My name is Aibhuedefe Akoamen Katherine. I was born on August 15, 1985. I work as a nurse/midwife and I have dedicated my career to helping mothers and babies to survive.
While I was still in training as a midwife, one day, a woman was delivered of a preterm baby. The baby weighed 0.9 kg and I wondered how such a baby would survive because of its small size. Even though we encouraged the mother that the baby would survive, I had a big doubt on my mind.
When I got home that evening, I told my mother about the premature baby who was 0.9 kg. I also told her of the way I felt about the chances of the baby’s survival.
My mother had a good laugh at me, and I asked her why she laughed. She said that she had similar feelings about my survival when I was delivered of her on the seventh month.
Oh, that was the day I found out from my mother that I was born premature!
Having a premature baby is like biting more than what you can chew for both the mother and the baby. As the mother is going through the pains and prayer for the baby to survive, the innocent baby is switching between life and death. Hope is naturally slim.
My mother said that she never believed that I could survive because I was very small. She said she used to put me on her belly instead of her back whenever she was going to the clinic in order for me to absorb heat from her. She said that I used to seize breath in like every minute, and that it got to a time she thought that I was not going to come up again but to her greatest surprise, I came up alive again.
She said there was a day she took me for a check up and she was told that my chance of survival was thin. At that point, she said she lost hope in me and begged them to just inject me and let me go back to where I came from because I was causing her shame and humiliation from her group.
But while she would wait for me to not return whenever I lost breath, I kept coming back alive until she said to her self one day that whatever it would take to make sure I live, she would do. She said from that very day, her hope started shining again.
And I am alive today, big and healthy as you can see in my photos. I have just concluded my schooling as a nurse but I have been practicing skilled midwifery since 2012.The 0.9 kg baby survived. Before its mother left the hospital after spending 4 months, the baby grew up to 1.3 kg. It was a harrowing experience, and that is why we all need to come together and help premature babies survive by providing the right information and encouraging mothers of such babies not to ever give up.