Suicidal thoughts

13th February 2015, I went into the operating room pregnant and with intestinal obstruction, merkels' diverticulum and peritonitis. 13th February I went into the operating room with a feeling that I wouldn't come out alive. I've never told anyone this but while being operated on, I don't know whether I was haluscinating (maybe people dream or halluscinate during surgery) but I dreamt I was in a maze and I was trying to find my way out. I kept running and would get to dead ends and I started calling for help out of frustration, with the walls closing in on me, I squatted and hugged my knees and started to mumble that the Lord should please help me and I didn't want to go. I suddenly woke up and found myself in the recovery room.

I suddenly realised that I had survived and my unborn child (Giovanni) at the time also survived. I didn't tell anyone about this dream because I thought it was just craziness and probably hallucination due to the medications. 22nd February I developed an infection and was re-operated on. Again we both came out alive but recovery was long and painful...

While on admission, I started having suicidal thoughts: I wanted to kill myself and just end the pain. I stopped believing in God. In fact I was angry with Him and didn't even want to hear His name. When people would pray for me I would close my ears because I felt neglected. But it didn't stop people from coming to my bed side every day to continue praying, it didn't stop my uncle and aunt who are both priests from coming to pray for me either. I remember one night when I felt like giving up, my mother and sister Gita had to rush to the hospital to convince to stop thinking about death.

I wanted to end my life. Imagine being in so much pain but you can't take too many pain killers because you're pregnant. I used to look down on people who commit suicide; but living with this pain made me understand and sympathise with them.

Every year I tell my story because I want people to know there is a God. I sat on my bed one day and just a passer by prayed for me and handed me a book on healing and I cried like a baby. In fact I wailed. That book helped me to believe miracles do happen and that God hadn't forgotten about me. I picked myself up again and fought through my pain, and I made it.

My pregnancy wasn't easy, life didn't become any easier. But I thank God every day that I'm alive and my son is alive. And every time I look at Giovanni, I see how beautiful this gift God gave me is and I thank Him! I used to pray a lot when I was pregnant and every time I asked God to give me a special child, little did I know this was his very definition of special.

I want to thank the doctors and nurses at the female surgical ward at Tema General Hospital: they were really sent from heaven! They motivated me, they looked after me! And of course I want to thank my family especially my mum for always coming to bath me in the mornings, for her words of encouragement, for not giving up on me, for all the food you brought although I would throw it up anyway, but most of all the love and sacrifice you made driving every day from Accra to Tema on the motorway to come and see me. And also my hubby for being at the hospital every single day, encouraging me and just supporting me through it all. I'm very grateful...

It's difficult to open like this, but I want to tell my story and how I felt, maybe just maybe it would help someone get out of their current situation of giving up. I do not want any sorries, I rather want people to see this post as a form of encouragement. I look back now and I sometimes wonder how I was able to go through all that pain and frustration. Well I wasn't alone, apart from family, God also had my back. I think we tend to take for granted the love God has for us sometimes. I'm publishing this story today on Val's day so we remember and not take for granted the love our families have for us especially God our father!

Happy Val's Day!