I will never know my son’s dad and I don’t care

"How long do you intend to keep the secret about your son's father?" my mother recently asked me for the umpteenth time about my eight-year-old son.

My son had been ill and she thought I needed the support of a man. The story she wants to hear may be unpleasant to her ears: I voluntarily chose to have a child with a stranger, a man whose face I can hardly remember.

I met him in the dark, we had sex in the dark, and I disappeared in the dark. That's why I named my son Njiru, meaning dark.

My mother's eyes always tell what answer she is expecting. She wants to hear that I was raped and I have been too traumatised all those years that is why I avoid talking about what I went through. But that is not the case. "I don't know him, mother, and I will never know him," has always been my honest answer.

He was contracted only to impregnate me with a baby in a dimly-lit, dingy hotel in Nairobi. Mother would die of grief and embarrassment if she knew this. Maybe I have served my son's father in the bank where I work, maybe I have even sat next to him on a bus but we will never recognise each other.

My plan to have a child was well calculated. It aimed at going through all the stages of child-bearing the natural way; no artificial methods. The only slight difference was that I didn't want to know or love the man involved and I would never see him again after I conceived. My child would be mine alone!

Now, I am the sole parent of my son. I am persuaded that my growing up had a hand in the decision I made.

I was born 37 years ago in a village in Meru County. My parents were wealthy. I believed that a man was immaterial in my life long before I reached puberty. What would this man offer that my parents hadn't offered?

Since I was the only child, I was spoilt with luxury and love. At 22, I had my a car and a driver. I attended very good schools and universities and lived like a princess.

In fact, my parents called me "princess" a name that has stuck to date though it was turned into something else because children could not pronounce the word properly.

My family has always loved lavish spending, so we would go for vacations and at times I could go with my father on international trips.

So, what new thing would a man bring into my life? He could even be a liability, I reasoned.

I suspect that the luxurious life I led made me very selfish and the very thought of sharing my parents' love and wealth with anyone else was absurd.

I hated it when my cousins visited and then got comfortable in our home. I felt they didn't deserve to be treated well especially by the house helps because they were just visitors and the workers were our employees. I tried having some boyfriends in school and at the university but I always felt that they were after my father's wealth.

"They love you because your father is famous and rich," a voice in my head kept ringing every time I tried to date. I never believed in any man paying my bills as such many men in my circles declined to ask me out.

After working for two years as a banker and still living lavishly, I chose to remain unmarried but not alone. I would get a baby but have no attachments with the father.

I remember the night I conceived. I had started planning early. I marked my fertile days and I was so sure that I would get pregnant. I drove myself to Nairobi though my parents had insisted that I should go with one of the drivers. I had started getting tired of being treated like a baby though I was heading to my 30s.

"Getting a baby will make everyone see I am an adult, perhaps they will even start calling me, 'Mama Njiru," I fantasised as I drove.

The name Njiru is unisex so it was suitable and that is why I settled on it long before I became pregnant.

In Nairobi, I booked myself in a comfy hotel and waited for the night. I had done my research well: There are people who are well-connected and cannot only hook up sex workers with clients but also protect them.

I would pose as a sex worker. I knew that a newcomer in the sex business was a threat to the others and can be harassed. I had paid someone to get me a client and protect me.

I wanted to meet my "client" in a dark place where we wouldn't see each other's faces properly.

My protector would stay with me the entire time until a client showed up. He would negotiate for me and get a commission. He was to come with another person for security.

My instructions were clear: the "client" must be very drunk, so he wouldn't recognise me, but decent looking.

Before midnight they had got a "client". From the cologne he wore, I could tell he was a decent man. As per my request, he was quite drunk.

He looked like an older man from his dressing. I told him I am not a sex-worker but a frustrated housewife because my husband cheated on me and I am out for adventure.

I lied that because my husband is a prominent man, I just wanted some quick sex in a dark room and not in the expensive hotels he was suggesting because somebody could recognise me.

I took advantage of his drunkenness and pulled him to a hotel my boys had identified earlier in the week. It was in a cheap, dirty and dark room where my son was conceived.

He didn't care about using protection. He never spoke about it, thanks to his drunkenness.

A few minutes after we were done, he was sound asleep and I slipped out of the room.

Second thoughts

When I went back home I suddenly became frightened that I may have contracted HIV. My parents were very concerned about my distance and absent-mindedness but I kept insisting that I was fine.

After three months, I went to an ante-natal clinic and the pregnancy test was positive.

Of course I knew I was pregnant but the confirmation made me very delighted. If my mother had noticed my signs that I was pregnant, she had ignored them because I had become rather cranky.

The confirmation excited me so much that I started changing my wardrobe by the fourth month.

I bought baby clothes and toys and behaved like the mother I would soon be.

When my mother couldn't hold her curiosity any longer she gently asked one day: "... and who is the lucky father? I had been so busy with preparations that I had almost forgotten that I didn't know the father of my baby!

"I don't know," I said but she mistook it for rudeness and stormed out of my room. She later came back to apologise and said she understands why I was so depressed those past three months, and that a baby is a blessing, and even if the man dumped me I shouldn't worry and...

"Enough, mother!" I shouted at her. "Haven't I just told you that I do not know the father of my baby?"

She thought my anger meant that I was raped. I later apologised and I assured her that I honestly didn't know the father to my unborn baby but I didn't want to talk about it.

But eight years later, she still insists that she has a right to know. I have since moved out to a house I bought for my son and I.

My son attends one of the best schools in our neighbourhood and I don't think it would make any big difference if he knew who his father was.

He has his mother's undivided attention. I am dating but the man clearly knows he can never be the father-figure to my son. The business is between the two of us and not my son.

When my son joined school, I categorically directed the head-teacher to be sensitive when asking him questions about his family because talking about his father may upset him. Also, my son and I saw a counsellor who advised us that we should not be embarrassed about my son not having a father.

While I wouldn't advise anyone to emulate what I did, I encourage women to be independent. It's not only from a man that you can get love and support because that's what many women look for.

The love between me and my parents is so strong that it was difficult getting out of our home because they thought they were losing me.

We visit each other often and my son and my dad go for picnics a lot. I love my mother but it annoys me when she keeps mentioning my son's father.

I advise women to work hard so you don't have to stick to a man who isn't your relative for support.

In my world, it's old fashioned for a child who is well taken care of to ask who his father is.

I hate imagining a man coming to compete for my love with my son or to live in the house I built for us.