Story of my life. My maze!

My whole life has been what many term as normal; Public school, both parents married and loving, many loving siblings and family members, three meals a day, living by rules, permission to go or do things “out of normal”, and many others that make a normal life. I had all I needed where I was. Just what I needed to thrive and grow to the next level. I was raised by parents who had strong standing values and virtues. Both mum and dad are respected in sittings and they spoke with so much wisdom and grace that made me admire their personalities. My mum is loud, authoritative and wise. My dad is calm, graceful, wise and had patience that is out of this world. My siblings and I are a blend of the two of them. We are a great team, till today. We fight like normal siblings, we cry, we curse but we never stopp loving. One thing with my family, they have so much love to give. So so much love. Now that most of us, five out of seven, are parents, our kids are among the lucky ones that will be raised with so much love. The two birds that gave birth to us are so proud and blessed with so many grandchildren. That’s a little about my family.

I grew up in the rural parts of Marsabit County, Kenya. A place I have never thought is marginalized, dry, underrepresented, undeveloped and rural. I knew Kalacha as a a town until I learnt what towns are like. I knew her as a city until I saw cities and knew the difference. I accepted, acknowledged and still love my home. My heart always longs for her. We have plenty of water, a lot of sun and sand. We live with so much endurance. The heat is not for everyone but we still go home from the cities.

Now to myself, most of my life I have been a student. I am always on the go, learning, exploring and understanding how life works. I was in a boarding school since I was 4 years old. We were only allowed home on Sundays. However, since my big sister was in school, in upper primary school, I literally had a mum there. My big sister is a nurturer who has a big heart. She was the one who use bathe me, made my hair and cleaned my clothes. We would sometimes fight after I grew up a little but she eventually completed her studies and left. I remained and my little sister joined me so I took her role. We did good in school, got good grades. Life was smooth, I completed my studies too and went to high school.

In high school, I was still not fully aware of who I was. I was above average student, had many good friends and did not have lots of issues with indiscipline. Life was just okay. Just okay. Towards the end of ny secondary education, in a snap, something happened that changed me. My thinking changed, the things I thought about changed, the way I looked at myself. How I felt about myself, my dreams and ambitions and everything turned around. I became someone I have struggled to not be for the past 13 years of my life. A part of my life was lost, completely. I became this person that I also did not know. I stopped making friends, I stopped dreaming, growing, learning and enjoying life. Worse of all, I stopped forgiving. Now I live in a maze that has no end. I am a girl who remembers every single thing that was said to me 23 years ago, I try to forgive but cannot, I try to hate and cut off but I just cannot.

I try to find the little girl that was good at almost everything but I cannot. I smile, laugh, play and pretend just enough to make me look like I am fine. But deep down, I am stuck in a version of me that doesn't belong to me. Where did I lose it? I exist. But numbly. Quietly. With frail hope that some day, in a snap of a finger, life will stop making me feel like I am watching my own life from outside. I will stop being afraid of dreaming and living life. I will stop remembering all the bad things said to me or done to me. It took me so long to realize where it all started. In high school. When I was still young. When I still needed to be protected from so much. When I needed to be strong enough to handle the kind of things that happened to me. Then the little broken bird went on to University.

I joined the University of Nairobi. I had a dream and just to fit in and say, “I joined a University’, I enrolled for a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication, something I loved since I was in standard seven. I guess I still had a little spark of a dream left in me. The first day I went to Nairobi, I went alone. I was 18 years old. Young and dumb. In a city I have never been to. I was riding on the support of someone I have never met before. Someone who could devour me and discard my body without a trace. In a land none of my kind would be able to tell its east or west. I started another journey that took me deep into the forest of full of a girl who I did not know. I made decisions that the normal me would never make. I met people who broke me into more pieces that I was left alone to collect. The world is so cruel. If only they knew.

Before I could complete my studies, I got a job. A good job that was giving me a six figure at only 20 years. I gave it my all. My blood and sweat. I always thought about my mum whenever I had to achieve a certain level of success. I wanted to please her so bad. So bad that I would do anything. I guess that’s my love language. I loved it with every inch of my being. I was working with the community and I sunk deep into it and forgot everything else. I wanted to only work and make enough money to make everyone else comfortable. But for me, Gumato, I forgot her existence. Everyone was happy. I was absent in my own life. I dreaded the nights that brought me the thoughts about the future. I feared dreaming beyond my job, I feared any truth about me. I locked up that girl away. While still in the maze, I got married, to a great man. A hardworking and above all, loving man, had a wonderful kid one year down.

After my baby came, I lost another piece of me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my little family to bits and pieces. I went deep into the forest.I was diagnosed with depression,severe. I lived with it. I made decisions that I am and was not proud of. I was just surviving. Just hanging on. So many people hurt me while I was still in this kind of situation. I lost every bit of peace within me. I stopped hoping for better days. My cycle was the same everyday. Eat, blame people, cry myself to sleep, fake some laughs and happiness and repeat. Motherhood itself took a toll on me. I was a 22 years old trying to be strong and enough for the whole world. For example I had groups I was working with. I solved conflicts among my girls. I solved conflicts between my participant and the husband or the wife while last night, I spent crying. If only my bathroom could speak. The amount of kneeling downs I had done? Life has a way of showing you the way though. Lemme bring you forward to a recent encounter I had that is kinda leading me out of the maze.

Two months ago, on the 13th of November 2025, God doubled my blessing. I got another baby, at one of the hospitals in Nanyuki. But let me give you a snapshot of what happened before this Thursday of 13th.

I was at 38 weeks on this day. On the 29th of October, I was feeling some contractions so I visited my gynecologist in town, who gave me medication. Before visiting him, I had had the contractions and had visited to hospital but th pain was not gone.

On Friday of 31st October, I had an appointment with the same gynecologist at the hospital I had chosen to deliver at. Since I already met him on Wednesday, there was no need for me to see him again. This was the same day I was to be scheduled for a Ceaserian Section because I already a scar from my previous child. That Friday I went to the doctor and asked if I can try the normal delivery but the hospital policy didn’t allow for trial of labor for a person who had a scar already. She instead advised me to go back to the hospital on Sunday, 2nd Of November, so that I would get admitted on Sunday and have the CS done on Monday. I left and on the 2nd, my husband took me in to be admitted as communicated earlier and I was booked in for the CS. I was prepared for my baby. I spent that night at the hospital, fasted from 3AM and in the morning, before the doctors came for the ward rounds, a nurse came and my cannula was placed along with other 3 expectant mothers. I prayed, and waited for my time to go to the theatre. I was super excited to meet my baby. The 9 months was exhausting and any mum would agree with me on the unexplained level of happiness that moment had.

Now, when the doctor came, he looked at my MCH(mother and Child health) booklet and told me I needed to have a full 38 weeks for the CS to be done and I was 38 weeks 3 days. And that meant I will have to get my CS done the following Monday or Wednesday. And I was frustrated. I didn’t know what to say. Another doctor came and she was told I am 37 weeks and so cannot have the Cs done. I was mad at them because I was admitted under their system and now again it’s a mistake? I was 38 weeks 5 days according to my own calculations. But that was not the problem. We had conversations with the doctor and I informed my husband, after an overwhelming amount of stress, I was discharged. We had so much push and pull with the doctor and the same happened for the others moms who we spent at the hospital with. That day, none of us went in to the theater. Later, we all had our cannulas removed. How does a big hospital like that admit people, place cannulas and just have them removed? What kind of communication channel do they use?

The part that was more confusing, I had to pay for the night because the medical cover has no “medication” to cover. I requested that I come to the hospital once I was in labour and they agreed. The cost was 4900. The hospital admin admitted that there was a miscommunication in their system, owned the mistake, and since we could not pay at that moment, he drafted an agreement by hand so we could sign and pay once we came back to the hospital for delivery. We went outside and that was the first red flag that I ignored.

Time flew by so fast. On the 13th of November, I felt contractions and by the time I got to the hospital, I was 2cm dilated. I was booked for an emergency CS. I went in. Full of frustration. Full of fear. Only God knows how close I was to leaving that bed. I was this close to stepping off that bed while the lady nurse was giving me anesthesia. I remember telling her how scared I felt. I was sobbing with so much emotion. I have never had that much fear all my life. The doctor was called, several times, and then he came and I was out from below my stomach. The same doctor I had met previously and complained to the admin about how their miscommunication caused me inconvenience. I deep down was afraid of him. Would he intentionally leave something inside me? Or partially disable me? Break my bladder? Harm my baby? So many bad thoughts lingered through my head. I was holding onto hope that God was in control. And indeed He was. And has always been.

Mid the CS, he stopped and told me that since I was having adhesions from my previous surgery, he has to cut my tummy open again from the belly button going downwards. Remember he had already made the normal CS incision on my abdomen. Since he said that was the only way out,I accepted. I could hear the nurse say, “she is too young for that”,. That froze something in my chest. I cried. I prayed and sobbed and the I accepted it. Amid tears.

The next thing, I had my baby cry and forgot all that. They took a lot of time stitching me up. And I was taken to the ward. After less than 2 hours, my bay was brought and placed next to me on the bed. And the baby was crying endlessly. I felt so helpless.

God being my witness, none of those nurses came by to check on me. After I was almost losing all hopes, a nurse came and I asked her if I could feed the baby and she told me I can do it if I felt comfortable enough. In less that 3hours, I had to turn and feed him on my side(which I later learnt was not supposed to happen). That was the beginning of my dead end. I fed him, got him to sleep and after 6 full hours, woke up and took a cup of coffee. I prepped my baby’s stuff on the bed and went to sleep.

On the evening of Friday, the day after my surgery, I had a mild fever and headache which I was told is normal. I was given some painkillers through injection. On the second night, my fever got intense, my heart rate was high and I had pain in my stomach. A pain that I couldn’t explain. Whenever I complained about the pain, I was given painkillers but after four to five hours, the pain would come back. I expected them to do some test to determine if there was an infection but that did not happen.

On the third day, my fever was full blown, I would shake when it hits. I couldn’t feed when it came. Unfortunately my mum was there while my fever hit. I was given the injection and it would ease off.

After 3 days I was supposed to be discharged.

The third day fell on a Sunday and thus I couldn’t be discharged. Makes sense. Monday came, and the doctor came for ward round. This is the first time I am seeing this doctor after my surgery. He checks the records and says that I would get discharged on that Monday. Lemme take you back, there’s a doctor who came on Sunday evening and removed my bandages. He hinted that I will first need to have my fevers monitored before I got discharged. After seeing the scar, I took a picture of it and I was shocked. I cried. It was not something I expected. One of the nurses saw me and even showed me her own scar of the same nature. She looked to be in her late 40s or early 50s. So I gained courage and accepted my scar.

After the doctor who operated on me came in, another doctor, I guess a senior one, came and looked at the records of my vitals. She asked if they tried to find out why my heart rate was high and also my temperature was high. I don’t remember his answer. She later asked him if he explained to me the reason why I had to get that kind of incision after the surgery and to my surprise, he said he did. He did not. I was confused. Mind you I last saw him in the surgery room. And that wasn’t the right place to explain that. Red flag number two. This guy was avoiding eye contact with me all along. And that showed me something.

On that day, we were told that they only discharged patients after mid day and that we should call our kina to pick us up after mid day. Everyone who was called came to receive their own. Nothing worked. We waited till 8:30PM and there was so much tension because the hospital allegedly had a problem with their system and they couldn’t discharge. With so much disappointment and frustration, I spent the night. Those who came to pick us(there were several people who were to be discharged on that day) up had to leave. There was this particular guy, who came with his mum, and two more women, I guess relatives. His frustration was more intense because one, he had hired a car, used fuel that costed him Kes 6,000 and two, he had slaughtered a goat for his wife and had come to pick her up. Imagine the inconvenience that has been caused. To make the matter worse, the admin sneaked out of the back door and left for his home while my husband and others waited for his communication at the reception.

After he left, they brought a soldier and another man came in to tell us that we cannot get discharged. At almost 9:00PM. By then, everyone had lost all patience.

On Tuesday, we left that hospital with lots of drama, at around 5:00PM, with cars blocking the entrance to the hospital and the Admin had to be brought in from outside to contain the situation. That’s how I left that hospital .

My journey was just starting, I wish I knew I will go back to the theater twice again after this, spend 17 more days in the hospital, be on oxygen,get blood transfusion, have a CT scan to rule out blood lot, not feed my baby for 24hours,be put to sleep my medication, have a vacuum machine connected to my tummy for 7 days and worse of all be separated from my new born for four nights.

I was in an out of every clinic due to pain and fevers after I was discharged. On the third day, I was taken in to a different hospital. My sugar level was at 2. My blood was low, I had acute sepsis. My wound was infected. And I had to be admitted again. The doctor who checked my wounds were shocked. One of them said, “in my 50 years of medical practice, I have never seen someone having such incision simultaneously .”

He asked me the name of the hospital I had my baby at and who the doctor was. I didn’t catch his name. But the hospital, I told him. They had someone they treated for Sepsis who delivered through CS at the same hospital. I was on endless amounts of antibiotics. 24hours on antibiotics. My body was frail. They did all they could until they finally decided to open the wound because there was fluid below the incision site. I went in for surgery so the surgeon would explore my wound and remove all the fluid he could find. My loved ones had the hardest time cooping. They waited for me to come out of that theater with little to no hope. Nobody thought I would make it out of that room alive.

I had an amazing team of nurses and doctors. Above all, a wonderful surgeon who informed me of every single decision he made concerning my wound. He promised me I would be okay if I cooperated, which I did wholesomely. Those guys wrote me cards, brought me flowers, bathe me, massaged me and did everything they could to make me feel better. That was God at work. I will never be able to thank them. I survived. Narrowly but I survived. That was just but a chapter of my life that I will live to tell.

Back to who I am now. This horrific experience taught me something I couldn’t learn in my many years of life. I unlocked a different level of self awareness that I had never been aware of. My view of the world and life and how it worked changed. My eyes opened to the reality of life. Questions that I still have to this day are, what if I died? What if I stayed home for an hour more when my sugar level was extremely below normal? Who would I have trusted to raise my kids? Who would have lived my dreams? Would I just have gone to the grave with all the ideas I have in my head? How would life have been without me? How would my husband raise the kids? How many people would have been hurt genuinely by my death?

I got answers to some. Life would continue and nobody will die because I did. Nobody would live my dreams. The world doesn’t care. The kids will grow up, my dreams die with me, and that was it. I realized my real ones though. Those who constantly checked in on me, till this day, those who cared deep. I also learnt not to count on so many people I initially thought were my real ones. And learned to count them out and start my life over. A fresh and this time with purpose. Boldly. No more strings. No more empty words and fake promises. Just bare and normal life.