The day started like any other.
It was a humid Tuesday morning in early April. The rain had just stopped drizzling over Lagos, and the streets were wet and alive with impatient horns and yelling hawkers. Tonia had barely slept the night before. Her lower back ached with a rhythm she couldn’t explain, and her baby had been unusually restless in the womb.
At 5:15 a.m., she sat by the window, cradling a cup of warm water, staring at the grey sky.
Something felt different.
Not pain, exactly. Not even fear.
Just… a shift.
Her mother stepped into the room and frowned. “You didn’t sleep again?”
Tonia shook her head. “Back pain. And the baby has been doing acrobatics since midnight.”
Her mother looked at her belly and muttered, “You’re due any day now. Pack your hospital bag fully today.”
Tonia nodded, still not sure what she was waiting for. A sign? A scream? A breaking of water like in the movies?
What came instead was quiet.
And then the storm.
The First Wave
At 9:26 a.m., while washing her clothes behind the house, it happened.
A sharp cramp gripped her abdomen like a vice. She doubled over, dropping the wrapper she was rinsing, her mouth forming a silent scream.
Then came the rush of warm liquid down her legs.
Her water had broken.
She froze. The world blurred. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Mummy!” she yelled. “It’s time! It’s happening!”
Within minutes, her mother came running out, hands shaking. She grabbed her phone, her bag, and screamed at her younger son to help hail a keke (tricycle).
“Hold yourself! Don’t push!” she kept yelling.
But the pain had other plans.
The Road to the Hospital
The thirty-minute journey to the General Hospital was pure torture.
Tonia held onto the metal frame of the keke like her life depended on it, groaning through clenched teeth. Her gown was soaked, her body shaking from the waves of pain that now came every few minutes.
“Mummy, I can’t do this. I swear I can’t!” she cried.
“You will. You must. You’re strong. You’ve carried this child for nine months—you won’t give up now!” her mother barked.
At every bump, Tonia screamed. At every turn, she cursed Femi in her mind, wondering if he ever pictured this moment. If he knew she’d be alone, breathing through hell, praying for survival.
She imagined him somewhere in Lagos, living free—maybe eating shawarma, maybe laughing with another girl, while she fought for her life.
And for the first time in months, she hated him.
Deeply.
Welcome to Labour Ward
The nurses took over immediately.
“She’s 5cm dilated!” one shouted.
“Get her on the bed!”
“Where’s her folder?”
They changed her clothes into a faded blue hospital gown. Her mother was told to wait outside.
That’s when the real battle began.
The labour ward was a symphony of screams, sweat, and urgent footsteps. Three other women were groaning, writhing, begging for it to end.
Tonia lay on the metal bed, legs spread, her hands gripping the sides, her teeth digging into her lower lip. The pain came in waves—sharp, stabbing, consuming.
She cried. She shouted. She begged God.
“Please, let me survive this. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die!”
The nurse beside her, a no-nonsense woman, kept saying, “Breathe. Push only when I tell you. Don’t waste your strength.”
But strength was no longer hers to manage. Her body had taken over. She felt like a passenger in her own pain.
The Moment
After two more hours of unrelenting torment, the nurse checked her again.
“Fully dilated. It’s time.”
Tonia didn’t have time to think. The nurse positioned her legs, told her to push with the next contraction.
Then came the scream.
It wasn’t just the scream of pain. It was a scream of fear. Of loneliness. Of remembering that no one was beside her. No father-to-be holding her hand. No soft words. No forehead kisses.
Just her, drenched in sweat and shame and strength.
“PUSH!” the nurse commanded.
She pushed. And screamed. And cried.
Three more pushes.
Then a shrill cry filled the air.
A baby’s cry.
Her baby.
The nurse lifted a slim, wet, blood-covered bundle and said, “It’s a girl.”
They placed the child briefly on her chest before whisking her away for cleaning.
Tonia stared at the ceiling, tears streaming freely down her cheeks.
She had done it.
Alone.
First Look
When they handed her the baby, wrapped in faded hospital linen, she stared at the tiny human with disbelief.
He was small. Pink. Eyes shut tightly. A tiny fist already raised in protest.
Tonia smiled through her exhaustion.
“Welcome,” she whispered. “I’m sorry the world started this way. But I’ll make it better. I promise.”
The baby wriggled, then stilled.
It was surreal. How someone so small could cause so much pain—and still command so much love.
For a while, everything else faded: the abandonment, the shame, the loneliness. All that mattered was the warm, sleeping angel in her arms.
The Visitor
Two days later, while recovering on the ward bed, she got an unexpected visitor.
Chiamaka.
She came bearing baby diapers, a bottle of Lucozade, and fried rice in a takeaway plate.
“Congratulations, warrior,” she said with a wink.
Tonia smiled weakly. “Thank you. You didn’t have to—”
“Shhh. Just eat and rest.”
After checking on the baby, Chiamaka sat beside her.
“You’re stronger than most people I know. Never forget that.”
Tonia nodded, tears pooling in her eyes.
Sometimes, strength doesn’t come from who stands beside you—but from who survives when no one else stands at all.
Ending Reflection (Episode 5)
That night, alone with her baby on the hospital bed, she whispered a lullaby.
Not the sweet kind her mother used to sing—but one of truth.
“The world didn’t want us.
But we’re here.
I laboured without love…
But I delivered with fire.
And from now on, baby girl,
It’s just us—me and you.
Against the odds.”
She looked at her baby one more time.
“he’s my scar,” she whispered, “and my strength.”
To be continued in Episode 6: Her Crown
