Charis Around the World

Childbirth in Kenya
by Jannekah Guya


Martin and Jannekah Guya with their son, Ezriel and his big sister, Amariah

          This month a pastor’s wife, who is a dear friend of mine named Miriam, called and told me that one of her church members, who is just a few weeks pregnant, had started spotting.  Miriam had taken the terrified woman to a local clinic where they told her they should just “clean her up” and she could start “fresh”.  In other words, they wanted to do a D&C.  The woman was so scared and didn’t want a D&C so they went to another clinic for a second opinion but were told the same thing.  Miriam called me to ask what they should do.  I asked if the young mother was in pain and she said she wasn’t.  The bleeding was light, though by this time it had been going on for several days.  I asked if they had done an ultrasound and they hadn’t, so I recommended that they do that before making any further decisions.  They both felt relieved and at peace with that suggestion.

          This whole situation brought back very painful memories of something I myself went through 3 years ago.  After my husband and I had been married about 9 months I got pregnant with our first baby.  We were both SO excited we couldn’t contain ourselves.  We told everyone!  We’d known what we’d name our first baby long before we got pregnant and we started bonding with the baby and calling it by name - Adriel, a Biblical name that means “The One Who is very personally and intensely involved in my life is God”.

          But when I was about 8 weeks along I started bleeding.  I had bacterial and fungal infections as well.  A local clinic prescribed me some medicines and put me on bed rest.  We couldn’t afford the medicine at that time and we had no food in the house.  But my husband’s cousin paid for everything and insisted that we eat dinner at their house every night.  When friends and family in the U.S. heard about what was happening they also rallied around us and sent money for us to get a good doctor.  That was such a miracle because instead of getting better, I only got worse.  We went into the city to go to a better clinic.  The doctor there checked me and held up a bloody finger as he coldly said, “It’s an unviable pregnancy.”  I was horrified.  He promptly started scheduling a D&C.  He was surprised when I started crying and told me I could go for an ultrasound if I wanted to be sure.  We had to walk a long distance to a place where we could get an ultrasound.  I cried again when they couldn’t find a heartbeat. Seeing how upset I was, they told us that maybe it was just to early and to come back in 2 weeks to check again.  We walked all the way back to the doctor to show him the ultrasound pictures and he was surprised to see that things actually looked pretty good.  He gave me a hormone shot, prescribed more medicines, and sent us on our way.

          After 2 weeks I was still bleeding and still holding onto hope.  We went for another ultrasound but we had no money so we walked all day looking for a place that would do it for $15, which was all we had.  Finally, a clinic agreed to have mercy and help us.  As soon as they began the ultrasound I started crying.  Again there was no heartbeat.  In typical Kenyan fashion, the technicians tried to reassure me.  In Kenyan culture they typically avoid giving bad news and tend to tell you what you want to hear, whether it’s the truth or not.

          After I’d been bleeding for about 4 weeks the doctor scheduled the D&C, though I was still holding onto hope.  The night before the D&C I started having contractions.  They became very very strong very quickly and the bleeding became uncontrollable.  Since I was only about 12 weeks pregnant and it was my first pregnancy, I still knew very little about labor.  That, on top of the fact that I was terrified and devastated only made things worse.  At midnight I told my husband I needed to go to the hospital and got in the shower to try to clean myself up.  When I lost a large clot I became hysterical and we both held each other and wept for a long time.  After that, the contractions were nonstop and the bleeding became worse.  I remember lying on the bed, writhing and soaked in blood and thinking, I can’t believe this is how I’m going to die!  I was 23 years old.

          My husband went to ask a neighbor to take us to the hospital, but they refused to even open the door to him.  I think they were scared because of my screaming.  So he had to try to find a taxi to take us to a hospital.  He had to walk many miles and was gone for almost 2 hours.  Thankfully, Martin’s cousin and his wife lived very close to us and she came to be with me.  By the time she arrived I was inconsolable and so she sat by me on the bed and prayed and quoted scripture.  It was about 2 am when he finally came with a taxi, but the only one he could find at that hour was so run down it couldn’t go more than a couple blocks.  We wouldn’t make it to a hospital in that vehicle because they were all too far away.  The only thing close enough was a small local clinic.  I remember when the driver came to help my husband carry me to the car he smelled very strongly of alcohol and was slurring his speech.  He was completely drunk.

          When we arrived at the clinic a doctor checked me, told me to calm down, and called a nurse to walk me upstairs to the “theater” (British English for operating room).  I was crying and the nurse angrily told me to shut up as she drug me up the stairs, a trail of blood behind us.  When we reached the “operating room” she told me to get on the bed, which already had someone else’s blood all over it.  By then I had already surrendered to the idea that I was going to die, so I did as she said.  I remember a small wastebasket in the corner that was overflowing with dirty and bloody garbage.  Soon 2 nurses came in with a metal table of instruments and I looked away because I was terrified to see what instruments were there.  No one would talk to me or tell me what they were doing to me.  They put an IV in my arm and I felt something burning through my veins.  I fell asleep but was still partly awake and I remember feeling unbearable pain and trying to stop them but I couldn’t.  They tied my arms and legs to the bed.  Towards the end I woke up and a nurse yelled at me, “You’re not supposed to be awake!  Go back to sleep!”  My poor husband told me later that he heard me screaming for 2 hours.  I didn’t know I was screaming, but when I woke up I had no voice.  He had called all our friends and family and asked them to pray because he was terrified.

          When it was all over and I was “allowed” to be awake, I asked for some water and for my husband.  They brought water, but told me my husband had left.  I found out later he was there the whole time, sleeping on the cold cement floor in the waiting area.  I remember seeing the sun come up and hearing people outside the window.  I couldn’t believe I was really alive and that the pain was completely gone. They took me to a bed to recover and I waited all day, with no news of my husband.  Late in the afternoon they finally let him come see me.  He’d been looking for money all day to get me out of there because we had nothing and the bill was almost $100.  A very dear Kenyan couple lent us the money and as evening approached I was finally allowed to go home.

         The next days and weeks I was in shock. I had never even considered the possibility of a miscarriage.  My heart was so broken I thought it could never ever heal.  But God walked me through one day at a time and little by little, day by day, He healed my broken heart.  I thought I would never want to try to have a baby again after all we went through, but when it was over, I wanted to try again as soon as possible.  To my horror, month after month went by.  I began to wonder if the doctor had damaged my womb and if I would ever be able to have a baby.  Or maybe something was wrong with me and that was why I had miscarried in the first place.  Every month on the day my period came I would cry and cry the whole day, sometimes the whole week.  I knew my husband had wanted a baby so bad and I love him so much, all I wanted to do was give him this precious gift.  He was so loving and understanding and would patiently hold me as I cried and remind me of God’s Word and love for us.  He always told me that I was a precious gift to him, even if we never had children.  That was a miracle because in Kenya, often when a woman miscarries, her husband will leave her.  And if she can’t get pregnant that is considered a curse and she is shunned by society and abandoned.  My husband’s gentle love removed all fear of this from my heart and played a very special part in my healing.

          Almost exactly a year later, our precious baby girl was born! She was born almost a month early and amid countless predictions from American doctors and specialists who said she probably wouldn’t survive birth, or even the pregnancy. They told us that if by some miracle she did survive, she would be deaf, never walk, and would suffer from all kinds of disabilities. The night she was born, they were all there waiting to whisk her away. After running all their tests on her they brought her back to us, totally baffled. She was perfect in every way. We named her Amariah, which means “speech of God”. Truly, her very life speaks of God’s incredible faithfulness, goodness, compassion, kindness, mercy, comfort, power, love, and so much more. The happy endings don’t end there though. The young new mother Miriam was helping went for the ultrasound and heard a heartbeat. Everything else looked good too. Praise God she refused the D&C!!!! What’s even better, the bleeding has stopped. God is so good.

          Recounting this story still brings some tears and some sadness, but it also brings hope, joy, and a remembrance of promises kept and promises that will be fulfilled one day. 2 Corinthians 1:3&4 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” This has proved true in my life, and though it was so painful to lose our precious Adriel, I still believe that God was very intensely and personally involved, just as the name we chose declared. We have the blessed hope of seeing our sweet baby one day, and the hope that through our baby’s life and death we will be better equipped to help and comfort others with what we have received from God through this experience. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Romans 2:28
 

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