced to obey and you can't help yourself such as annoying cravings for particular meals, and complete dislike for some other meals. From the terrible smell that plagues you, mettalic taste, morning sickness, night sickness for some others, nausea, loss of appetite, crazy appetite to eat for some others, among many symptoms in first trimester (as far as I am concerned, that is the craziest trimester for a first time mum) to the more stable second trimester and finally to the third trimester characterised by real tiredness even to breath. I haven't mentioned the weight gain which had people go from 'you've put on some weight', 'you look really healthy', 'you're glowing', in first trimester to "fine woman" in third trimester because of how really "fine" your face especially your nose have become.

One thing pregnancy taught me is: Motherhood is sacrifice and it begins the day you get pregnant. A lot of sacrifice goes into being and staying pregnant, it just keeps getting bigger at birth and the years that follow.
Throughout out the period of being pregnant, I saw my mum in a different light, and now I have learned to appreciate her more. Like our soldiers who we regard as heroes, because they sacrifice their comfort and many times their lives, and many make it out with battle scars, every mother is a hero!

IT'S A BOY!

JOHN OSAMUDIAMEN OMOIKE

Let me start by apologising for being AWOL for so long. I've been busy being pregnant and nursing thereafter. Not a good reason I guess, but that was it until a burglar broke into my house and left with my laptop among other things, then I just had to wait to replace it. Today, I decided that I couldn't keep waiting so I rose to the challenge of using Hubby's tab(not exactly used to all these modern stuffs). I must say wasn't that bad.

Back to the main gist, on the 19th of August, yours truly's status changed from new wife to new mother of a handsome baby boy. I'm really grateful to God for his mercies and grace through that interesting journey. On that note, I want to dedicate the next set of posts to pregnancy and birth and I would love to hear your stories especially first timers.

Once again, congrats to me!

BEEN A WHILE

Wow! it's been a whiiiiile. I have had my hands full and I promise to keep you all posted on what these things were with time. I am back hopefully for good. So much to write about but not today. Today I chose to just say hello to my people, how una dey?

HE HITS ME BUT I HAVE TO STAY

I've had cause to do a lot of thinking over the years about wife battering and I have made my conclusions based on some of the real life examples I saw and heard. These conclusions have remained with me for a while and I have shared them with a few people. Today, I choose to share this because of a particular case that had remained on the airwaves and print media since 2011. Last week, a verdict was given and the accused was sentenced to death by hanging. After watching his response to the verdict, I told myself that my conclusions were right after all. Again and again, these things have the same pattern, why then do we choose to remain in it?

This is my conclusion: A wife who is being battered by her husband shouldn't let it happen twice. She should leave. Leaving doesn't mean the marriage has ended, just leave that house, relocate, go somewhere else. A man who is violent has demons temporarily or permanently living in him. I can not understand why someone chooses to remain in the same house with so many demons. Leaving is for his own good too because it might make him sober enough to genuinely seek help from God. Secondly, you will save him from committing murder by leaving. If you do not leave, He will kill you unintentionally, or you will kill him in self defense unintentionally or he will throw a very pregnant you down the stairs, you will miscarry so you would have lost a child.
If he kills you, and it is proven that he had ever battered you before that day, the law says it was intentional, thus he will die by hanging. If you kill him, the law will charge you manslaughter, then you can very well spend the rest of your days in prison waiting and praying for one governor to come and offer pardon to some prisoners. Some women have become prayer points in the area of child bearing because of being battered while pregnant and are holding unto God for a miracle because the natural way has been destroyed.
A lot of women say that they stay because of their children, I say to them those children wont appreciate that when they become orphans because he killed you, or when they have to live with the knowledge of their mum in prison for killing their dad, or when our airwaves will be parading either of you for murder and they have to face their friends. Please leave that place for a while.

THE WAY TO A MAN'S HEART.

There is a popular saying: ''the way to a man's heart is through his stomach''. How true is this statement? Well I have never doubted my husband's love for me. I know he loves me not necessarily because of food which by the way I cook well. However, the events of the last weekend inspired this post.

PENNE ARRABIATA

So my friend used this very lovely pix as her display picture on BBM and my love for food was awakened.

The thing is I really love pasta and so I am always excited to find new ways to make and eat them. I asked my friend what the food was called and if she was able to swallow it (you know some of these our western dishes aren't exactly African taste bud friendly). She replied it was an Italian dish called 'Penne Arrabiata' and that it was quite spicy so eating wont be hard on me. She further explained that in spite of the 'big name' it bears, it is basically pasta in tomato sauce.

"NOT ONE OF US"

                                                            www.namywedding.com

In these parts, the moment you tell your folks you have accepted someone's marriage proposal, the very next question is: 'Where is he from?' Nigeria is so multi-ethnic that getting married to someone from the same state doesn't exactly mean you are getting married to one of your own. However, that could be more tolerable than another state entirely. We have very crazy and unimaginable ideas about each group and it's terrible to note that, this ideas worsen when it involves groups that share states with us. So the girl's parents say a big NO because the men from that region are flirts, while the man's parents say NEVER because the women from that region boss their husbands (trust me some reasons are so unreasonable, these were the most reasonable ones I could pick for examples).

I cannot even begin to imagine the drama involved when one of them isn't Nigerian. I think the drama spirals down very chaotic scenes when this said non-nigerian dares to be 'white-skinned'. I remember once, I was in a car when a friend of mine was telling her mum about our friend who happens to be an indigene of her tribe. So the gist got to the point where she got married to an Asian, the mother just turned and looked at her daughter, shook her head in sadness and then said "eow! dat one don loss, hmmmm". This our friend still lives in this same country with her parents, the guy doesn't, so who is lost? but that was very typical so we just laughed it off.

                                                           www.romancemeetslife.com

Well, I am from a tribe called Oron in Akwa Ibom State, and I am married to a man from the Benin tribe in Edo state. It takes 6 hours (all conditions being equal) to travel to or from the two states, and there are 4 states, a number of towns and villages which I have never taken time to count and maybe 5 to 6 bodies of water (I really think there are more) between them. So I really did an INTER-TRIBAL marriage. The beauty however is, that my people and his people just wanted God-fearing spouses for their children and so didn't exactly care if we came from the moon. They just took turns to advise us to learn to cope with each other knowing we were from different parts, and as such shouldn't expect too much. Thanks to civilization and the God factor, a lot of the drama involved with inter-tribal marriages are reducing, my prayer is that it comes to a zero level, AMEN. Let's hear your inter-tribal or inter-racial experience or that of someone close.