Written by Mofoluwake Omololu.
Lola sensed Kola moving about the room, he was being quiet but she was a light sleeper, especially at day break.
She remained in her position though, feigning sleep. After a while Kola left the room and then she heard the main door close. She couldn’t imagine her Kola leaving without saying good morning at least, it was unlike him, even after their row.
Maybe he’d gone to get breakfast himself today and serve her breakfast in bed to appease her for the night before.
She lifted her head off her pillow to listen for hint that he was still around but a few minutes passed and Kola didn’t come back.
She got out of bed, he’d taken his phone, the book he’d been reading. He wasn’t getting breakfast.
She got ready and went to the restaurant down stairs, the resorts schedule had a bonding programme scheduled for that morning and the venue was the restaurant. Kola was nowhere in sight. She asked the receptionists if they had seen her husband, they had called a cab for him. Her heart was broken.
She sat in the restaurant for a while, the programme hadn’t started. She hoped he’d come back and join her but when the programme started and the other couples trooped in, Kola was still nowhere to be found.
Her mood was sour, and she was done coming up with excuses for her husband’s absence to the facilitators. She went back to her room and stayed in bed.
The whole marriage thing was a lot harder than she’d signed up for, back in the day she’d have moved on from anybody acting up around her but this was her husband. Her all. She cared that he wasn’t talking to her.
But he’d annoyed her, and although she overstepped with everything she had said but he hadn’t even asked her opinion, just stated his and got angry when she had another.
Even if her argument hadn’t been personal, she’d only been joking and anyone listening could tell she was teasing her husband. It was unfair of him to call her unreasonable for having a logical discussion with him.
Maybe she, too, had been quick to get angry, but whatever the reason the subject was touchy and she didn’t agree with him. People suffered the plight of not having children and sort out solutions. Surrogacy wasn’t bad, it had saved too many people, so although they weren’t inclined to go through surrogacy, it wasn’t their place to condemn those who did.
She knew first hand how hard the waiting process could be and she’d only been waiting five years, it had to be worse for those who had more years.
Kola wasn’t being fair at all and he had refused to reason with unreasonable her, so she would be as he had said she was until reasonable him decided to be reasonable and make sense to her.
She was startled from her sleep by knocking on the door, she was confused for a bit then she remembered that they had only gotten one key, it was part of the couples programme.
He said “Thank you” after she opened the door. She didn’t answer him, she went back into the room and got in bed.
A few minutes passed, maybe thirty minutes or more, but then he came into the room and sat beside. She was backing him, he knew she was awake even though she didn’t turn to him.
He apologized for the night before and how he hadn’t listened to her, especially since he knew she didn’t mean that she wanted a surrogate.
He was firm on his opinion of the fact that it was adultery when you look at it from a Christian perspective.
“There is a reason,” he began, “the sperm donors are kept anonymous, because there’s no way you have a child with a person and not have some level of attraction between you. And what happens when there is a row and then somebody throws the shade that “the child isn’t even yours”.
“I had an acquaintance once, close enough to know what happened in her marriage. They couldn’t have a child and opted for a surrogate, it didn’t end well, she now leaves with that surrogate, the father of her child.
“He was anonymous, the surrogate, but he found her and there was a spark. I can only imagine what ignited it. A gynecologist, a Christian, who disagrees that it is adultery has been at a loss to explain a simple question I put to him. Why medicine keeps sperm and egg donors anonymous from benefitting parties. That is after he told me they cannot explain why a relationship breaks out between beneficiaries and donors once they find each other out.
“I don’t want to be a downer, I’m scared too. This is probably why I responded to you like that, but apart from thinking it is adultery I also don’t want us to have any troubles in the long run. I’m sorry we have to go through this, it has to be hard on you and it’s not even your fault. I plead though, that we wait. I’m your husband and you are my wife, let’s trust God and if he gives us the go ahead to try any other scientific methods we will, but not something we doubt.
“I’m sorry, Lara, I’m just so scared and I don’t want us to be pressured into doing anything we will regret.”
Lola had turned to him and then sat with him while he spoke.
He had started crying while he spoke and she, too. She knelt down and apologized for talking to him the way she had the night before. She’d challenged his authority and insulted him without intending to. She thanked him for being honest with her, she’d assumed he was just being selfish – pitying himself, but he was truly concerned and very scared. She would wait with him, she was happy to be in it with him.
They prayed together and ordered dinner, they might not have been a part of the bonding programme but they bonded, they finally agreed, and she had a beautiful night, with a babyish sound sleep that night.