Rejected At Birth
Episode Four
Grandma was lying helpless on the floor, and my sister couldn’t help but cry.
Maybe she foresaw the impending dānger that was about to befall us.
The nurse stood still, not noticing the doctor entering the room.
When he heard my grandma screaming for help, he opened the door and saw the nurse standing while grandma had completely shut her eyes.
When she sighted the doctor, she started screaming, ‘Ma, wake up,’ while touching grandma.
But the doctor had already seen her, and grandma breathed her last, just like mom.
The doctor started calling the other nurses in the hospital to help him carry grandma and place her on the hospital bed.
They were there in no time, helping carry her while two of them carried me and my sister.
They placed her on the bed, and the doctor placed something on her nose.
I realized it was for oxygen, but the machine didn’t work on grandma because she wasn’t breathing.
She had suffered a heart attack and passed away, just like mom, leaving us in this cruel world.
“How could you be so wickēd, Nurse Jane?” the doctor confronted her, and she couldn’t defend herself.
The doctor bowed his head and sat on a chair near the bed.
“This is the second death we’ve reported in just 24 hours in this hospital,”he said, turning to Nurse Jane.
“Drop your ID card on that bed,” he pointed to the bed where grandma was lying.
She did as she was commanded, and the doctor ordered her to leave the hospital before she makes him lōse his medical license.
I didn’t even know what he meant by that.
The doctor just looked at us sadly as the nurse left.
She was replaced by another nurse I liked; it seemed she was on a special duty.
Suddenly, the doctor turned to the other people in the ward and said, “What are you waiting for?
Just leave my sight,” he screamed and they all left except the nurse who did not say a word.
The nurse fed us with milk, and I wasn’t even satisfied, but I couldn’t cry to alert her because even if I did, she wouldn’t hear me.
At night, the doctor came and he talked about what he would do with us.
No patient was in need of children, he would have just given us out to better our lives.
Then he said nobody was going to adopt children who couldn’t speak, and he was right because even those praying for children will not pay for such children.
I understood him, although I was deeply hurt because it meant we were not going to have anyone who would love and accept us for who we were.
He finally left our ward, and I just lied down meditating on the kind of life we were made to live.
It was better we diēd in the womb or even after birth than coming into the world dūmb and everyone kept leaving, even when they knew no one else was there to take care of us.
The other nurse was so nice to us, she took care of us for a week in the hospital.
The doctor said we should always be there for a week if someone will come requesting for children or we could be taken somewhere else.
We were too small to be discharged, at least he wanted our necks to be strong and our nāvels fully healed before anything else.
I prayed within me that we would continue to stay in the hospital because there was no one else that could take care of us.
A week passed in the hospital, and I felt like my prayers were working because no one came to look for a child.
Some people visited the hospital and brought clothes, shoes, and toiletries for babies.
The doctor used those things to take care of us, and the nurse made us feel like her own children.
I even started to think that she might adopt us and take care of us herself.
The doctor made her focus on taking care of us, and we wore clothes provided by the hospital.
We even grew bigger in just one month. I didn’t know if the doctor forgot about his plan to give us away when we were one week old.
Maybe he just got used to seeing us in the hospital.
When new patients came in, they thought the nurse was our real mother and congratulated her.
But when she told them the truth, they contributed food, money, and clothes for us.
Some of them even offered to help find couples who were looking to adopt children.
The women would say, “I know someone who wants children,” but then there would be no news.
I figured they might have been told that we were unable to spėak.
Two more months passed, and one morning the doctor came and asked the nurse to take us somewhere.
His face was cold, like something had happened the night before.
He said, “Take them out and leave them by the roadside or in a nearby bush. They won’t diē.
Someone will surely come and pick them up.
I’ve tried my best to find a family for them, but nobody wants dūmb children.”
The nurse dressed us up.
She seemed reluctant at first to take us away, but since she didn’t want to lose her job.
She had no choice but to sadly take us out of the hospital.
When the gate man opened the gate, my heart skipped a bėat.
I had no idea where she was taking us.
Thessycute Ekene
