Mercy Rebecca, now Mama Angel, cries tears of joy as she holds her 2-year-old miracle today. She painfully recalls her parenthood journey in the last decade: "It has been painful. I have had 20 miscarriages and it has not been easy, the rejection, the insults, and the gossip."
Mama Angel got married in 2013 and started experiencing challenges. She recounts that she would get pregnant but the baby would never make it to term.
In 2014, she had her first miscarriage. The baby made it to 6 months but was born prematurely and taken to the neonatal nursery unit. The baby passed on while in nursing.
In 2015, she experienced the heartbreak of losing a child before term thrice. In all three instances, her womb carried for less than three months before life took a cruel turn.
Hopefully, she would get the chance to be a mother, so Rebecca tried again in 2015 and met a gynecologist at a hospital in Nairobi. The specialist recommended her to bed rest, something she admits she did not understand very well. That year, her fifth attempt ended in heartbreak after 7 months.
The trend continued many times with Mama Angel recalling that sometimes she realised she was pregnant after a miscarriage.
Tearing away as she narrated her ordeal during an interview, Mama Angel credited her husband, whom she described as a supportive man for seeing her through the journey.
She recalls that in the first 9 years, he embraced the challenges and soldiered on. In the 9th year of marriage, she noticed that the situation was taking its toll on him.
Around that time, her husband evicted her from their home. She returned to her marriage after the man changed his mind after noticing he had erred.
Speaking for himself, Baba Angel, confessed that his heart would break whenever he would find his friends with children and he had none. He felt helpless.
Admitting that he also fell out with his family over the lack of children, he recalls that he came to a turning point and decided to take charge of affairs at his home once more.
In 2022, Angel was conceived and this time Rebecca was aware that she was pregnant again. She was bleeding and went to a hospital in Kayole where she was told she was 5 weeks pregnant. Her worst fear was to go through the ordeal of crushed hopes again.
On learning about her pregnancy, she had a sit down with her husband and they decided to seek medical attention. They started seeing a specialist who informed them that they should stick to medication for a weakened cervix and stay on bed rest. The necessary medications were issued accompanied by prescribed injections.
Upon returning to the hospital for her clinic, Mama Angel began to bleed profusely. She was immediately taken for an immediate scan that showed she needed to get a McDonald Stitch if she was going to carry the baby to term.
The stitch is a way of keeping your cervix closed during pregnancy to prevent premature birth due to a weakened cervix. This is to keep the fetus safe inside of your uterus until it’s time for you to give birth.
She was 16 weeks pregnant at the time. Upon getting discharged, she went home. She started bleeding again. When she went to the hospital, she was put on a weekly injection up to 25 weeks.
A week later, her water broke. This meant her fortunes changed for the better as she would finally have a baby as she had dreamt for years.
At the hospital, she was informed that she needed an operation due to a lack of enough water in her body to supply herself and the baby. At this point, the husband opted against being at the hospital as he was too nervous based on past experiences.
Upon seeing her baby for the first time, she fainted presumably due to being overwhelmed with emotion.
Doctors would then keep the baby at the hospital for observation. As soon as they concluded the baby was healthy enough, the family was allowed to go home.
A teary father, says with pride that his happiness grows by the day when he holds his baby.
