MY THOUGHTS ON THE ABORTION RIGHT  (WHEN THE GP ASKS YOU that powerful question, "DO YOU WANT TO KEEP IT?".

It was after my trip from Nigeria in 2014 that it dawned on me that I was pregnant..., during the trip everyone of those women gifted  with "inner eyes" that saw me asked the same question? Are You pregnant? Those that didn’t feel close enough to be that bold offered their congratulatory wishes while some others went straight up to give me pregnancy advise... you know the old wife pregnancy advise about how I was not supposed to wear jeans or bend over etc? Any ways, having been living in separate countries with my husband, I didn’t for the life of me think I could be pregnant, after all, we only had intimacy during the honeymoon and that’s way over two months, so did I suddenly fall ‘obvious pregnant’ within this few days of my return that

everyone kept giving me all of these compliments? I succumbed to the pressure (after all I am only Human) and did a Urine test but still doubted my result.

Fast forward to my return to England, I made appointment with my GP Surgery to confirm my earlier urine test and the tales of the old wives.

Despite my excitement about the result of the test the GP asked me a very interesting and unusual question; “do you want to keep it?” unusual because of my cultural orientation... in Nigeria when you’re married and pregnant it can only mean one thing, you’re keeping it. It took a while before I recovered from the shocking question, Hell yea I want to want to keep it. But curiously I asked her what other options I had, (that’s after the realisation that advance in technology could actually mean someone else carrying the pregnancy for me hit me). She went on to explain my rights. I could decide to terminate it, a lot of people don’t understand how powerful that question is but it also essentially rips the unborn baby all it’s own power! Left at the mercy of the ADULT!

As I watch some advocate chant about women right being a sole right to decide what she should do about unwanted pregnancy following the recent ban of  Abortion in the State of Alabama in the USA, I can’t help but recall my experience and how easy it is for them to talk about rights when in the same sentence they’re stripping another of their own primary rights- right to life!

I don’t wanna go spiritual but for those saying fetus ain’t human yet just remember that when a baby is born and sex is assigned it’s not really because their genitalia and sex organs are same as that of an adult, but should I fill out a form that requires gender definition I’d write “Female” just like a few seconds old baby.

Fetus today, a person tomorrow! That’s the path that led us all here. Don’t become so powerful that you strip others of their powers- leaving them powerless. That’s what abortion does! Let that sink in for a moment.

                                        Photo credit: Google Inc.

BIG DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN BETTER AND SOMETIMES LESS IS MORE.

It’s a rather personal experience and I have battled with the urge not to share it but I think a part of me believes this will teach some mothers (especially the young ones and first timers) a few things about child nutrition. Dare I say that it’s actually contrary to what you’d be taught in antenatal classes and motherhood groups.  I have to warn that you may want to skip this post if you’re a lazy about reading because this promises to be a very long Post.

How do I even start? Times like this, the right words elude me. Straight to the point, when I had my first daughter Olanma (God bless her), I had a caesarean birth, for some reason the breast milk didn’t flow, being a first timer I didn’t know I was supposed to keep her on the nipples to stimulate the flow (something ones mother would have taught her). Also, due to the pains and discomfort associated with the healing process I didn’t even try, until the health visitor came home after like 4-5 days and then I told her I wasn’t still lactating. She was shocked and told me to always keep her on the nipple. By this time my daughter was already used to formula feeding, the implication was that the effort to get her to breastfeed was fussier than bliss. She was frustrated, I was frustrated as I felt there was something in my breast that made her cry rather than find succor. I nearly went into depression (safe for the wonderful post natal care I received) as I wondered why someone as BUSTY as I am could not properly nurse a child. Little did I know that when it comes to breast milk, big isn’t always better and size doesn’t even matter.  To cut the long story short, we decided to do a mix feeding for as long as was necessary and she was perfectly healthy.

Because of that experience, I made up my mind I was going to start early and also exclusively breastfeed my next child until at least six months. Along the line Kerenma came, From the moment she was handed over to me, I started breastfeeding her, the milk supply was still poor but I was excited she wasn’t fussy and anticipated a time that the flow will improve and my little bundle of joy will start getting chubby like the healthy kids I have seen exclusively breastfed.

First four days, it was like a prayer answered, she added a few grams and I was overjoyed, but that Joy was short-lived as I continued to observe that  she doesn’t ever get full, sometimes she sleeps off while nursing and wakes up the next few minutes. I practically spent the whole day and night nursing but she wasn’t thriving as much as expected.

We started meeting with lactation consultants, whose professional advice was that baby latches on well, I on my part was doing okay, generally the technique was superb. My breast was examined and found to be fine too. So what the heck was the problem?  Having been satisfied okay, we returned to Nigeria. Three to four months gone yet she hadn’t doubled her birth weight (see first photo).

Frequent trips to the hospitals and series of test revealed that she was severely anemic. How could that be? Her parent’s genotypes were compatible.

 The pediatrician also shared the same concern about her weight, relations and older friends told me she had “NTA” ( a local parlance which means failure to thrive) and/or NTIWA ISI (sunken skull) as the symptoms are characterized by failure to thrive (see 1st photo).  All sorts of suggestions were made as to how to access treatment. If you’re not strong willed, this kind of news will make you forget the many lessons you’ve ever been taught, and whatever the doctors must have told you is thrown into the garbage in desperate search for solution. This is desperation does not mean you’re stupid, it just goes to show the extent to which parents to go to protect their children.  I am not going to swank here that I didn’t fall for this, in fact, I fell for it with my neck deep inside, my only luck was that I have a husband who is well read, exposed and strong willed who insisted that I must not take his child to anywhere other than a hospital neither will I administer any concoction in the name of herbal treatment for NTA.  

Tele-consultation with her doctor oversea suggested that she wasn’t just getting enough from the breast milk (BM). This ushered in another set of roller costar of emotions.

What was the problem with me? Why can’t this BIG BREAST of mine just give enough nutrients to my child? At least she was willing why can’t I just feed her enough? In frantic desperation for improvement and against the popular sermon in the antenatal class about how great exclusive breastfeeding  is we switched her to mix feeding and within two days you could see the chubby cheeks, in less than a week she doubled her birth weight (second photo), the next time we went to see her doctor he couldn’t hide his surprise, he was so stunned at her transformation. We told him we switched her to mix feeding as advised.

She just turned nine months old in this photo but already so  big she couldn't fit into her cloth size. (It’s not like fat is the yardstick for measuring good health,  but coming from someone that has had slim and chubby baby  you’d agree with me that chubby and healthy looking babies are more attractive). It gives the parents a sense of reward for the plenty sleep deprivations.

I am not a nutrition specialist and I can’t claim I know half as much as I’d love to know but I want to state that this experience has taught me that when it comes to breastfeeding and milk supply, size is irrelevant and big doesn’t necessarily mean better. In fact, less could be more. Always get a second opinion by seeing different specialist on the same issue. The importance of prayers can’t be denied but there are times that all you need is to take action or to channel the prayer to being directed to the person that have solution to your problem.  Always remember, that your emotions and the love you have for your child should not cloud your sense of reasoning and push you to stupidity.

GOOD DEED GONE AWRY... OR NOT?

 When I started recording my children’s milestone online (Facebook, Instagram etc), my ultimate intention was to have their journey saved online for them to read in future and share with possibly their own children even long after I am gone. The second reason was to share my excitement of with the rest of my virtual family and of course to encourage young mummies like me on what to look out for at every stage of their child’s growth.  It is extremely sad to see this gesture misconstrued and understood to mean” bragging” or trying to make other mums jealous.

A friend recently reached out to me to complain that each time she reads my post about my child’s milestone, she feels like her own child isn’t trying enough or she is not getting something right. She also narrated how our other mutual friend shared the same exact sentiment as her. Having personally been a victim of being the 'only real one' in the world of competitive mothers, where every other baby seemed to be the Einstein in the making and it sounded like I’d be lucky if mine starts walking by secondary school.  I figured I should stop the publications and find other ways to save these journeys for future references. However, it hit me recently, that the reason behind the journey was far more significant than the misunderstanding. I also wondered why I should stop something I started based on my planned parenting style to accommodate someone’s complex?

I couldn’t wrap my head around why I'd dim my light into oblivion because another person thinks it’s too bright. I could say more but I am not going to elaborate it beyond this point. The bottom line is that I am not going to rub my children the opportunity of reading their childhood/baby stories because I share a virtual space with someone with insecurities.

It is very normal to worry about your child’s development. It is healthy for every parent to want their child to grow and flourish like healthy children. But, if these are not checked you can be boxed into a vulnerability to the point of seeing your precious healthy children as inferior to the other babies. Like I said earlier I have been in the midst of mums who I thought were competitive because of the way they presented their kids like they’re mastering the arts of playing violins while I was earnestly praying for mine to be able to babble a few incoherent words. I had to consistently remind myself that my kids are wonderful and develop at their own pace.

Once you are pushed to the point where you begin to pressure them to behave a certain way, achieve a certain milestone etc you’d inadvertently instill low self-worth in them and a constant desire to be like someone else.

You have to note (I hope it brings you relief) that the speed with which babies reach their developmental milestone has absolutely no relationship with their future intelligence or physical strength. Even twins develop at varying pace.  The idea however, is not to make you complacent as a parent to the point of overlooking obvious medical concerns. I will write another article of this (later today) hopefully.

To be more emphatic, let me state categorically that I will not stop documenting and sharing my child’s milestone because you feel it dwarfs yours. Let me also state it again ‘babies develop at their own sweet pace’. Your job is to enjoy every stage of your child’s development and make it memorable. And possibly document it for them to read up in the future.

While we are at it, let me announce that my daughter Kerenma is now nine months old! A journey of nine months brought her and she has concluded a nine months journey. How exciting!

All Right Reserved ©Chioma Azosiri

Principles of success -Part 1

Empowered to live….

With the daily increase in the world’s population, the high cost of living in both developing and developed countries, and the deplorable economic conditions in most nations of the world in recent times, many are perplexed about how to provide the necessities of life for themselves and their immediate families. Even the rich sometimes find themselves wondering how they could cope with this situation. Notwithstanding the current economic recession, man must still feed himself and provide the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare and security. The big question now  is “how does one achieve all of these to survive” My take is that one can actually be successful and fulfilled even in the face of these challenges if they learn to follow some of the basic principles of success which are often neglected. In these principles lie the answers to those our everyday questions about how to make it in life and how to impact positively in the lives of people we come in contact with….and I will like to share some of these invaluable principles with you here today.

NO. 1 PRINCIPLE –EVERY GOOD THING COMETH FROM GOD

What many have failed to understand is that even with seeming difficulty all around us, the Almighty creator has more concern for us than any man, woman, government or non government organization we can think of. Because of this his unparalled and unequaled love he has given us all we need to survive in the vicissitudes of this life. Thus the bible said in Genesis 1:27 and 28 “so God created man in his own image, in the image of God; created him male and female created him them. So God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the foals of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (NKJ Version).

This principle of labour, fruitfulness and wealth creation given to Adam and Eve continuous to be effective generations after them and will continue until the end of time. This principle also supports the fact that man can’t just fold his arms idly and expect wealth and every good thing to roll into his possessions. NO!, man must labour using his strength and mind to overcome/overpower his environment and spiritually command forces of nature to his own advantage.

God does not desire that man’s existence should be to eat and die. NO! He intends that his entire creatures should succeed. God wants you to acknowledge the fact he is the giver of fortunes. Duet 8:16-18 But thou shall remember the Lord thy God; for it is He who giveth thee power to make wealth. That he may establish the covenant which he swore to thy father even as it is this day” (KJV).  We must learn to put him first in our pursuit for wealth, for success and fulfillment. On our own, we can do nothing, his due respect and honour must be accorded to him. We must not put wealth first as the worship of wealth will invite God’s displeasure and may consequently bring about hunger, retrogression, sickness, shame and even death. Man must work to achieve success but it must be God first. That’s why the great book said that we should seek God first and his righteousness and every other thing inclusive of wealth, happiness, long life and any good thing you can think of will be added to us.

PRINCIPLE NO. 2- TRY SOMETHING ON YOUR OWN

Even if your father is Bill Gates, your brother Warren Buffet and Uncle Aliko Dangote, it is not enough reason for you to stay back and expect fortunes to roll into your pockets. Wake up my dear, things don’t flourish that way anymore. The world today does not need lazy people, have you ever wondered why successful people are skeptical about giving alms to able bodied persons who can work but rather take to begging? Do you think it’s impossible for them to give the beggars enough money for them to start something else other than begging? The answer is emphatic NO! the truth is, no successful person wants to waste resources on people who are lazy and cannot start from where they are, the same successful person will willingly partner with a hardworking committed person who would rather start from where they are than wait for the world to hand them treasures. 

I have always quipped that no one is created to fail, and none is also born a success. Success is a product of individual choices and actions which to a large extent is determined by ‘WHOM OR WHAT’ constitutes our driving force or source of power. It is incontrovertible that every individual is driven by a force. Whatever that force is, is what is guiding, controlling and directing the person’s life. These forces can be negative or positive. This is why it’s pertinent that we make consorted effort to subdue the negative forces of nature which are bent on bringing us down against our effort to live successful lives. The driving force of any individual has a great influence on the success or failure of that person.

Some people are driven by fear, others by their past mistakes while some still believe that no matter what they do, life continues to be unfair to them; they lose hope in life refusing or afraid to try something worthwhile. In situation as dastardly as the present economic recession, they sink deeper and deeper into despondency. This shouldn’t be so; we should not be driven by fear and past mistakes. It is not bad after all to make mistakes, mistakes has been said to be one of the best teacher. Mistakes are not supposed to weigh us down; rather they are meant to toughen us. Many of the successful people you see today had made mistakes sometime in their lives, but chose to sit back to analyse and study the courses so that they do not fall into such mistakes again. We should always learn from our mistakes and also from people who had succeeded where we failed. Make every effort to start from where you are no matter how little, I remember how I worked in people’s farms, help with domestic chores and even lived with someone as a maid (house help) for sustenance and to raise my school fees. Today, I can say that I don’t need to work in someone else’s garden to feed or take care of immediate needs. That is how life should be, start with what you have and do something for others, look out for services you can render and get rewarded while you wait for something better...I wish you all the very best!

Chioma Azosiri

(Excerpt from my first book Titled Success and Fulfillment)

WATCH OUT FOR MORE PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS…..to be cont’d

Could we be expriencing a FOREX BOOM and OIL DOOM?

I’ve heard a lot of people blame our current situation and untold hardships on oil doom and general fall of oil in the international market, a good number of them have gone further to even quip that a barrel of oil is now sold at less or more than $40 as against 100USD or slightly below sold in the past. This got me thinking really hard and I am going to let you into that thought in a jiffy but first let’s quickly reason together.

In the time past, $1 (one USD) equals to plus or minus N 160 (One hundred and sixty Naira), currently, the same one USD is sold at N 405 and 420 in the parallel market. Are you thinking what I am thinking? I am going to further break it down, but again I have to remind you that I am not an economist neither am I a qualified accountant hence I may be wrong or I may be right but hey after all it’s just a loud thought. Simply put, ‘there is an oil doom but there’s also a forex boom’ how about that? A barrel that could have gone for N 15000 –N 16000 at $100 now goes for 16200 at $ 40 per barrel. Isn’t that like better or something? Before you go calling for my head on the platter, digest this thought and think about it too, who knows, we may not be that poor after all… I could always swear that I am right but then again, it’s just a thought, a loud random thought.  

Do have a really lovely weekend.

Cheers.

Americans Confuse us a lot

Growing up, during my elementary days we were thought the alphabets. My teacher thought me that the letter 'T' is pronounced as 'Ttsee' if you know what I mean. She also said that 'R' is pronounced as 'arrr'. I was very happy with that until I grew up and started conversing with people of other nationalities. One of such people that have succeeded in planting doubts or confusion as it were in my mind as to what the correct pronunciation is  are Americans. When they call water- Warrer and Peter Perrer I get confused. Since we as a people are all about learning and adopting western lifestyles and basically everything west, should I continue to pronounce T as Tsee or Ree? and most importantly how do I teach that to my little girl who is just starting to learn ABCD?

Again here's letting you into my loud random thoughts
Chioma Azosiri
08:58 AM 16-07-2016

Different Shades of Haters

When I say I’ve seen it all, believe me I have really seen it all, and I am going to be sharing with you simple ways to deal with chronic haters. Before I go further, I’d like to throw more light on the different kinds of haters and how to recognize them.

There are those that can’t seem to understand why good things happen to you, as far as they are concerned, you don’t deserve it. By their standards, they are more beautiful than you, more qualified and should have all the good things of life while you are simply given the leftovers. The disappointments however is that the Almighty God does not see things as we humans do (Isaiah 55:8-9).

There are also those who hate you just because you are alive, you are happy, you are smiling. For them your very existence causes them a lot of heartache, you didn’t do anything directly to hurt them but they just can’t stand the sight of you. They silently wait for the day they will hear you are gone and secretly rejoice at your misfortune and blame you for whatever ills that befalls you. They see it as the punishment from the universe. They forget that God makes the rain to fall on the good and the bad alike (Math 5:45). 

You also have the people you stepped on their toes, it may be consciously or mistake. These may be people you know closely, they trust you, and they just can’t understand why you betrayed their trust. They are not concerned with the motive for the betrayal. They secretly plot revenge, looking for every opportunity to bring you down. These ones are perfect examples of what the psalmist meant in Psalm 21:11 because the Lord makes their plan to fail.

Then you have the recruited haters. This group of haters may not know you or transacted with you on personal grounds, they can walk pass you without realizing or recognizing you, yet behind you they slander you as if they have had an encounter with you. They are simply recruited to join in the evil agenda to hate you. Their head is filled with whatever ill they’ve been fed/sold about you. They carry your matter dey waka for road like say na you be the next worse thing after Ebola. If they ever come in contact with you, they are spending a great deal of physical and metal energy to poke holes in your person just to justify their hatred for you.

I can’t understand why anyone will expense such a great deal of energy hating on someone that he/she does not even know, it baffles me beyond understanding that someone can just tell you negative things about someone that has never hurt you and they take it and run? Odikwa egwu really.

So, how do you recognize them?

They abound around you, in form of friends, acquaintances and colleagues and even strangers. You feel it in your guts that such people do not like you, you see it in the ways they try to frustrate your joy, you can also see it in the way they stop talking when you enter a room. There are so many ways to spot them but the most effective is the instinctive direction. Some people call it spiritual discernment, which is actually one of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit (1^st Cor 12:4-10). Nature never goes wrong with these things. Once it begins to tell you to be mindful of someone, do yourself a favour and head it. You’d be glad you did.

How do I deal with them?

Simplest of the whole epistle is how to deal with them, for you to give them more reason to hate or more heartache and sleepless night, feign ignorance of their activities and continue to show them kindness. Kill them more with your kindness, buy them meals if you can. Follow what the book of Proverb says that you are not only doing a good deed by being kind, you are also heaping a coal of fire that will burn them out of the surface of the earth upon them. (Proverb 25:21-22)

Number two, ‘SUCCESS’ I can’t stress it enough that the best thing you can do for yourself and your haters is to succeed more than you ever imagined. Resolve within you not to ever fail, even if you fail, be sure to get up and dust yourself up and keep succeeding.  Success is the best treatment for a hater. Let’s go and achieve success together.

Chioma Azosiri

12:48. 15-07-2016