“Patient is a seventeen-year-old female. She fell down the steps, and she has a broken arm and has probably suffered a miscarriage as a result of the fall, judging by the blood,” the paramedic says to the doctors as the stretcher is wheeled from the back of the ambulance.
“Is she here with someone?” a doctor asks. Nandipha drops the call she was on and jumps out of the ambulance.
“Yes, she is with me,” she says, and the doctor gestures for her to come with them.
Nandipha has been trying to call Simo’s mother on the way, but it kept going to voicemail. She had tried to call her own mother but it just rang – she doesn’t answer her phone when she is in a meeting. Nandipha is in panic and she talks to herself to calm herself down.
“You can do this Nandipha, you can do this,” she says as she moves her grandmother’s ring up and down her finger.
After hours of trying to call Simo’s mother and sitting helplessly at Simo’s bedside when she is out of surgery for her arm, there finally is movement. Simo wakes up and mumbles something. Nandipha doesn’t understand what she says, and rushes straight to find a nurse.
“I’m sorry Simo,” the nurse says to Simo who has now fully regained consciousness. “You lost the baby, but it was just a matter of time before this happened as the baby was growing in your fallopian tube and not the womb. Don’t blame yourself; this was going to happen,” the nurse says, sounding firm and sincere.
Nandipha plays with her grandmother’s ring again as the nurse speaks, wondering what to think. Yes, Simo didn’t want the baby, but to miscarry it like that …
Simo turns to face Nandipha as the nurse walks away, “You should go home Nands. I’m not in pain. You heard the nurse, it’s just for observation now.”
“I’m so sorry Si, I don’t even know what to say. I can’t begin to imagine what you must be going through right now,” Nandipha says, tearing up.
“Hey now, I was going to abort this baby after school remember,” Simo says, trying to put a smile on her face.
Nandipha leaves once Simo is sound asleep. She finds her mother at home and she collapses in her arms and wails.
“Simo miscarried her baby,” Nandipha says in between sobs. “I convinced her to go back to school, I made a plan to help her catch up, and she went to school and there was an accident and now her baby is gone.”
“Nana, you can’t blame yourself for what happened. You only tried to help,” Nandipha’s mother says, rubbing her daughter like her mother used to rub her.
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Tell us what you think: Many pregnancies miscarry before three months, for example by being a ‘ectopic’ pregnancy like Simo’s. Is this an argument in favour of abortion before three months?