:: C.H.I.L.D.R.E.N. of the World ::
: Because every child is special :
F is for Firstborn
She screamed.
A last release, and in moments, she cradled a new-born in her arms. Her daughter was beautiful, and she stroked her tiny cheek with tender love.
- - -
She screamed.
Her eyes were round with fright, and spoke of betrayal. She stretched out her hands to the woman who had borne her and raised her and loved her, and who was now standing aside.
The thirty-year-old woman stood next to the doorpost, one hand of her hip and the other carrying a two-year-old son. She tried to smile encouragingly as her daughter was being carried away.
Strange men carried her on their backs, and the nine-year-old child's scream died to a whimper as she realised her family was letting these men take her away, letting her go. She watched them, as they watched her, growing smaller and smaller till even the speck on the horizon disappeared.
Her eyes followed familiar landscapes where she had run, jump, and played for nine years of her life, where she had herded the family goats, eaten dinner under the stars, and plunged into cool streams in the rainy season. Slowly, slowly, she no longer recognised the grasslands around her, as the men took her away from her family land, and her village.
The men called out boisterously when they neared a cluster of huts, not unlike the ones in her village. A woman came out to meet them, and took her to a small hut similar to the one she had called home.
She looked around her, with a pair of wide, frightened eyes. So this, or some place this, was where the girls in her village had ended up; in another house, at another fire, with another Mother.
For, unbeknownst to her, she had been betrothed.
- - -
She screamed.
Her eyes closed in pain, then flew wide open as another spasm sent a shock of jolting proportions through her thin, petite frame.
It had been nine months since her fifteen-year-old husband, his manhood freshly proven, had taken her to wed. The lanky boy she had cooked for in her in-laws' house had taken her to his room, and nine months later, she lay on the bed screaming in pain.
Barely into her teens herself, her narrow hips and almost-boyish silhouette seemed somehow inadequate when juxtaposed with her growing belly, which held her first child.
- - -
She screamed.
The second day of labour passed in slow, agonising minutes, each tinged with blood, exhaustion and tears. The women around her cheered her on, wiping sweat from her face and whispering time-honoured words of wisdom and encouragement.
And the sun set.
- - -
She screamed.
The third and fourth days passed in a haze of tears, and morning and evening blended into a blur. She tried to picture the baby she knew she carried, calling to mind her delight in bearing a new life within her.
But why was it so painful?
And the morning and the evening were past.
- - -
She screamed.
The sixth day dawned, the circle of women thinning as the chores of the village life beckoned.
- - -
She screamed.
The mid-day sun rose high above the hut as a tiny body finally emerged from hers. She felt a surge of relief as the tension eased, and looked forward to cradling her new-born child in her arms, to stroking its tiny cheek with the love she felt so strongly.
A half-smile danced on her lips, despite her weariness and pain.
Too soon.
The women around her had seen what she did not, could not, see. There was to be no rejoicing over the cries of a healthy babe, for the baby that emerged did not move, and its colour was of death. One woman let out a soft sob of pity before carrying the tiny corpse outside, where it would be buried, nameless, and forgotten.
She was too tired to scream and rail at the unfairness of it all.
Nothing was left.
And she slept.
- - -
She screamed.
A recurring dream of her child's pale, dead face haunted her.
Then she woke to a living nightmare.
Surrounded by the unmistakable stench of human excrement, she felt the soggy mess around her, and an uncontrollable stream that kept coming out of her nether regions.
Frightened, she curled her legs, pressing them together in a desperate attempt to cut the endless flow of urine.
Days passed, and nothing changed. Then her husband threw her out, repulsed by the stench she carried with her.
Embarrassed by the trail she left behind her, and ostracised for the smell she brought around with her, she became a social outcast, living on the fringes of society.
Then she found companionship with another girl with the same problem, and the same recurring dream.
- - -
Author's Note:
"An obstetric fistula develops when blood supply to the tissues of the vagina and the bladder (and/or rectum) is cut off during prolonged obstructed labor. The tissues die and a hole forms through which urine and/or feces pass uncontrollably. Women who develop fistulas are often abandoned by their husbands, rejected by their communities, and forced to live an isolated existence.
"Eradicated in western countries at the end of the 19th century when cesarean section became widely available, obstetric fistula continues to plague women throughout the developing world. It is estimated that there are 100,000 new fistula cases each year, but the international capacity to treat fistula remains at only 6,500 per year. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates the world's population of fistula sufferers at more than two million.
"The WHO has called fistula "the single most dramatic aftermath of neglected childbirth". In addition to complete incontinence, a fistula victim may develop nerve damage to the lower extremities after a multi-day labor in a squatting position. Fistula victims also suffer profound psychological trauma resulting from their utter loss of status and dignity."
- The Fistula Foundation,
I stopped writing for a long time, but just had to write this when I found out about fistula. I hope the story has made you see why.