Don't Call me Mama (7) - I solved the Mystery behind women eating their unborn children

“There’s a problem with your result.” The doctor said to my husband and me as he took an intense look at my medical report.

I was getting ready to leave the country to continue my pregnancy journey, and I had to take all necessary tests along with me even though the new doctor I was using said they would still take their own tests. I decided to take tests in Nigeria, so I would be armed and equipped with all my medical records.

“What could be the problem?” I thought. At least, I was sure I wasn’t HIV positive. I had read that much from the medical report.

“You said this is your first baby. Right?” The doctor continued.

“Yes sir.”

“And you have never been pregnant before.”

“Yes sir.” I said emphatically. “Even this pregnancy sef ehn, I was dashed by force.” I thought.

I think what I was hearing was, “If you have been pregnant before, now is the time to confess.”

“Your test says you are rhesus negative.”

"Okay, what is the implication of that?" I thought to myself'. I was silently wondering where this was leading.



The doctor went on to explain that I had the rarest blood group and rhesus class in the world. Not only was I an ‘O’, I was negative. My blood was the most expensive type because I am universal donor but the downside was that I couldn’t receive from anyone apart from an ‘O negative’. Our blood couldn’t mix with other types. Women like us have issues with childbirth because once the first baby comes out, the baby’s blood mixes with ours and then forms an antibody. The effect of this is that when we become pregnant again, that antibody kills the next foetus and causes the woman to miscarry. If miscarriage doesn’t occur, a still birth will occur. In short, the woman’s blood will keep killing future children.

You can imagine me in the doctor’s office hearing this terrible news.

Interpretation: “If you have been pregnant before, had an abortion before or dumped your child in the gutter or motherless babies home before, now is the time to confess, or else your child is going to die very soon.”

Thankfully, there was nothing to confess.

The doctor then went on to apologize for not catching the issue earlier. He attributed it to the fact that I didn’t come in as an antenatal patient but as a Red degeneration of fibroid patient, so they didn’t carry out all the routine tests they were supposed to carry out for pregnant women.

So what is the solution?

If my husband was negative, there wouldn’t be a problem because automatically, my child would be negative, and his blood won’t contaminate mine. However, the chances of my husband being negative was very low since negative was rare, thereby the chances of my child being positive was quite high. We carried out a test that day, and my husband was B positive.

The solution was to take a special injection (Rhogam) rhesus negative mothers take at 28 weeks, in order to counteract what would have taken place when my blood mixes with that of my child. I would also have to take the injection once immediately after delivery, and my baby is confirmed to be positive.

I was supposed to have taken this injection at 28 weeks. I was already about 31 weeks during the discovery, and to make it worse, the injection wasn’t readily available. One would have to order it, and it cost N40,000.00

At least, there was a solution, even though it was an expensive one. I ended up taking the injection when I was 32 weeks old, thus giving my future unborn children a chance to see this world.

When I was in Houston, I told my mum about this issue. She screamed saying “where did you get that type of blood?”

I replied with “you tell me.” it is either from you or my dad. She kept saying they were both positive, and I became more confused. I later researched and found out it is possible, if both parents carry recessive rhesus negative genes.

When I got to my doctors in US, they flagged the rhesus negative. On my delivery date, I reminded the nurse about it. Actually, there was no need to remind her because it had been boldly flagged all over my delivery chart for all the doctors and nurses to see (ALARM: HERE COMES A RHESUS NEGATIVE MOTHER. BUYERS BEWARE) Lol.

Thankfully, I had a very smooth and safe delivery (details in a later edition of the series), but my baby was positive. So yes, I had to take the Rhogam injection again, but I didn’t have to shelve out another round of money again this time. It was completely free, or at least covered by the hospital bill I had settled a long time ago.

Here are two musings of mine about this issue.

What of some ladies who had carried out abortions by quack doctors in the past. It means if they are rhesus negative, they’ll have problems carrying future pregnancies to full term, and they’d most likely blame it on God punishing them for the sins of the past.

Secondly, in the rural areas, where there’s less exposure, when the rhesus negative woman has a child and future foetuses don’t stay, they’d most likely say she’s the witch eating her children, or the first child is the one killing all other children. Thankfully, due to medical advancement, we now know what the real problem is. Who said ignorance is not a devil?

Do you know any rhesus negative mother? Did they find out on time, or was it too late before the discovery was made? How did the situation affect them?