A life of bounty after 8 miscarriages
PETA-GAY Smith is jovial and easygoing, but she has surpassed some of the roughest years of her life after going through eight miscarriages.
Smith told All Woman that after leaving high school she worked as a legal secretary to send her brother to university as she saw his potential from a young age.
During this time, Smith, who was now 19 years old, started a small business, met her now husband, and became pregnant. But the beginning of a dark period of her life was on the horizon as three months into the pregnancy she miscarried.
Though disappointed, she focused her energy elsewhere until she turned 23 and decided to try again. This time she lost the baby at four months.
When she turned 25, she decided to give child-rearing another shot, and again lost the baby at four months.
She said this cycle continued and almost every three years, whenever she became pregnant, she would lose the baby.
In 2000 she reached her breaking point as she carried a baby for six months and delivered him, only to be told he died shortly after.
“I took it hard,” she said. “That child was six months and I pushed him out and he cried. It really affected my husband and me badly. When he came to the hospital and the nurse showed him the body he broke down. It was the last straw. I gave up and didn’t want to try to have anymore children. My husband had another child so I knew I was the problem and each time I got pregnant they put in a cerclage but I was still losing the children.”
Smith hurt to the point where she was admitted to a psychiatric ward as she could not cope with the loss.
“I used to come out in the night barefoot and say I’m going to Jubilee for my child. My husband carried me barefoot to a hospital and I was admitted, but when I realised where I was I discharged myself, saw a private doctor, and went to stay with my mother,” she said.
“I didn’t want the pity party. I wanted to stay by myself. For about three years I was withdrawn and whenever it came round to back-to-school or I saw children going to school or mothers buying stuff for their babies, it affected me. It got so bad that I said I was going to tie my tubes. I went to the hospital and I was placed on a waiting list for the procedure.”
But it is said that our plans are not those of the Lord and in Smith’s situation this was the case as in 2010 at the age of 38, she again became pregnant. This time she was not happy.
“I went to my neighbour and I said, ‘Ms Brown, I’m pregnant and I’m not going to carry it. I’m going to have an abortion because of how the last one affected me.’ I never wanted to go through the ordeal again. I thought that this time I was going to die or commit suicide,” she said.
And her husband’s thoughts were no different as Smith said he started worrying and blaming himself and her for what was now once again before them.
But after encouragement from Ms Brown, she changed her mind.
“Ms Brown told me that God was going to send an angel and I must try again for the last time,” Smith said. “So I went to the clinic and because they knew the situation from the third pregnancy they just sent me straight to Victoria Jubilee as a high-risk patient. I still wasn’t hopeful as I don’t know which doctor I never saw,” she said.
When she got to Jubilee she said her angel, Dr Ryan Halsall, greeted her and forever changed her life.
“He checked my file and I told him my situation. I remember I said to him, ‘Dr Halsall, you think I can make it? And he said don’t ask me, pray to God,’ and I never forgot. He put me on two weeks’ clinic, heavy examination, and he worked with me very well. I would worry if the baby would be a Down Syndrome child and he assured me everything was OK. He tested to see if the child was normal and told me everything was OK. He took the baby at 36 weeks as he was taking no chances to bring the pregnancy to full term and today my son is five years old and I have a one-year-old daughter. He is my hero,” she said.
She describes her son as her heart outside of her chest and says her love for him knows no bounds.
“If it wasn’t him the way would not be made for my daughter. Whenever I got in arguments with people they would say, ‘Gweh yuh a mule,’ but they can no longer say that. I feel good to know he is graduating in June and will start primary school in September. He does well in spelling bee and he reads the newspapers and answers whatever you ask him about what he reads. I never knew I’d live to have a child,” she said.
Smith also said whenever you ask her son what he wants to be he will say he wants to be a doctor.
She added that while it is hard to find the right words for women going through similar ordeals, giving up is not the answer.
