He Abandoned Me While I Carried His Child — I Built a Sewing Empire That Stopped All Gossip
In the evening, my landlord locked my gate in Wuse 2 and shouted, for the whole compound to hear, that a "white man's baby" would not live here on credit again. I was eight months pregnant, drenched in sweat, with my baby clothes at my feet, neighbours watching like a show, and my landlord smiling right in my face.
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Source: UGC
The padlock clicked. My stomach sank, and the courtyard spun slowly. Musa kicked inside me. Auntie Rukayat sucked her teeth. A boy near the tap laughed. "She thought oyinbo go carry her."
"Madam Zainab," the landlord barked, tapping the metal. "Bring the money or pack tonight."
I opened my handbag and saw the truth: three thousand naira, my clinic card, and a phone I had stopped charging because Thomas stopped replying.
"Please," I said. "Give me one week. I will pay."
He spat. "One week? You people like story."
A woman from my old canteen ran over, apron stained with pepper. "Baba, she is heavy," she pleaded. "Abeg, allow her."
He looked at my belly as if it were a scam. "Where is the father? Call him."
The compound went quiet. Everyone turned towards me, waiting for me to dial a miracle. My throat burned, but I forced the words out.
"He has gone," I said.
Source: UGC
Laughter rose. My eyes stung, but I refused to cry there. I lifted my work bag and stepped back from the gate.
If I could not buy mercy, I would build something more influential than their tongues.
My name is Zainab Abdullahi. Before gossip became my shadow, I sold food at a roadside canteen near Wuse Zone 4 in Abuja. I served jollof rice, beans, and steaming plates of yams and eggs to office workers who ate quickly and forgot your face by evening.
I learned to smile even when my feet swelled, because in the city, people taste your mood before they taste your soup. I sent money to my mother in Zuba when I could, and I told myself that small business was still a business.
That was where I met Thomas Meyer, a white UN peacekeeper posted to Abuja. He appeared like a routine at first. Every afternoon, he queued with his tray, pointed at my pot, and said, "Jollof, please. Extra pepper."
Source: UGC
He tried to greet in Hausa and failed proudly.
"Sannu," he would say, and I would laugh. "Sannu da zuwa," I corrected.
He asked about my family, listened, and tipped me better than men who never met my eyes once.
Thomas lived in a serviced apartment in Maitama. He talked about Nigeria like it was "temporary", the way people talk about a stopover. He said his work was rotation, paperwork, and deadlines. He spoke about taking me to Europe as if it were a short bus ride from Berger Junction.
I did not grow up dreaming of white men. I grew up dreaming of stability. My father died when I was sixteen. My mother sold charcoal and groundnuts. I became the kind of girl who measured life in rent dates and market prices.
Thomas felt like a door opening. We dated quietly. I visited him after work, washed my hands, and sat on his balcony watching Abuja lights blink behind the hills.
Source: UGC
He promised he would "sort documents". He promised he would return. He promised he would not leave me hanging.
Then I got pregnant during his final rotation. I told him with shaking hands, expecting shock, then commitment.
He kissed my forehead and said, "We will handle it."
A week later, he flew out through Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport.
He never came back.
At first, I waited as if hope could pay hospital bills. I sent messages that stayed on one tick, then two, then disappeared into silence. I refreshed my inbox until my eyes hurt. His number rang into nothing.
In my area, news moves faster than harmattan dust. Once people heard I was pregnant with a white soldier, men stopped coming close. Some joked as if my belly were a comedy.
"So you don catch oyinbo?" one customer laughed. "Now you go blow."
Another woman warned, "They will think you have foreign help. They will start pricing you like you are rich."
Source: UGC
My landlord proved her right. He raised my rent without notice and said, "Your level don change. You get foreign sponsor."
I stared at him. "But my pay never change."
He shrugged. "Pay."
By the seventh month, my landlord began knocking at odd hours, demanding "extra" for water and security. "You have foreign help," he repeated, as if saying it would make it actual. When I begged for time, he said, "No pity for smart girls." I started sleeping with my purse under my pillow, afraid I would wake up locked outside.
At the clinic, one nurse looked at Musa's card and asked, "Father's surname?"
I swallowed. "He is not here."
She sighed. "Next time, bring details. We must write something."
At the antenatal clinic in Asokoro, nurses insisted on the father's details until the words lost meaning.
"Name of father?" one asked, pen ready.
"He is not around," I replied.
Source: UGC
"Phone number?" she pushed.
"I will bring it," I lied, because shame turns adults into children.
When my belly became too big for the canteen, I stayed home. That was when the whispers grew bold. Women stopped greeting properly. Men made comments as if my pain entertained them.
One evening, a neighbour asked, smiling, "Your oyinbo never send money?"
I stared straight ahead. "Mind your business."
I went to the UN office reception near the Central Business District, sweating through my blouse. A guard stopped me.
"Madam, who you dey find?"
"Thomas Meyer," I said.
He checked a list and shook his head. "No be here again. He don travel."
His indifference crushed me more than an insult.
Musa arrived on a rainy morning, screaming like he had opinions. I named him anyway. I registered him Nigerian, gave him my surname, and refused to make my child a question mark.
Source: UGC
The months after birth tested me in small, relentless ways. At immunisation clinics in Gwarinpa, nurses asked, "Where is the father?" as if fathers were receipts every woman should carry. In the compound, neighbours stared at Musa's lighter skin and whispered behind their hands.
Then harmattan came. Musa caught a fever that climbed fast. His breathing tightened, and his lips dried. I held him to my chest and prayed while my mind counted money I did not have.
At a pharmacy near Kubwa, the pharmacist said the price, and my stomach dropped.
"Please, is there cheaper?" I begged.
He softened. "Madam, baby need correct thing."
I sold my phone the next morning at Wuse Market. A dealer tested it and paid me little money, which felt like a defeat. I bought formula, paracetamol, and wipes, then carried Musa home with my eyes burning.
That night, I used a cybercafé and emailed Thomas again.
"Your son is sick," I typed. "Please respond."
Source: UGC
No reply came. People told me to chase embassies and beg. I could not stand the thought of turning Musa into a case file.
I did not want pity.
I wanted a way out.
The twist came from something embarrassing: a torn seam.
One Saturday at Kubwa market, Musa slept on my back while I bargained for tomatoes. My blouse had split under the arm, and I kept tugging it closed, ashamed. A woman selling fabric noticed and called out.
"Madam, you sew?" she asked.
"I can manage," I said, ready to disappear.
She smiled. "Your stitches are neat. Who teach you?"
"My aunt in Zaria," I admitted. "Small, small."
Her name was Mama Efe. She pulled out navy fabric, handed me a needle and thread, and said, "Show me." Right there between Ankara rolls, I stitched a clean line. Musa shifted and sighed.
Mama Efe clicked her tongue. "You are wasting skill."
Source: UGC
"Skill no dey pay rent," I replied.
"It will," she said. "If you stop chasing the wrong man and start chasing work."
She introduced me to a cooperative of single mothers in Kubwa, women who shared machines, customers, and survival tips. They met behind a small church hall, passing tape measures like sacred tools.
The women corrected my mistakes without mocking me. They taught me to double-stitch stress points, keep records, and secure deposits. Each lesson felt like mothering I never received, firm, honest, and practical. That saved my dignity.
I borrowed a machine for two weeks and practised at night when Musa slept. I learned to measure school uniforms and to price my work without shrinking.
My first bulk order came from a private primary school in Jabi. The headmistress, Mrs Okonkwo, wanted twenty uniforms by Friday.
"Can you do it?" she asked.
I heard my own voice, steady. "Yes. I can."
Source: UGC
I delivered on time. Mrs Okonkwo paid me in full and said, "You have good hands, Zainab."
I stopped chasing embassies and started chasing invoices. I registered my business name, opened an account, and focused on papers that recognised me.
During election season, a councillor in Bwari ordered three hundred uniforms for "community outreach". The bank deposited money into my account. Then added another, right on schedule.
For the first time, money stopped arriving only during emergencies.
It started coming predictably.
I worked like someone running from fire, because I was. I stitched in the mornings, cut fabric in the afternoons, and delivered in the evenings with Musa tied to my back or asleep beside my machine. My fingers toughened. My shoulders ached. But fear began to turn into fuel.
The cooperative became my first safety net. We protected each other from men who wanted discounts with smiles and promises. When someone tried to underpay me, Mama Efe would step forward and say, "Pay her full. Her child no dey eat insult."
Source: UGC
Within a year, I saved enough to rent a small shop in Gwarinpa, near salons and barbing kiosks. I painted my signboard myself: Zainab Stitches and Uniforms. It was not fancy, but it was mine.
I moved Musa and myself into a cleaner compound in Life Camp, where nobody knew his father's story. The first night there, I slept like a person who finally had walls that belonged to her. Musa played in the courtyard without strangers staring at his face like it was gossip.
In my new area, people judged me by my work, not my past. Parents began calling me "Madam Zainab" instead of asking questions. Schools stopped bargaining. They asked for invoices and delivery dates.
Orders grew steadily.
When the councillor's 300-uniform job landed, I rented extra machines for a week and worked by lantern light. My back screamed, but I delivered every bundle counted and pressed. The assistant signed the receipt and said, "Madam, you no dey disappoint." I smiled, accepting my name had changed.
Source: UGC
I hired two young women from the cooperative, Aisha and Ngozi, and paid them weekly in cash, folded into envelopes. I gave them transport money because I remembered what hunger does to choices.
The gossip did not die with one loud victory. It died quietly, like a generator switching off when light returns. Once, back near Wuse Zone 4, I heard two women whisper, "That girl with oyinbo baby." Another replied, "Leave her. Na Madam Zainab."
Musa grew up speaking Hausa and English without shame. Thomas never replied again. For a long time, that absence ached. Then one day, it did not.
I realised I had built a life where his silence could not control my breath. That became my boundary.
No more waiting. No more explaining.
My son became a person.
And my sewing empire became the answer that stopped all gossip.
Source: UGC
For a long time, I believed my story ended the day Thomas boarded that plane. I thought abandonment was a stamp on my forehead, something everyone could see. I thought Musa would grow up carrying a question he never asked for.
But people gossip most when they think you cannot rise.
Gossip feeds on helplessness. It thrives when you keep begging, keep explaining, keep waiting for rescue. The day I stopped chasing a foreign promise and started building a local structure, the noise began to lose power.
I did not heal by pretending it did not hurt. It hurt. It still hurts when Musa asks why other children have fathers at school events. I answer him with honesty that does not poison him.
"Some people leave," I tell him. "But you are loved. You are safe."
What changed my life was mentorship, community, and consistency. Mama Efe and the women in Kubwa did not pity me. They gave me tools and expectations.
Source: UGC
They taught me pricing, discipline, and dignity. They taught me to rebuild pride, one finished hem at a time.
I also learned that motherhood does not mean swallowing humiliation. I set boundaries. I moved away from places that treated my child like entertainment. I built a business that paid salaries, not just rent.
My lesson is simple: when someone abandons you, you do not have to forsake yourself.
You can grieve and still build. You can turn survival into stability with work that respects you and people who support your growth.
So here is my question, for anyone standing where I once stood, alone, tired.
When life tries to shame you into silence, will you keep waiting for the person who left, or will you build something so solid that even gossip gets tired of talking?
This story is inspired by the real experiences of our readers. We believe that every story carries a lesson that can bring light to others. To protect everyone's privacy, our editors may change names, locations, and certain details while keeping the heart of the story true. Images are for illustration only. If you'd like to share your own experience, please contact us via email.
Source: Legit.ng
