AN AFRICAN QUEEN: DEFINES THE PROMISE OF A RAINBOW BABY

Kaata Minah, wanted a second child. This was supposed to be easy, get pregnant, have a baby, raise the child. Sadly everything did not pan out as told in classic novels, it became an emotional roller coaster.

In Part One, we spoke about the background leading to the story , our mission in raising awareness about pregnancy and baby loss. In the sequel we dive deeper behind the scenes of a Queen who desperately needed a happy ending. *** Warning** This interview may trigger people who have experienced pregnancy and baby loss.

Ariana Diaries: After your 1st miscarriage what happened next?

Kaata Minah: So fast forward, Hubby comes back in July and somewhere in August we got pregnant again when I missed my period. So this time it’s scarier because every bathroom visit turns into a panic attack. Subconsciously checking to see what’s on my pants. Nearly, every morning past scenes played on my mind, will it happen today? 

I didn’t tell anybody that I was pregnant.  Quite unlike my nature, when great stuff happens I usually share with family and at least my close people like my sister and mum.

Even if I was only one month pregnant, I will make the announcement. But this time , NO. I didn’t tell anybody. I was just there with myself. I didn’t even want to tell my husband, but eventually I did. 

 Six weeks on, I went to the bathroom one day and I had to live through the same nightmare. I was spotting heavily. Wait! Had I being cursed, to not go beyond six weeks?

My mind raced and heart broke, I thought about everything. Well I am , you know sort of a social drinker. I go out with my girls every weekend, and I was like maybe it’s the alcohol that I am drinking. Plus I was working out a lot to lose Julline’s baby fat. So I said it’s all the working out, and  stopped working out.

Well the drinking I didn’t stop at once, but it was still in my head that it could be the drinking.

 I kept researching, I kept reading, googling everything, I became a google Doctor.

This one was harder, because this time I wasn’t alone. I was in the house with my husband , I believe that some level of pain and hurt cannot be explained. Even to the ones deeply affected by it. 

And so I thought deep down he will not understand how I felt about it all. So slowly I shut down to avoid been a bother. How should I expect people to reason with me. Why, when I came home from work, I will  just go into the room and not talk to anyone, even my  husband. Day after day, we would just have these meaningless conversations, not like you are having a fight or anything. I just wanted to be on my own. 

This is why I feel it was harder, because for the first one he wasn’t around.  I was home at my parent’s, so it was easy for me to just go into my room and have my own space. This time I had to deal with him, myself, our loss and the space.  Besides, he was going through his loss in his own way and needed time with me. It was really hard!

 I did not know how to express how I was feeling inside. For many people my experience wasn’t abnormal, they kept emphasizing on how many women were affected by miscarriages. 

It did happen to a whole lot of women, the problem was it was not supposed to happen with me! 

Ariana Diaries: Let’s get  personal, did you notice a physical rift between you and your partner in terms of  sexual intimacy in between  pregnancy losses?

Kaata Minah : No, because I was still trying to get pregnant. I had a goal ! I knew how to calculate my ovulation dates and thankfully, I have a relationship with my period. It’s regular. Call it an obsession or whatever, during my unsafe period , SEX was important. We were still  trying to have a baby right?

It had to happen and so for the 3rd time, we tried again and we got pregnant, six weeks later. I lost the pregnancy. Boom, at this point I was certain, something wasn’t right. I can’t be three times unlucky, so I changed my hospital.

I had a problem with doctors locally, because they have a pattern of not telling you what’s wrong with your body and seem to abhor investigative medicine. After my pregnancy losses, the doctors would say, go try again. I needed a fresh opinion, someone who was ready to work with me.

In my office environment we talk about a lot of things, we are blessed with a safe space, so I had a conversation with my boss who happens to be a Man- lol. We had a conversation and I shared on how difficult it was for me . Because by the second time everyone at the office knew as I had to take some days off work to process and recalibrate. During our conversation, he suggested that I try out a certain clinic.

I met and spoke with the sister in charge at that time. The lady owns the center and she is  also a midwife. What convinced me to stick with them was the way she responded to me. For the first  time in Sierra Leone, a medical professional did not wave my insecurities away or disregard my experience as common.

She listened and agreed that something was definitely wrong, I went on to speak to with the gynecologist .

That was when I met the wonderful Dr. Francess Wurie, we had a conversation. She shared about her own experience and  then we did tests. She assured me that their was nothing wrong with me physically. She said the next time you get pregnant, call me immediately and we are going to start our treatment plan, I think maybe your hormones are acting up when you get pregnant. She said we are going to put you on injections to help balance the hormones in your system and it worked. We had ten injections, those injections were the worst, they burned liked crazy, when you take them.

That’s how Monday became the worst day of the week. I had to go get the shot, every Monday.

Even before, pregnancy was horrible for me.  I was nauseous all the time, especially during the first trimester added to ‘ Pepper’ shots. 

Ariana Diaries: How did you handle being pregnant during COVID-19 and in a country with high maternal deaths?

Kaata Minah: I was stressed, any visit to the bathroom was a trigger, going out for fear of  COVID-19 infections was also a burden, what if the person next to me had Corona. Thankfully, I had to work remotely for the most part. But then when you have a little girl to care for and a family to run, going out was a requirement. 

I tried to stay home and only stepped out of my house when I had to go to the hospital and once a week for the office. Any day I  stepped out was torture, I would observe myself  critically and be extra cautious, so it’s like self- quarantine on repeat. It was hard, and this comes from someone who also got pregnant during Ebola .

I had plans to have the baby outside of Sierra Leone. So  even when they closed the borders, I was like they would open by the time I am ready to leave. It was really shocking to me when that didn’t happen and alarming when everywhere else was shut down, you know even during Ebola we could travel.  My entire family both home and abroad, worried sick, you know the stories we hear in Sierra Leone about giving birth here.  

Ariana Diaries:  What was the delivery like?

Kaata Minah : I ended up putting in for C-section to have the baby because the baby was really big! It aggravated pelvic issues that I had as a teenager growing up. I was getting really fat so it was affecting my feet,  the pelvic pains increased. My doctor advised that, we could wait to see how it went or I could opt for a C-Section.

I decided on the C-section and I remember going in the night before and I am thinking about all the horrible things that could happen, that night I don’t think I spoke to anybody. I was just laying down on the bed praying. Oh God, even if it’s not for me or this baby but for Julline that knows me, spare me.  God forbid, I didn’t make it, what would they have told her? Because this new child doesn’t really know me.

I came out of the surgery and everybody was so excited, I was just numb.  At that moment, I  couldn’t move or anything. Even when they brought the baby next to my boobs and she tried suckling, I felt numb. All through the day, I was so numb. The Doctor came up to me and asked how I felt.

I didn’t know how I felt, at that moment, I didn’t feel anything that first day. It was on the next day that I got up and held her and am like oh my God it has really happened for me.

The pain was not in vain, to the glory of God we are here now! My rainbow baby born in the middle of a pandemic.

Ariana Diaries: Do you think you are now parenting her any different than Julline?

Kaata Minah: A 100%, Julline was never on my breast, like this because the thing about her, she didn’t eat a lot as a baby, this baby eats a lot and it was really intentional that I wanted her to breastfeed, I was very intentional about it. 

My experience with Julline, when I started breastfeeding was similar to Fatim’s article on this platform. I just saw breastfeeding as something really easy, something that comes naturally to us as women and then when I had Julline, my nipples got sore, the child doesn’t have teeth but my nipples pained me. 

I couldn’t continue breastfeeding her because It would hurt, so she stopped taking my breast very early. I never knew these things happened until after my experience with her and people were talking about how difficult it is initially to breastfeed. That was when I realized that , oh it’s not so easy as taking out my breast, and feeding it to baby!

This time, I was fully ready. She is breastfeeding and  I am living in my own house, everybody thought that I would go to my mom’s house .  But, no I took her home to my own house, she and I are together all of the time, this is my baby. In fact all her names mean something to me, her name Nyavah a mende name  means this is for me, her krio name means, my joy has come.

Everything about her is for me, I parent her a lot different, my mom says I act like this is my first baby. She is always in my hand, if she shouts’ I pick her up. And when they say leave her, don’t pick her up, I refuse. I will say when she grows up, she will get all the time to cry. But now am here, let me just pick her up.

Ariana Diaries: Did you have any fears? Maybe scared that something might happen?

Kaata Minah: When we got home after the hospital, that was like my biggest fear. You know the baby is here now, but you know people lose babies early too. So I won’t sleep, I will just be watching her, if she makes any small turn in the crib, I will get up. Now the fear is reducing, that fear of losing her is gradually leaving me. It isn’t as bad, as week one, where I even got slightly depressed and anxious. Everything would tick me off.

One day I sat down and said to myself, if you are going to lose this baby, you are going to lose her, so if you are going to make yourself unhappy in moments that you are supposed to be happy then it’s your loss, that’s how I started getting over it.

Ariana Diaries: Congratulations Kaata, what a story you have there! Thank you for sharing so openly, do you think depression, shame and anxiety around pregnancies’ and baby loss would lessen if people shared more?

Kaata Minah: Absolutely, Binta’s story about a rainbow baby inspired me, her experience and everything. I went back to that her story often through my journey. She was so very open about it, a lot of us are not. This experience that I had, has made me understand so many other women and their experiences.

The way in which most people go through it without support and it’s hard if you don’t really have support. I think the support I had really was the best thing, even when I shut down, for example, my sister knows when I shut down, and she knows just to leave me alone at that moment. She knows that I  am not going to talk about it.

So I think speaking about it and knowing other women’s pain helps one go through things like this. Because most times we show the best things, we have the best photoshoots when we are pregnant, but there are worst days. That’s  just one day in all of those days you go through.

If  I show you my horrible pictures, you will have a nightmare. I think we are so used to being superficial, by giving the world only sunshine. It’s time we become open to sharing the good and the bad .

People need to know the truth, no one needs to be strong. I have noticed that as women, people like calling us strong. Personally, I don’t like when people tell me that I  am strong, it means you want me to be super human, I don’t want to be strong, I want to be weak, it’s okay to be weak.

Ariana Diaries: What would you say to someone who has been through something similar? Who has just lost a baby? Like had a still birth.

Kaata Minah: There is nothing I would say that will make the pain easier.

I think speak about it, that’s is one thing. It is hard because there are times most people do not have who to talk to, but I think talk to your doctor if you don’t have the support at home, we should get into this habit of seeing gynecologists that we can open up to. Find someone that you are comfortable with, to talk to about anything because maybe you don’t have support.

Some of us have support, we have sisters, brothers you know it’s easy for us to open up and talk but for others, they don’t have all of that, so I will say find a doctor, not just because you are sick but because you need someone to support you, because we need support in times this.

I remember when I gave birth and I put my picture up that I had given birth, in that instance, I had like five people reaching out to me. Oh! you were pregnant, I was also pregnant or I am also pregnant, and they started telling how they are going through their pregnancies and how hard it is, and I also explained to them how hard it was for me. But look at me now, I am out of it now, and imagine if I was pregnant and I had put up my picture and I would have had more people reach out to me.

But because in our culture when you are pregnant , you basically need to hide it away from everybody until you give birth, so even with them that reached out to me they are also still hiding away. Since my story is out in the open, it becomes okay to open up to me. 

I have an acquaintance that actually asked me, she was like, I haven’t been seeing you around, and I told her that I am pregnant and she was like, I have been trying to get pregnant forever. She has a five year old kid, I referred her to the doctor am seeing, luckily in a few weeks she got pregnant, she is pregnant right now!

Ariana Diaries: If you could highlight your coping mechanisms or resources hat helped? 

Kaata Minah: I think for me, growing up, I have always been more or less, like the mother in my family among my siblings, I am the second child, am not the first, but am the first girl in my family.  My brother and my sister, grew up thinking they were my children. I was always more like the mum in my own head, and my dad will always make feel like I am in charge.

I think that helped me, because they would always come to me with their issues, so in helping them I helped myself.

I am just one of those people, I help myself out of difficulties. I don’t take things too seriously, my sister says I always find the silver lining, even if it gets so bad. She is like, how do you always see the good in everything, that’s how I am. I always find something good, no matter how difficult it is, I will find something good in it, to hold on to. I think that is one of my strengths.

Resource? there is one site it’s called, what to expect, it shows you everything about pregnancy, like every stage.

I read everything, but that particular site was where I would visit first, before I read something else. I always prepared to ask questions if I noticed something happening differently.

Interestingly, during the final stage of my pregnancy, I went to do some tests, and they told me I had protein in my urine. I had read before that when you are pregnant, you are not supposed to have protein in your urine. I called my doctor immediately. I said , I have protein in my urine, imagine this was at night, around 10pm. You see, all the more reason why it’s nice to have a doctor that you can talk to. My doctor was ready at any time of the day and night to receive a text message or a call from me. It was our journey, it wasn’t only my journey or my husband’s journey.

Thankfully he was also always there. Like we go to all our hospital appointments together.

I won’t cook at home, because the smell of everything put me off. When he woke up, he would make breakfast for me. He would take care of Julline, shower her, make sure she is ready. So most things he just did it, like my responsibilities went to him when it came to managing the home.

I recognize that a lot of people don’t have that, and its so easy to feel alone. There is no way we can share some of these things with our husbands ,really because they will never really understand, but the fact that they are there to help and assist is something that we take for granted at times. 

Most women are constantly trying to prove a point, when pregnant. They will boast that they still cook and fix the lunch.

I didn’t cook, I didn’t even know what my kitchen looked like. I didn’t touch Julline, I didn’t even brush her teeth. All I thought about when I  got up in the morning was going through the day trying not to vomit.  I think me not trying to prove a point, helped me a lot. We do not have to be super humans when we are pregnant. You can reach out to people, you can talk to people, ask for help, we need each other. Even with all the support I had, it wasn’t enough for me, especially, mentally and psychologically, thinking about my miscarriages, what if I died in the process, all of it is a lot. 

I think as women in Africa, we should try to have support groups, where people come together and share their experiences.

Ariana Diaries: Would you do this again? Have another baby?

Kaata Minah: I honestly don’t think so, I will leave it open at a chance of 40%.