I was in my final year in the secondary school, when I noticed that I was pregnant. At that time, I was living with my uncle in Lagos while my parents, though separated, were in Ijebu Ode, Ogun State. My uncle was a disciplinarian, who would not take any untoward behaviour from his own children, much less his extended family.
So, when I discovered that I was pregnant, I did not wait for any friend to advise me to run away. I ran to my mother’s house and told her that she had to find a way of telling her only brother that I was pregnant and would not be able to proceed with my West African School Certificate Examination in a matter of weeks.
I was very bold, not only because my mother pampered me a lot, being her only daughter out of four children, but more because I had been dating the guy who was responsible for the pregnancy before I was told to go and live with my uncle in Lagos; and I would do anything to strengthen the love between us.
My parents decided to send me to Lagos because they wanted me to go beyond the secondary school, but I kicked against it at first, and when it dawned on me that there was nothing I could do to stop the move, I ran away for five days to a friend’s house.
There, I was seeing my boyfriend anytime I wanted and we were both sure that we were truly in love. At that time, most love stories started from the secondary school because I would say we were more mature then than the children that are in secondary school now.
The table, however, turned when my friend’s parents came back from their trip. They chased me back home, and that was the end of the road. I headed for Lagos but in tears.
To worsen matters, my uncle never allowed us to leave the house for more than five minutes after school. I was enrolled in the same school his children attended, so there was no running anywhere for me. His children were not into my type of game, but I understood that it was the way they were brought up.
I registered in the school when I was in Form Four, so I had just one more year to bear the prison treatment. I remembered that I would always sing at night, while telling my younger cousin our sweet love stories, and she would be wondering why I was so crazy about a guy at that particular time.
There were no mobile phones then, so we could not communicate at all, except through letters, which were given to my mother or some other cousins who visited from IjebuOde. I went home during the long holidays, after managing to get a promotion to the next and final class. We had missed each other a lot, so we were everywhere together.
It was easier for me because my mother hardly checked what I did, apart from warning me to be careful with boys, and my father was not living with us anymore. It was this unrestricted closeness that led to the pregnancy. In those days, when you got pregnant, you had to give birth to the baby because abortion was not rampant.
Even if I had a choice, I would have chosen giving birth to a baby, who would cement the love between us. I had always dreamt of permanently living under the same roof with him as his loving wife. My father was very angry; he poured all the blame on my mother, saying he had known she would never train us well.
I remember he travelled to Lagos to tell my uncle not to have anything to do with us again as he would just be wasting his money. He was still close to my uncle even when he had separated with my mother because my uncle was a very objective man, who felt his sister was to blame for their unfortunate separation.
To say my uncle was angry would be an understatement. He threatened to lock whoever was responsible for the pregnancy up if he ever showed his face in his house to ask for my hand in marriage. I was 18 years old at the time. He also said he never wanted to see me in his house again, so that I would not influence his children negatively.
While they all fumed, I was at peace with myself inside, though I did not show this. All I wanted was to be living with the father of my unborn child. At the end of the day, my mother went to family members to beg my father and my uncle to, at least, allow his family to come and meet ours, so we could deliberate on how to manage the situation.
It took a long time to achieve this and the pregnancy was growing. Eventually, they both reluctantly forgave me when I was six months gone. After the introduction sessions, it was agreed that I should go to my mother-inlaw’s house till I had the baby, after which I would go back to Lagos to register afresh for my WASCE.
To cut the story short, I gave birth to a bouncing baby girl, a very pretty girl, who combned our good looks, and everybody, including my strict uncle and his wife, could not help loving her. Unfortunately for me, after my examinations, I could not go to the higher institution because my mind was with my family. I told my mother that, since I had done my examination and passed fairly, but without a credit in English, I wanted to rest a bit until I was ready to seek admission.
That was how I became a housewife. My husband was a footballer and that endeared him to me more. I always went with him to the field to watch him play. When life was a bit difficult for us because he could not sustain himself and the new family with the little he was earning, my mother did all she could to set up a petty trading business for me, so that I could complement whatever he was able to put on the table.
We continued this way, improving only a bit, until we had four children. But, unfortunately, our love story changed after our third child.
To be continued
