Here's to new

New. My favorite three lettered word. A part of me wants to say it's every girl's favorite word but that may be a bit derogatory ( whether it's true or not is a discussion for another day. Side note; it's true. Tsk tsk)
I like new things that come from old things. Recycled is the fancy word for it. I like to keep it poetic. New old things. That old pair of jeans you fashionably did a little ripping to here and there giving it a whole new look; that sofa set whose covers you took off and replaced...I have a long list of new old things in my life and I bet you do too. Note: the one thing that should not be new old are exes. Leave those in the old pile and stamp them with the 'hazardous sign'.
Today's blog post is for me to introduce to you something new old to me. A former blog. It will be the blog address that I will be using from now on. Even though this is simply a redirection blog, I will still note that teenage pregnancy needs to be stopped! Hopefully one day it will also be in our old pile, stamped with 'harzadous'.
Here is the new blog site.

https://smilinglovinglaughing.wordpress.com/

See you there soon.

Friday the 13th? No. LIFE

Today has been a good day for me.It felt like I had so much time and just enough to do with it. I thought I'd use the spare time to write a poem. But like every poet out there knows,a good poem is fed off of some inspiration.
Over the past couple of weeks, my mind and heart has been arched towards ending what i would love to call nothing less than a scourge; teenage pregnancy. It's one thing to  hear about it over the news or read it on the internet and another to get the experience first hand from a victim; raw, unedited stories. Words dripping directly from their bleeding souls. Shared stories from young girls who are constantly covered by the blanket of 'I wish I knew'. Carrying resentment and regret like yokes around their necks. Yokes only put there because they lacked the right information to make the right choice.
Myths have become subtle parasites infesting the youth of today. Their diseases are sometimes hard to diagnose because their effects are often only seen after it is too late.
In my line of work, I am privileged  to work directly with young people and always taken aback by the myths they hold on to; detrimental beliefs that end up stealing the brightness of their futures from their lives.
'If I have sex standing up, I won't get pregnant'
'If I wash my private parts with coke or panadol after sex, I won't get pregnant'
'If I have sex 10 days after my periods, I won't get pregnant'
'If I have never had a wet dream then I can't make her pregnant'
'If I have never had my periods then I can't get pregnant'....
And the list unfortunately goes on.
There. There is where i got my inspiration for this poem. Most young people assume that sex is just a game that you can gamble with, not realising that it is their very lives that they are using as the bet money. Depending on 'luck' when they could win with knowledge. I digress. Here is the poem.

The sun rose from the East
Peeping its head over the horizon,
Like every other day.

It
Scorched the feathers
Of the village cock,
Causing an involuntary impulse
Of an early morning crow;
Cockadudodu
Cockadudodu
Like every other day.

Except

This was not
Like every other day;
It was her birthday.
13
A number she had always considered magical
Because it would be the age
When she gets to go to secondary school,
All the 100s and 90s she worked so hard to get
Would abracadabra her to senior one;
One step closer
To her dream of becoming a musawo;
Treating people,
Saving lives.

As she stretched her arms,
The morning seemed to hand her
Her very first birthday gift;
The sight of an uncontrollably growing belly;
A testament of a life
Growing inside of her.

On this her birthday,
Her mind sang to her
Its own version of a birthday tune,
Echoing rhymes of her mother's screams
And her father's yelling
The day they found out their little girl
Would be forced to grow up
Before her time.
"What shame! You are not my daughter"
"Daddy please"

Out of the peripheral of her mind's eye,
She could see
Plasters of painful memories of the day she told Jim,
Empty promises of his support
If she silently took "it" out,
A death that nearly claimed two lives.

She overdosed on a combination of drugs
And fell into a coma.
Somewhere on her journey back to consciousness
Jim must have ran away,
Leaving her with their baby;
Two children surviving great odds.
Faced with a future bound to be tough.

As if a present of its own too,
Her body hurled out everything she had eaten the night before,
Pain
Discomfort
Tears.

Today
She made 13,
And her life would forever take a new turn.
No more school,
Blocked dreams
So many decisions she wished she could do over....

For causes worth fighting for

A couple of months ago I had the amazing experience of bringing forth life. To say it was anything close to easy would be a huge understastement. The things that a person goes through in preparation of this bundle of joy can take a huge toll on someone, physically, mentally, socially...and so many other things...lly.Having experienced that, I am grateful to have had the knowledge I had prior to making the decision to have a child.
Unfortunately, unlike me, many young girls are neither equipped with information nor the choice on when to have their first child. They find themselves becoming mothers before they have fully had a chance to be children. UBOS 2011 reported that 1 in 4 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 was either a mother or was pregnant with her first child. In a nation whose bigger percentage is below the age of 18, 1 in 4 girls is a very big ratio. It's one that we cannot simply shrug away and hope it disappears; not like any case of teenage pregnancy should ever be shrugged away. Even if we had 1 in 100, it would be worth fighting against.
It is with this background that I dedicate my next couple of blogs to creating a voice for a cause so close to my heart. So many young girls' lives are affected by this issue; some going as far as losing their lives during delivery or due to abortions in attempt to remove a child they were obviously not ready for. If you sat down with a young girl in this day and age you would realise that there is a huge knowledge gap when it comes to matters of getting pregnant.
'Can I get pregnant if I have sex only once?'
'Is it true you won't get pregnant the first time you have sex?'
'Will I get pregnant if I have sex before I see my menstrual periods?'
All valid questions. All questions most of them have never had the chance to have answered. Because of this lack of information, our nation's future, whose blueprints are strongly embedded in our young girls, is being tainted. What can we do as a nation? What can we do as individuals? I think the first step to answering these questions is first and foremost equipping ourselves with CORRECT information. I capitalize the word correct because in this day and age, there is an outpouring of  information but not all of it is necessarily correct. In fact, giving ear to wrong information is also a cause of teenage pregnancy in our country today. Double check your information with more trusted sources. Use the internet for your benefit; make it your friend.
Here's another friendly way to use the internet, follow this blog and join me and so many others as we continue to add our voice to those who've gone before and scream in written prose ; END TEENAGE PREGNANCY.

Things they never tell you....

Every one prepares you for the pain of child birth; what to eat to reduce it, what to bathe in, who to call, how much to exercise....it's important that you know and understand that bringing a life into this world is not only hard work but also very painful( if you do it as God intended that is).....

One thing they don't prepare you for, though, is the month after the child is born.
Sure,seeing a little life that came out of you and is a chromosomal fusion of you and the man you love more than life itself is an indescribable elation but fast forward to around day 5 when that baby is home with you and slowly by slowly your sanity begins to dwindle away....the rut that is routine begins to sink its teeth so deep into your psyche that you adopt a sort of comatose state of mind...the colours that describe dusk and dawn simply shift by with no particular meaning...no particular joy to look forward to.

Of course there are tiny victories as you try to adjust to this new life. Like when he shocked you all and slept through the night( problem is, all of you had slept through the day in preparation of his nocturnal behaviour so still, no sleep)...or that moment when his cord fell off.small victory for some but you see some doesn't have a mother who constantly tells you about the trouble she had with each of her children's cords falling off and doesn't keep exclaiming how come it hasn't fallen yet...so seeing it fall all on its own, no complication, no dejavus of my mother's experiences, was a very big victory for me.....or that time he squeezed your finger with his little hand, or had his first dramatic moment when he pushed your breast away and let you fight to feed him simply because you had taken too long to respond to his obvious call for milk that is his.(every child has a diva in them somewhere)

All those countless victories are probably the only strings holding you together as you adjust to this very very new way of life...a sleep deprived, baby driven sort of life.

No one tells you about the nights you'll wake up with him crying irreconsolably(if that's a word) and since he can't speak you have to employ the elimination method...is he wet? Tired? Hungry? Hurt?  Cold? Sick? What is wrong with my baby?!?!?

They never tell you before hand that there will be things that he will do that are completely normal but will freak the hell out of you and make you think you are the world's worst mum. Like his feeding every 30 minutes or so...(of course depending on who is with you but if the voice you are constantly hearing is one that is telling you that you arent feeding him enough or right or your breast milk is too little, even if it drips and wets your whole dress whenever you miss feeding him, you start to believe that voice. Start to question a lot of things and it begins to tag even harder on that thing you used to call your sanity.....)

Child birth is one of life's greatest joys. Seeing a little human who is composed of half your DNA is oh so joyous...but like all life's great things, it doesnt come without any hurdles. However we often look at the crown and forget the cross.

I'm finding ways to adjust, ways to learn. I will, however, be sure to prepare whomever i can for not only the pain of child birth( which produces a beautiful life after the pain is overcome) but also the likely mental pain that will come in the beginning after( which serves to make you stronger, and in more ways than one, less and less selfish. I think it is in these first few weeks that that motherly love they speak so highly of begins to be beautifully curved. You look at that baby and realise he is worth even your own sanity....