THE PRICE OF MOTHERHOOD

I carried a nation in my womb,

Not just a child

But hunger, fear, and borrowed hope.

I counted coins while counting kicks,

Wondering which pain would come first:

Labor,

Or life after it.

The hospital walls were too white for my reality,

Private rooms reserved for women

Who never feared the word deposit.

I labored on plastic beds,

Among cries stitched together by poverty,

Where nurses work miracles with tired hands

And mothers learn strength by force.

They say childbirth is natural.

They never say it is violent.

How bones stretch like promises,

How pain roars louder than prayer,

How you break open and still must survive.

Men clap when the baby cries,

Unaware that something inside the woman

Has quietly died.

My body is no longer the one I knew.

My stomach tells stories I didn’t write,

My hips remember battles I never trained for.

I avoid mirrors some mornings,

Not because I hate myself

But because I miss her.

The woman I was before survival became my name.

My breasts ache with responsibility.

They leak in public,

Swell with hunger that isn’t mine,

Sag under the weight of keeping someone alive.

They are no longer symbols

They are laborers.

Unpaid. Unresting. Uncelebrated.

They told me motherhood is beautiful.

They forgot to say it is lonely.

Raising a child alone is like carrying water uphill

With one hand and no rest.

The father’s absence becomes another mouth to feed,

Another silence to explain,

Another strength I never asked to grow.

Men ask, “Why are you tired?”

As if pain leaves receipts.

As if sleep deprivation is a choice.

As if their pleasure lasted minutes

While my pain echoed for months

Sometimes years.

Still, I wake up.

Still, I nurture.

Still, I love with a heart

That has every reason not to.

Because African women do not collapse

We bend.

We endure.

We bleed quietly and build futures loudly.

If you see a mother on the street,

Know this:

She has walked through fire

And came out carrying life.

And that

That is power no one taught her to name.

 SHE Centre is here to help you.

Find your community at SHE Space. You were never meant to do this alone.

Under the SHE Journey Shelf, find downloadable resources and tune into The SHE Podcast to find yourself in someone else’s story.

Connect with our partner organizations who are ready to walk alongside you in this season.

Written by : Annamary Slyvanus