{"id":8620,"date":"2014-01-31T02:18:45","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T07:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verastic.com\/?p=8620"},"modified":"2014-02-05T22:05:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T03:05:00","slug":"nigerian-due-date-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/personal\/nigerian-due-date-edition.html","title":{"rendered":"Being Nigerian: The Due Date Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Baby-Bump.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6173\" alt=\"Baby Bump\" src=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Baby-Bump.jpg\" width=\"260\" height=\"194\" \/><\/a>Some days ago at work, I was in Elizabeth&#8217;s office as usual. Elizabeth is my very cool and friendly co-worker. She&#8217;s Puerto Rican and pregnant, and everyone knows when she&#8217;s due because the month and date is posted on her door. It&#8217;s in April. Anyway, while at her office, her unborn baby decided to show us (Lisa and me) his moves. I could see her belly going up and down, and I thought it was so beautiful and glorious &#8211; the miracle of a life jumping inside of her. It reminded me of when my aunt was pregnant with Toby and I used to rub her belly all the time.<\/p>\n<p>While Elizabeth&#8217;s baby was doing cirque du soleil in her belly, Elizabeth held her belly tenderly and spoke to her baby. She jokingly asked if he was ready to come out. We all laughed. But I laughed even more &#8211; and she and Lisa probably didn&#8217;t even notice. I was imagining how this conversation would go with a Nigerian woman, and the thought of it made me laugh so much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Number 1:<\/strong> Unless all the witches and wizards are on vacation in a far away galaxy, there is no way on God&#8217;s green earth that a real Nigerian woman will let everyone know when her baby is due. Maka why?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Number 2:<\/strong> A real Nigerian woman will also not let someone rub her pregnant belly because the someone could be sucking the life out of her baby or possibly using him\/her for a money ritual.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Number 3:<\/strong> A real Nigerian woman would most definitely never, ever, EVER ask her baby if he&#8217;s ready to come out before his due date, even if it&#8217;s just 24 hours early.<\/p>\n<p>And what if I was the one who asked the question about whether the baby is ready to come out? Well, the response would have been something like this: <em>God forbid baaad thing! My baby will never, ever come out before his time. I reject it in the name of Jesus! I cover my baby with the blood of Jesus! Fatheeerrrr, maintain my baby&#8217;s ETA [estimated time of arirval] in the name of Jesus! Shame my enemies! Prayeerrrrsssssss!!!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now, y&#8217;ll know that I am not lying.The good news is that I am not a real Nigerian woman. So I&#8217;ve been told.<\/p>\n<p>Hi Elizabeth! I&#8217;ll come by your office later to check on <em>our<\/em> baby \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some days ago at work, I was in Elizabeth&#8217;s office as usual. Elizabeth is my very cool and friendly co-worker. She&#8217;s Puerto Rican and pregnant, and everyone knows when she&#8217;s due because the month and date is posted on her door. It&#8217;s in April. Anyway, while at her office, her unborn baby decided to show<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/verastic.com\/site\/personal\/nigerian-due-date-edition.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_14738191_14738191":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[561],"tags":[988,412,208,745,289],"class_list":["post-8620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal","tag-being-nigerian","tag-culture","tag-nigeria","tag-nigerian","tag-pregnancy","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - 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