Help! I have fallen in love with my doctor (1)

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42-year-old Juliet has placed her hope on God to get a good and caring husband so that she would settle down and have children. She had longed to settle immediately after her one year compulsory national service but all to no avail. She had believed in the institution of marriage and had ardently detested late marriage.

“Even while I was doing my primary assignment in Ibadan, as a youth corper, I was hoping that before I was through with it, I would bring a suitor home to my parents. That was the promise I made to my mum who too never liked the idea of a girl settling down when she was desperate.

“I actually wanted to get married at 24, though I was 22 when I was serving. So, I was thinking that if I should meet the person, we would use a year or more than that to study ourselves before the marriage. But the more I hoped to achieve my dream, the more it appeared as if it was a herculean task,” she said.

Juliet had five younger siblings, all girls. She said she wouldn’t want her younger sisters to start getting married before her because her father never believed in the system of the younger ones waiting for the elderly to get married first. “More so, I needed to be married and start bearing children early enough. I heard when my auntie’s doctor was asking her why she didn’t get married early enough and had her children when she was much younger. She was 46 and was about having her first baby. And her doctor insisted she would have it by cut (caesarian section) because she wouldn’t be strong enough to push. That she would have been able to do so if she was much younger.

“That advice etched at the back of my mind and that was when I decided never to toe her steps. But with what is happening to me now, it looks as if what happened to her wants to happen to me. I was scared the more and desperate somehow,” she stressed.

Juliet started getting anxious when she clocked 40 and she was still not in any serious relationship. Her mum started getting worried and was always calling her on the phone to remind her of the promise she made to her when she was about leaving home for her youth service. “Her calls became more regular and she was making me jittery each time we finished speaking on the phone. There was the night we finished discussing on the phone, and I couldn’t sleep well. That was when she told me that my siblings too had no one coming for their hands in marriage and she said I should be the first person to take the bold step and break the yoke if at all it was spiritual.

“I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. I was lying down there on my bed like a log of wood, thinking about my life and why things were that way. The men coming to me were married men except my very first guy on campus. Ejike was good to me. We were in the same university before he decided to change to a federal university because of school fees. When he left, he continued writing me but because I wasn’t good in replying letters, he stopped. I was hoping to see him when the schools were on vacation. And that was what happened, we used to see when we were on holidays until he later traveled out of the country and we never met again,” she enthused.

Out of boredom, Juliet decided to be dating one of the married men who never stopped asking her out. “I didn’t want to date Tony but he was always coming to see me, taking me out and keeping me company. He was young and cute. He got married early, at 38 and when I met him he was 48 and I was 40. When we started, I told myself that I would only date him to kill boredom until the right man came. And that I was never going to love him because he was another lady’s man. But sincerely, I began to love him. I never knew I wouldn’t be able to control my emotions. We dated for two years before we parted ways. He said his wife had known we were dating, that one of my neighbours who used to run a hair salon where his wife usually goes to fix her hair told her about our relationship. We didn’t stop almost immediately but that gave a deep cut in the relationship. He stopped coming to my house and wanted us to be seeing in hotels an idea I hated with a passion. I later called it quits with him though it was painful to let go,” she stressed.

When they had parted ways, Juliet never knew she was already pregnant for Tony until she started having signs of early pregnancy. “I missed my flow but I thought it was the stress of leaving Tony that was affecting me. But when I started getting nauseated, I had to go for a pregnancy test and it was positive, I was confused the more. I didn’t want to tell Tony because I knew that wouldn’t make him happy. He didn’t want anything that would affect his marriage. The first thing I did was to park out of my apartment/neighborhood. I felt unsafe there since Tony told me one of my neighbours told his wife about us. The person may also tell the woman about my pregnancy. I later registered with a hospital close to my new place of abode for ante natal care. It was a private hospital and the doctor was indeed caring. He took my case to the heart and gave me adequate attention each time I came for my antenatal,” she said.

By ADAEZE AMOS

*To be continued next week