Shake Shake Pt.2 -A Pregnancy Story in Sierra Leone

I’ve watched a lot of television shows and movies where the ambulance is zooming down the street, but I never experienced this as a sick person. I’ve ridden in an ambulance back in college to take a student to the hospital as a Resident Director, but this was a whole other experience.

To paint the picture. I lived in Congo Cross, which is on the western part of town and the ambulance had to take me to a hospital on the eastern part of town. Yes, we have tar roads inside most of Freetown, but how well maintained some of them are is another thing and it only gets worse the further east you go. I felt every bump and was wincing every time the ambulance shook as it flew over some not so well tarred roads and potholes. The roads get narrower the more into town you go and the bed I laid on was swinging from left to right at every sharp right and left turn.

I have to say though the lady was cautioning the driver every so often by screaming: “take tem o, na potential abortion this.” Well I knew that was not the word she meant. I think she was going for “miscarriage”, but I was not in any mood to correct and I thought closing my eyes tightly as the ambulance zoomed to its destination was the best option for me. The lady tried her hardest to try to distract me with her questions, but honestly her screaming every so often my worst fear at the driver and the excruciating pain I was in, was all I could handle at that moment.

We finally came to an abrupt stop and I heard the loud horn blaring. Then I could hear the driver having an exchange with the gateman as they let us through the gates. We drove in and when the ambulance stopped, the lady took my hand and she and my partner helped me to slowly get up and get out of the ambulance. When I got down from the ambulance, I saw tents to the left and the ambulance lady started taking me towards it. I was disoriented, but still had to ask: “na ya den day see me?” (Is there where I’ll be seen?). She tells me that we have to register, and I nodded.

The tent was dark, but I could see two ladies seated at a tiny desk with some papers and book in front of them. The ambulance lady gave them a run down as I was hunched over, moaning in pain every so often. I could hear their sympathetic “mmhmmm” “aye ya” as they wrote down what she said. They then asked me as well to confirm all she said: name, how many weeks pregnant, where I live etc and then the question again: “u day feel am day shake shake?” I sighed and told them no and that in fact, thus far in pregnancy I’ve not felt the “shake shake” yet. They shook their heads and exclaimed how that was bizarre for how many weeks I was, but I kept quiet. Then they said something that I couldn’t quite understand, but the ambulance lady took my arm leading me away and said “leh u man handle danday” (let your man handle that). I’d find out later from my man, that they were asking to be given money.

We left the tent and made our way to the pregnant women ward and there we were accosted by an older gentleman who I believe was security. He wanted to know why we wanted to enter there so late and this was a pregnant women area and no men were allowed. The ambulance lady told him we were in an emergency situation and to let us by and to let my man by too when he came. We entered the area and we could see several beds with no bedsheets and women laying down or sitting on them in various stages of undress. The security tells my partner that he would have to wait outside until I was seen by the doctor. He went out to the waiting area and sat on a bench, but the door was open and he could still see a good part of the room. The ambulance lady was now shouting again: “udat day ya?” (who is here?) There were no medical personnels around. She kept shouting and finally a nurse came out from a backroom yawning. I didn’t even notice the door there until she emerged. She looked at us asking what the problem was.

They shared some medical papers, signed off on some things and the ambulance lady came to me and told me that they would now take care of me and she left. If I was altogether in my head, I would have given her a little something, as is customary because she really was quite nice and more professional than I’ve seen from others. I didn’t think about that though because the nurse descended on me and fired the same type of questions at me and even yes the “shake shake” question. Finally she turned towards the door again and shouted “doctor! DOCTOR!” I looked up to see that a man was in the room at a desk, his head down, sleeping. He slowly lifted his head, stretched his arms and got up and walked towards us.

His face seemed tired and disinterested in my case. He asked me questions and told me to come over to one of the few empty beds. He ordered me to lie down and he drew the curtain to cover the area where I was and he started his exam. He shouted at the nurse to bring him something and when she did he squirted a liquid on my belly and put the machine to my belly. I was familiar with this from my monthly visits with my OBgyn. We heard the beating sound and he said “there’s the heartbeat” and he said it sounded good. He continued other examinations and proclaimed no water broke and there was no blood. He asked me specifically where the pain was. He told me that they will do an ultrasound just to make sure the baby was OK, but we had to wait because the doctor who did it was not around.

I sat down again and now I was just in so much pain I was sure I was having contractions or something. Finally someone called my name and I looked up because it was a foreign accent. I don’t know why I was surprised, but it was a tall, white doctor. He told me to follow him and as I was going off with him, I quickly explained to my partner what was going on. He led me into a small room, with a small bed and the ultrasound machine. He asked me to lay down and asked me how good my English was. I told him, I spoke very good English and he proceeded with the exam. After everything he told me that everything looked good, the baby was fine and he also asked me where the pain was and without warning he proceeded to give me a slight hand chop on the upper left side of my back and I thought I was going to die. He told me “it could be your kidney” and it kept tapping all the way down asking if I felt pain. I told him it was only painful when he hit that one spot. He said Ok and took me back to the room where I was.

Again, the ambulance lady gave her the run down and I sat down in a chair hunched over in pain.

After speaking to the other doctor in the room the white doctor left with no word to me The nurse was seeing to a young lady. She was asking her a bunch of questions and I could clearly see that the young woman felt uncomfortable. The lady, based on what I could hear from the very public questioning, had some type of STD and the nurse was scolding her and asking her questions about her sexual history. I didn’t have time to fully process everything then and there, but it would be something my partner and I would discuss several times over the next months. There was no privacy in the place and the condition of the room, and the beds was quite concerning. My partner said he was near in tears when we walked in and saw the women laying down on those beds, some with just an ordinary lappa covering the beds. It lacked a sort of dignity and it said a lot about our healthcare system, but this was not surprising to me as I have visited hospitals in Sierra Leone many times and previously had an experience being admitted and wrote about it.

The doctor came up to me. Again, he repeated everything was fine with the baby and that maybe I was having some kidney issues. I asked what can be done and he said to drink lots of water, and he started running down some medications he was going to give me. This is when he invited my partner in because it involved money. I say this to say that one thing I noticed the whole time dealing with a lot of the medical professionals with my partner is that they assumed that my partner handled everything financially and also made decisions about my medical care. I realize it was the society we were in, but it was very telling that even when it came to MY health, they just didn’t think I held the power to discuss it with them. Anyway, we had to pay to get a few medications while there and then the rest at a pharmacy once we leave. He mostly spoke to my partner then and I let them handle themselves as I concentrated on my pain. The doctor asked if I wanted to make their site my primary care while pregnant and in my head I was like “hell no,” but I just listened as he went through the benefits of registering there and going to see them often.

I took one of the pain medications while there and then we left. We had to charter a Keke all the way back to the house and that journey was just as painful as the ambulance because despite my partner telling the driver I was pregnant and in pain, there was only so much the Keke driver could do with the bad roads. We finally made it back home and it was around 7:30am then. My partner got me settled back in the house and went to the pharmacy to get the medications. I was still in a lot of pain, so I took the pain medications, but refused to take the other unrecognizable medications. My mother, who is a nurse, always warned me about taking medications frivolously, plus I was pregnant, and I didn’t know how this would affect the baby. My partner told me to rest and see if the pain got any better because I wanted to leave and try to go to the hospital I wanted the ambulance to take us to now that it was daylight, but he insisted I see if the medication would work. So, I lay down, not knowing that this was just the beginning of my very long pregnancy journey.

——————————————————–******—————————————————-

Thank you for reading. So, as I said shared on my Kamakwie Princess page, I chose to tell the story this way for the first part, because it is one of the many ways, I’ve shared my stories in the past. I’ll continue the rest of the series though via the KP IG/FB page in various other forms: short stories, poems etc, Maybe I’ll even write another blogpost down the line.

While I have always wanted children, because I have such great love for them, I’ve never been particularly attached to which way I have children because I was open to adoption. It was in my plans to actually adopt a child in the next two years, when I got this little surprise (I still plan to by the way). My whole pregnancy, despite my personal health issues, which are not common pregnancy issues, I thought it was important to share what I did feel and experience. I usually keep certain parts of my life private, but there was a point in my pregnancy that I kept asking why more women did not talk about how crazy this whole ordeal was, with or without some of the challenges I went through. They say you have to be the change you want to see, so I am leading by example.

I want to convey to people that just because something has been happening since the beginning of time, doesn’t make it any less extraordinary. I told one of my best friends that I was a big feminist and woman’s advocate before, but now, I am worse. Haha I realized during this time that men can only figuratively understand but will never get it. When I discussed the lack of understanding by men with my mother, other family members and good friends, they all pretty much had the same thing to say “yeah, that’s how it is.”

Anyway, I hope this inspires more women to share and I hope by reading this series, more women will be prepared for this experience and more men will develop empathy. Thank you and over to the Kamakwie Princess!