We’d been married for three years without a child. My mother-in-law lived with us. She had been living with my husband before I moved in. There were days my mother-in-law would come and knock on our door and ask my husband questions. I thought it was a coincidence because anytime she knocked on the door, my husband and I were about to get intimate. She would knock, talk for a few seconds or minutes, and right after that, my husband would go flaccid, never to get his mojo back until days or even weeks later.

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This went on for a long time, but because it didn’t happen every day when we were about to be intimate, I just didn’t give it much attention. Until one day, my husband’s elder sister told me, “If you keep living with my mother, you’ll never have a child. Rent your own place and take your husband along. Your husband won’t agree. It’s part of the plot, but you have to do it.”

I didn’t get what she meant, but I started talking to my husband about letting his mom go. He fought it. “All my siblings are away. You want me to push her to her death? Look at how helpful she’s been around here.”

For months, we fought about this issue. And because of what my sister-in-law said, I began to pay attention to how she would knock right before the action, and then, from there, my husband would lose interest. These series of knocks almost always happened when I was ovulating. It was the reason I couldn’t have a child, I concluded, amid doubt.

I tried bringing my husband’s attention to it too, and that was the worst mistake I’d ever made. He nearly drove me out of the house for insinuating that his mom was a witch. I called my sister-in-law. I asked questions, but she was not ready to give details. She said, “My mom is the reason we all travelled. That house is a trap. Everyone who lived there had their failures. Yours is childlessness. Leave.”

So I told my husband I was getting my own place. He fought it and brought my parents into it. My parents didn’t understand until I told them what my sister-in-law had said. My dad said, “If the fish comes out of the water to tell you the crocodile is dead, you don’t have to argue.”

They told me to do what would give me peace. The day I was packing out, you should have seen my mother-in-law and her emotional manipulation. “My daughter, you don’t have to go anywhere. If you want me to leave this place, I will. I shouldn’t be the reason your marriage breaks down.”

I left anyway. I told her she wasn’t the problem. I told her I wasn’t leaving the marriage and that I would come back when the situation was right. My sister-in-law called me the day I left. She said, “Now watch the changes in your life. Your husband might not come, but be steadfast.”

All I wanted was to lure my husband over for intimacy while I was ovulating and see what would happen. My husband made me look like a devil for leaving his house. He went to my dad and told him he would have no option but to divorce me if it came to that. My dad asked him to look for me and talk to me, but my husband refused the idea of coming to the place I had rented. He said it would mean he had been defeated.

It took me over four months and a lot of wasted ovulation cycles to get my husband to visit one day while I was ovulating. It looked like he had missed me because I didn’t struggle to get him to take off his clothes. Just when we were about to do it, his phone started ringing.

His mom.

I don’t know how I kicked the phone out of his hand, and it landed at the foot of the bed.

“You can talk to her later. You have a job to do.”

I ended up keeping my husband with me for three good days. He asked me, “Are you coming home?”

I asked him, “Don’t you enjoy the peace here without interference from your mom?”

He answered, “But it’s a small place.”

I said, “You only have to decide to live with me, and we can get a bigger place.”

The fact that he would be leaving his mom behind wasn’t the only issue. The fact that he would have to pay rent was also an issue.

I missed my period for three days. I wasn’t in a hurry to check. A week later, I checked and, boom, I was pregnant. I was about to shout when I covered my mouth. “No one will know about this until much later.”

I didn’t even tell my mom until she found out herself. When my husband finally found out, he called me a cheat. He said the pregnancy couldn’t be his because he hadn’t been with me and that it was because I wanted to cheat that I had rented a new place. I was devastated.

He told his elder sister, and she called me. She said, “I heard you’re pregnant.”

After I narrated how it happened to her, she said, “Don’t worry. It’s part of the plan to destroy your marriage. I’ve been there before. My husband died, but yours is alive. Just pray. You’ll be fine.”

For nine months, I felt like I was carrying a piece of metal inside my stomach. My stomach became so heavy that sometimes I couldn’t walk. I woke up at dawn fearing my baby had died inside me. There were times I didn’t feel the baby kick for days. My mom was moving from church to church seeking direction for me. My dad even came to live with me at some point, and I realized that whenever my dad was around, everything became calm.

My husband never visited during my pregnancy. I saw him. I went to him, but he threw me off as though I were something despicable. When I gave birth, I called him and begged him to come and see the child.

“He’s a boy. If you see his face and ears and still believe the child isn’t yours, please, I will pay for the DNA test myself.”

My husband walked in, and he cried when he saw the baby. My dad left us alone. My husband stayed for weeks before going back home to see his mom, and then he came back. He would leave for days and return for a week. Slowly, my marriage was healing. Joy was coming back like leaves returning to a tree after the harmattan.

My sister-in-law came to visit. Right in front of my husband, she said, “Kojo, I was born eight years before you came into this world. Listen when I tell you to leave that house for Mom. She won’t die.”

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My husband hasn’t moved in fully with us. He comes and goes, but at least he lives here more than he lives there, so I will take it as a half-full cup rather than a half-empty one.

My mother-in-law hasn’t visited. My baby is now walking. Maybe she has seen his photos, but she hasn’t set eyes on him. She’s still fighting with me. To her, I’m a problem she failed to solve. To me, she’s still my mother-in-law, but she won’t have the access she had for over three years.

—Daniella

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