When baby arrives in the thick of a pandemic

By PAULA ODHIAMBO

Delivery room. Dr Alex Bosire’s back was turned to me, but he sounded enthusiastic as he fidgeted with medical gadgets on a table in front of my bed. I wondered if he ever panicked.

I nervously glanced at the mean nurse. Her eyes darted away.

For a split second, I thought about my dignity, but then I remembered that this was nowhere near the doctor’s first rodeo. I decided to go for it. What a cheer-leading squad. Dr Bosire, reassuring me.

MENTAL NOTE

“Imagine the baby is here…!” and my sister, going, “You’re doing so well!”

I hate flattery, so I made a mental note to lecture them on this afterwards.

Before I knew it, the doctor was holding up a gurgling baby.

“Congratulations!” My sister hugged me and leaned on my shoulder. “Well done!”

She had done as much work, if not more than I had.

Just like that, it had happened. I had my baby in the thick of a pandemic. My sister told me how dignified I was. My other sister, on seeing the photos, exclaimed, “What! You actually kept your glasses on?! Indeed, you must have been dignified.”

It feels like it was just the other day when I glared through the lab window, hissing at the technician, “My friend, put that paper in an envelope, seal it and give it to me. I know how to read the results.”

MINERAL WATER

I had already sensed them from the mineral water that tasted like metal, and the fish I had prepared that seemed to be looking so angrily at me that I could not eat the whole thing. I was there just for a confirmation blood test.

The results said I was four weeks pregnant. My youngest sister had given birth days before this incident and shared her labour story the very day it happened – when it was still raw.

After hearing it, I resolved children were not for me – at least for a while. And now, here I was, days after my resolution, four weeks pregnant. I immediately called Dr Bosire and scheduled an appointment.

I had it all planned. It is said that we have to do better for our children than our parents did for us, so I was certain that my child would be born in an expensive facility, in a private room with chefs, special nurses, copious amounts of tea for me and my guests and a post-delivery spa, where I could get pedicure while I recovered.

FIRST TRIMESTER

I would use only organic, fragrant baby products and would order clothing from the US. Could I afford this? Of course not, but I would work as hard as I could through the first trimester to make every dime towards my goal.

I spent the majority of this aforementioned trimester fast asleep. This should have been the premier indication that things would not go as planned.

One day, I came across a video. A strange, deadly virus had emerged in China and was wiping out a town I had never heard of.  And then it got worse. Wuhan was shut down. I tried not to panic, knowing how easily it could spread worldwide.

Before long, countries were closing their borders. Baby shopping became a nightmare. “Hiyo unajua inatoka China na saa hii hawatumi (That one only comes from China and they’re not sending them over anymore),” vendors would tell me.

HOME DELIVERY

Being the extrapolator that I am, I began to look into the possibility of delivering at home, just in case. My youngest sister had one and so I used her as the wealth of information. I got a midwife’s and a doula’s numbers, watched YouTube videos, and prayed. I began to shop. I told my staff to work from home from late January.

It was on a Friday afternoon, when I got home from Biashara Street, that my fears were confirmed. The contagion was upon the nation. “Fellow Kenyans…” a voice boomed into my living room. A few days later, the mantra that has been repeated since: “If we continue to behave normally, this virus will treat us abnormally.”

I decided not to lose my mind. I gave my house help strict instructions not to go anywhere without my permission.

After sitting in the doctor’s crowded reception one afternoon, I stopped going for antenatal check-ups. He understood. I bought a blood pressure machine and a weighing scale and began to check my weight and pressure as often as I could. I used YouTube for exercises (which I mostly watched from a couch while snacking on skittles). I prayed as hard as I could that I would not get any complications that would force me to go to a hospital before it was time to have the baby.

“Niachie kwa mlango (Leave it at the door),” became my song. Everything was left at my front door by the caretaker or delivery company workers. I sanitised the daylights out of it all. I felt I had bothered my doctor enough and begged other doctors to give me information.

MORTALITY RATES

One doctor I text simply replied, “Corona or no corona, no home delivery!!!!” and proceeded, when I called him for details, to angrily tell me about mortality rates and how this was not Europe.

Would he be willing to share this information with other mothers, since it was a looming possibility, and since home deliveries were becoming more fashionable, and even my sister had one?

“I do not care about your sister! This is not Europe!” he bellowed into the phone.

I remember sitting in the same spot for a few minutes after the call ended, glancing helplessly at the basketball-sized tummy in front of me, tears threatening to roll down my cheeks.

Another doctor was kind enough to give me a list of items I would need for a delivery kit. My parents, themselves medics, were and still are extremely supportive, but refused to interfere in my doctor’s work. “Do as your doctor says,” my father consistently told me.

I watched as mothers worldwide tearfully shared their stories – some having to give birth with no birth partners, not even their spouses, and then having to spend 14 days away from everyone.

In some hospitals, no visitors were allowed. In the meantime, the numbers here in Kenya were increasing. As my due date drew near, I decided to stop watching the media briefings. It was too much.

I called the midwife. She did not answer her phone. I called the doula. She did.

NEXT OF KIN

Doulas are not allowed in most, if not all, Kenyan hospitals today. The only way to “sneak” them in is to list them as one’s next of kin.

 The danger with that, in this pandemic season, is that because most hospitals currently only allow one visitor per patient, she would be the only person allowed to visit.

The doula, Esther, came to my place, mask on, and taught me about labour and what I needed to do to make it through without hiding under beds and climbing trees. We agreed that she would come to the house and be with me throughout labour, and I would proceed to the hospital thereafter.

Little did I know I would have my baby a few days later, instead of a month later.

I had, just days before, decided that I would go to a hospital on Ngong Road, which is well known for its affordability. A friend had convinced me that it had decent bathrooms. If I could have a decent bathroom, I could survive it.

Hospital was a nightmare. It will be unfair to other mothers if I keep this information to myself, because it took me by surprise, almost complicating my recovery.

Had it not been for my insistence on good service and that my sister remains with me, and the doctor calling from time to time to try and check how I was doing, I would have been a mess to this day. My sister was my midwife, doula, nurse and birth partner from the time I was two centimetres dilated to the moment the baby came. She massaged my back using a khanga for almost 12 straight hours.

UNCOMPASSIONATE

The only time we saw nurses was when they came in to check the baby’s heartbeat. They were sullen, on edge, uncompassionate. I remembered the doula’s words about my mental state being important for the baby, and decided to focus on labouring and praying against the contagion.

I wonder, to this day, what I would have done had I agreed to be on my own and let my sister go home or to a different room. I believe my doctor advocated for my sister to stick around, and for this, my own in-built stubbornness, and my sister’s no-nonsense face, I will forever be grateful.

The hygiene standards in the hospital were appalling. Nurses tried to do things without gloves. “Na si nimesanitise (I have sanitised)!” they would tell me. Staff walked around with masks on their chins, or pushed masks from chin to mouth and back.

Post-delivery, we were put in an overpriced room with no windows and an air conditioner that felt like a stove. My sister, an architect, marvelled at how the room so blatantly violated building codes – in a health facility, no less.

The bathrooms had no consistent hot water. We were told it was because they used solar heating.

We had to demand even the basic hygiene standards, “Where is your mask? Where are your gloves?” in order for them to be applied.

After all that, we were given a stack of medications, more than triple the amount we needed — all with generic names — and zero information as to what pill did what, when to take which, and what the contraindications were. I would need to call the doctor to ask what he had prescribed.

When we asked for explanations as well as clarification about the inflated bill, the manager came to our room, interrupted us several times, and gave a token customer service apology. The “I understand how frustrating this must be and I will look into it” type. She left, and then a nurse came and said, “You cannot leave without a gate pass.”

WASTING TIME

And then we waited, and waited… only to discover that instead of “looking into it,” staff had gone home after wasting our time.

I was livid. We paid the inflated bill and left, for our own peace of mind, but not without me giving them a piece of my mind. We went to the hospital as two, with one in the belly, and came out three, in the middle of a pandemic. I must glorify God for this.

As the car rolled out of the parking lot and on to a busy Ngong Road, bleachy sanitisers spritzing all and sundry behind us, all I could feel was gratitude.

I had not had the spa, I diverted the pedicure money to diapers and now bathed my baby with a completely fragrance-free bar soap, but it did not matter.

This journey taught me that we sometimes worry for nothing. I spent months preparing for a bunker delivery with no family or friends, expecting to be isolated for eons with a baby in an alien suit.

However, I should have been more concerned about getting professional care, in the right facility, with the right standards.

Pandemic or no pandemic, excellence is what makes medical procedures and practices successful.

If you are pregnant, please do not panic. Everything will be all right. Focus on getting the right professional care.

Behind a doctor, like mine, who will laugh both with and at you, as appropriate; who will listen to you ventilate without his eyes glazing over; and who answers his phone at all hours of the day.

CLINICAL MEDICINE

The first rule of clinical medicine, it is said, is to listen to the patient. Pandemic or no pandemic, if your doctor does not listen to you, you will be frustrated.

When a procedure or medication is recommended, insist on asking what it is and why.

Requesting information is not non-compliance. Ensure you have a birth partner who advocates for you. You will not have the strength to answer complex questions in between contractions. Do not try this alone.

The car door banged to my right, interrupting my thoughts. I adjusted myself in my seat and said a prayer for all walking up the stairs in the opposite direction at the hospital entrance. They were in for a stressful ride – but not one as bad as the contagion.

By the grace of God, I had faced a pregnancy in a pandemic.

Now, it is post-partum time in a pandemic. By the grace of this same God, we will make it through.

The writer is a communications expert