All Will Be Well
At twelve, a missed period taught Mamawa Kaikai her first lesson in fear. "What did you do?" her aunt demanded, dragging her to church for prayers. No one suggested medical help. Years of "spiritual deposits" and pastors' hands followed before she finally found a different kind of healing – in feminist theory and radical self-acceptance.
"My womb would scream at the world that forced her to become what she isn't," she tells me, her voice steady with hard-won clarity. "But I've learned to love her exactly as she is."
That first missed period unleashed a storm of fear. "All I knew was if you miss your period, you're pregnant. As a child who wasn't sexually active, I was terrified - was I raped? What would I tell my family?" When she confided in her aunt, the response came swift: "What did you do?" Then, "We'll go to church and pray."
The next year brought nine months without bleeding, followed by three months of nonstop flow. She spent her teenage years dropping "spiritual deposits" into pastors' hands, desperately seeking prayers for healing. No one suggested medical help.
"I was the blind leading the blind," she says. Finally, in university, a doctor's scan revealed polycystic ovarian syndrome. "Having a name for it brought relief. Now I could research what was happening to my body." But at nineteen, that research sparked new fears. "Everything I read pointed to infertility. In our society, the moment you're born a girl, everyone's wishing you children, even as a baby. I thought - what does this mean about me as a woman? What does life look like without children?"
A boyfriend's words cut deep: "He called me to his office to say he couldn't be with me because he wanted children. I cried hysterically at my friend's house. It reinforced everything - no matter how worthy I thought I was, without motherhood, I wasn't a full woman."
The pain drove her away from intimacy. "Why go through all this?" But then feminism opened new doors. "I learned there's not just one way to be a woman. That knowledge became my powerhouse. If I'd known this as a teenager, imagine the relief - not having to jump at every prayer for healing, not having to shrink myself in relationships, not losing sleep over not being a mom."
Mamawa's body has made its own choices - one miscarriage, one ectopic pregnancy. "But when I sit with myself, when I listen to my body, the loss I felt wasn't about the children. What hurt was not having the choice, not being able to decide if I was emotionally or financially ready."
Now her symptoms have become severe. Her gynecologist suggests considering next steps. "With money, I could freeze my eggs, take time to decide. But I've told myself - I don't have to choose now. Maybe in five years I'll want to carry a child and the universe will align. Or maybe I'll give all my love to another's child. Both paths are perfectly whole."
She's found freedom in this understanding. "I am a sister, a friend, a lover, an African feminist lawyer. I've learned to give myself grace. Every day I find new ways of becoming."
Mamawa's vision reaches beyond her own healing. "I want a world where our bodies aren't political battlegrounds. Where young girls have baskets of care to carry them through their journeys. Where we can be sexual beings without explanation or shame."
"All is not well yet," she admits, "but all will be well. I know there is more to life than what society prescribed for me at birth. My greatest freedom has come through feminism - it's given me permission to explore all the possibilities of who I can become."