He was quiet for a while, then he shrugged. “Okay, then, if you insist you must go”, he finally responded, still sounding far from pleased with me.
“It is important, MD, that is why I need to go, otherwise, I would’ve stayed back,” I said in my most appealing voice.
“Okay, then, no problem, I will let you go, but only on one condition.”
“And what condition is that?”
“You must be back here within the next two hours!”
That shocked me a little. Two hours small, what I’m going for is certainly not a two-hour thing. And I have to make MD understand that fact before I leave, otherwise if I exceed that two hours when I came back, there will be war o!
“Okay, darling, I’ve heard you,” I said to him, wrapping my arms around him.
“But you know you also have to consider traffic delays and stuffs like that, so please give me a grace of about 30 minutes or thereabout.” I didn’t even wait for him to respond before I dashed into the bedroom, picked up my bag and dashed out of the house after giving him a peck.
On my way out, he shouted behind me, “Two hours o!” And I promptly responded with a shout too. “Two and half hours o!”
Aunty and I got to the hospital in good time. Traffic was light and I drove like being crazy. Even Aunty had to beg me to slow down and I reminded her of Oga’s condition – 2 hours!
The doctor, thankfully, was not a young man, he would be in his 50s. I preferred it that way, those young doctors are too flirty with their female patients. But still, there was a way this old doctor was staring at my boobs that unsettled me.
“So, about how old is the pregnancy?” he asked me after he’d asked Aunty to go and wait for me at the reception.
“It’s several weeks old, maybe about two months old now,” I replied. He stood up to examine my eyes, and then asked me to lie down on the examination bed. Still, his eyes barely left my boobs.
Shortly after, he told me to get up, then he asked me a question that I thought was none of his business.
“Tell me my dear,” he’d begun, smiling at me like one with a mischievous plan, “Why do you want this pregnancy aborted?”
I couldn’t understand him. Why was he asking me this sort of question? What is his business why I have decided to abort the pregnancy? Shouldn’t he be only interested in the money I am supposed to pay him?
“Is there a problem, doctor?” I’d thrown at him, trying very hard to conceal my irritation.
“Why are you asking me that sort of question?”
The man adjusted his glasses, steadied his gaze on my face and then shook his head.
“You don’t understand,” he’d said to me.
“You can’t just come in to my clinic and ask for abortion and I will oblige you just because you’re going to pay me money. It’s not done that way. Any medical personnel that practises that way is either a quack or he’s simply being stupid. It is my responsibility to ask you questions and try to understand your situation better.”
I was just staring at him, all of that long and boring speech he was making didn’t make any sense to me, all I needed him to do was to get down to business and evacuate the foetus inside me.
“So, are you prepared to answer my question now?” his deep voice barged into my thoughts.
“ I don’t understand, doctor, exactly what do you want me to tell you?” I’d returned angrily.
“I am an adult, I’m not small school girl, and I should be able to determine what I want for myself. I don’t want this pregnancy, because I have a problem with the timing. I cannot go through nine months of pregnancy right now!”
There was silence. The man was just gazing at me, unmoved. I was so upset I could barely look him in the eyes. Then, finally, the expression on his face changed. It relaxed from the serious look to a friendlier one. And he smiled.
“Okay, I think I’ve got the right answer I needed to hear from you, that anger in your voice says it all,” he’d said to me.
I was puzzled. “And what does that mean, doctor, are you saying you won’t do the abortion for me? What exactly are you trying to tell me now?”
…to be continued
