RUBY

Chapter 4

I woke up to this sound,"Beep!Beep!Beep!".l opened my eyes immediately and saw Wayne sitting beside my bed running his hand through his hair severally.l looked around and so an intravenous (lV)drip that had blood in it and was connected to my left hand."Thank God you are awake. How are you feeling now?"Wayne asked me with concern evident in his voice.l tried to reply to him but no word came out of my mouth because my throat felt really dry.l pointed to the water and Wayne moved hastily to where the water bottle was and poured some water into a glass that was beside the water bottle before handing it to me.l drunk all the water in one go because the water tasted so good in my mouth and handed him back the glass of water.

"What happened to me,Wayne?How did l end up here in this hospital?"l asked him curiously.

"You collapsed on the street about three hours ago and so l brought you to this hospital,"he told me and that is when everything that had happened three hours ago came rushing back to me and l immediately placed my hand on my belly.l was shocked when l did not feel the big pregnant belly but instead l felt a small baby bump."What happened?Where is my baby?Is my baby alright?"my heart beat rate increased and l started having difficult in breathing which mostly happened when k was having an asthma attack since l was asthmatic.

"Inhale,"l did as Wayne told me to do,"exhale,breath in again and then breath out,"after Wayne saw that l had calmed down and my breathing was back to normal,he told a lady whom l had not realized her presence in the room to go and call the doctor.

"Calm down, everything is going to be okay. What happened to you was not your fault at all,"he told me sadly.

"What do you mean?"l asked .

"I think the doctor will be in a better position to explain to you than me,"he told me and at that moment an elderly man who l assumed to be the doctor walked in .

"I am glad you are awake,miss. My name is Doctor Wilson,"he said calmly.

"How is my baby?Where is it?"l asked him not wanting to start beating around the bush about the topic.

"Well,actually you had a miscarriage. By the time you were brought here,you had already lost a lot of blood which contributed to you having a miscarriage. Apart from that,we carried out some tests on your blood and we realised that you have been missing most of your meals and it also seems that you have been stressed for a long time which was  not good for your pregnancy..."l broke down into tears and broked out whatever else that the doctor was saying. Was my life cursed so that nothing good will ever happen to me.

When l realised that l was pregnant,l decided to keep the pregnancy despite the fact that l did not have an idea of who the father of the baby was since the pregnancy was out of rape. Abortion was the last thing l thought of doing because l was a strong Christian and l did not want to commit murder which was against our religion by taking the life of an innocent baby. I also read somewhere that most of the women who do abortion may end up being barren or may die in the process of aborting the baby.Neither Did l want to die nor to be barren due to abortion.

One of the other things that made me keep the pregnancy was that l knew that God had a purpose for every baby that is born. Maybe my baby could be the next Robert Wheeler Rand by being one of the greatest neurosurgeons in the world or maybe he could be the next Barack Obama by being the president of the most powerful country in the world.But now that the doctor said that l had a miscarriage,l did not know whether to be happy because now l could easily find a job or be sad because the high hopes that had started developing for my unborn baby will never come to pass.

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"Calm down Ruby,what happened to you was not your fault at all. Please don't try blaming yourself,"Wayne sympathized with me as he placed his hand on my shoulder soothingly. But according to me,this was not the time to be sympathized by anybody. Without thinking ,l removed the IV tube that was on my left hand and jumped out of the hospital bed and started running as fast as l could to the entrance of the hospital leaving Wayne and the doctor there yelling my name.

I ran all the way until l reached a nearby large river. There was no other person near the river except l.l walked around the river trying to figure out the reasons why my life was such a mess.After thinking for a long time and realising that no matter what l do,l will never live a happy life,l decided that ending my life was the only option left so that l could go and be with my parents in heaven peacefully. So l looked to my right side,left side,ahead of me and behind me to ensure that nobody was watching me.l looked up to the heavens and realised that God is the only one seeing me right now and so l told him to prepare  a good place for me in heaven since l was on my way going there.

I then jumped jumped into the dirty water immediately.l started drowning and l did not make any effort to prevent myself from drowning in spite of me knowing how to swim because l wanted to drink a lot of that dirty water and die or l hoped to find a crocodile in there so that it could swallow me .This life was not worth living.

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Never give up on your dreams.Keep on fighting until you get there.