"I thought motherhood would be a mix of ice-cream and dodo."

Popular and adored radio broadcaster, Anita Hughes aka Omalicha, is one woman with a lot of wit and humour. Her best outfit is her smile and her cheerful laughter warms its way into the hearts of her listeners. She is easily delighted by a plate of beans and plantain, and she is also unabashed about her love for food.

So it’s no surprise that when she got pregnant with her first child in 2017, she treated her fans to a trail of humorous updates on her social media feeds.

Cravings in Pregnancy

Women have been known to have weird cravings during pregnancy, from eating chalk to loving foods they hated before, and Anita had her good dose of it too. “Okro soup at midnight and Edikainkong always,” she says. She also couldn’t stand fizzy drinks and is sad that she can’t finish a bottle of Coca-Cola anymore.

Experiencing Motherhood

The stages of labour form part of the core of the childbearing process. The wave and frequency of contractions can cause women to behave and say things they normally wouldn’t. In Anita’s case, she says she walked stark naked to the theatre after 24 hours of labour. “At that point, I just wanted my baby to be okay.”

The first thought that crossed her mind when she saw her son for the first time was, “Yo! So you were the one in me.” Anita gave birth to her baby on the 28th of December, 2017.

While she expected motherhood to be a mix of, “ice-cream and dodo,” she woke up to a reality of “Aloe vera and bitter leaf juice mixed with some strawberry and sautéed dodo.” So much for sugar and spice and all that’s nice.

While enjoying his growth and development, she marvels at the adjustments that parents need to make. For example, she has had to create a ‘fence’ in her house simply because, “He is a climber.”

After 24 hours, I walked stark naked into the theatre

The Impact of Motherhood

Now, Anita regularly publishes posts relating to parenting and motherhood. Some based on her experience as a mother, or her experience growing up. During her pregnancy, she would update her fans on social media with funny pregnancy memes that described what she was going through – from not being able to find a comfortable position to sleep, to farting and blaming it on the baby.

She also had a rather ethnic and unique maternity shoot, which was widely shared on the Nigerian Internet space.