My Nightmare Before Christmas
A Real Christmas Miracle Story
I am a real-life Scrooge. I don’t celebrate Christmas. Growing up and adopting Islam, I couldn’t understand why non-Christians poured so much effort into celebrating the birthday of a God they didn’t believe in. It all felt so commercial —Santa, elves, people overindulging in turkey (poor turkeys!)—while others froze to death on the streets of London.
Look, I’m not a complete Scrooge. I remember Christmas in Ghana—music filling the streets, neighbors turning into family, rejoicing, and sharing food. That sense of community was magical.
I appreciated the Christmas holiday, but nothing else: just the movies, the family gatherings, the togetherness, the food. Even as Muslims, my family would get together, partly because, in England, if you weren’t with your family on December 25th, there wasn’t much else to do. Still, for 15 years, I never celebrated on December 25th. That was, until one fateful Christmas morning in 2017, when everything changed.
Twas a day before Christmas, on a cold UK night. The wind howled, snowflakes trickled down, resting softly on the ground and the hearts of excited children across the country. While everyone else celebrated, I lay on a hospital floor, toggling between tears and prayer.
Two days earlier, on December 23rd, my wife and I had entered the hospital, two weeks past her due date, expecting a smooth induction and delivery. But 40 hours later, we’d endured potential infections, dysfunctional labor, emergency procedures, and a rollercoaster of emotions.
My wife was in pain.
I wanted to help, but I couldn’t. Every husband knows the feeling. The doctor assured us that a cesarean might be the only option. We were just hours away from possibly losing our first child. After all that fighting, were we about to lose anyway?
After the doctor’s last visit, I crawled into the hallway, leaving my tortured wife and her mother holding the fort. Somehow, I stumbled into an empty toilet cubicle and collapsed on the floor. Out of options, out of hope, and filled with desperation, I let my emotions flow in quiet, body-racking sobs.
“God, I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered. I wanted it all to be over. But in that moment, I didn’t even know if I was ready for what “over” meant.
The main issue was that after multiple complications, including my wife’s water breaking prematurely, her cervix wasn’t dilating fast enough. A woman’s cervix needs to be 10 centimetres dilated before she can start pushing. The movies only show the pushing part, but that’s just the final act. Labor is so much more. So that is where we sat, in no-man’s land; fear, anxiety and our pain.
Against his better judgment, the doctor has offered us one last chance to deliver naturally instead of operating. And so we waited—in a no-man’s-land of fear, anxiety, and pain.
I barely knew the tiny creature in her stomach, but I had already fallen in love—with the distorted shapes on the scan, the midnight kicks, the tiny blips on the heart monitor. I don’t want to lose them.
The cold floor offered no comfort, so I closed my eyes and prayed. I didn’t make promises or bargain with God; I just asked for strength. If I could muster the strength to walk back into that ward, maybe I could transfer some of it to my suffering family. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had.
But my legs were weak, my head hurt, and I was already broken. What was left to give? Allah help me.
Then it occurred to me: if I couldn’t find the strength within myself, maybe I could borrow it.
My wife had attended the same church since childhood, and while I wasn’t close to the pastor, I had his number. I fumbled for my phone, hands trembling, vision blurred from two sleepless days. Eventually, I found the number and called.
The phone rang. And rang. I prayed.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Amos?” My voice was weak, barely a whisper. “It’s Babi’s husband. She’s in labour. We’ve been here for two days, and the doctors are saying she might need an emergency C-section. The baby isn’t breathing properly...” I rambled on, and he listened quietly. When I finished, he cleared his throat.
“Let me speak to her,” he said. His voice was calm, steady—like a man who had lived a hundred lives. I trusted his voice more than my own. Hypnotised by his confidence, my feet carried me back to the ward.
My mother-in-law shot me a desperate look. Despite her pain, my wife’s eyes brightened at my return.
“Someone wants to speak to you,” I said, handing her the phone. Through gritted teeth, she took it and placed it to her ear. During the conversation, she winced, cried, and then...it’s over. The trials of labour continue, she fights on, they fight on, we fight on. There is nothing worse than being helpless when the people you love suffer.
Now, all we could do was wait.
When the doctor returned, he looked surprised. “Great progress! You’re 8.5 centimeters dilated,” he said. “We should be able to start pushing in the next hour or so.”
I collapsed to the floor. My mother-in-law yelped in victory, in a way only a Nigerian mother could. It wasn’t over yet, but the finish line was finally in sight.
At 1 a.m. on December 25th, 2017, my son—my first child—was born. His name is Nazareth. (People assume we chose it because of Christmas, but it actually came to me in a dream in 2014.)
When my wife delivered the final push and the nurse placed him on my chest, something inside me clicked. It felt like a locked part of me had been opened—a new chamber of love.
After those 48 hours, we deserved to celebrate. Many people have sat where we did and weren’t as fortunate.
Just so you know, I still don’t believe in Christmas, fairylights, Santa suits and presents. I don’t believe in Christmas, but I believe in miracles. So December 25th, is a celebration for me, just a different kind.
If case you wanted to relive the experience in more details, I wrote a piece recounting the entire childbirth experience, a homage to Nazareth.
If you enjoyed this, please check out my Book ‘Notes On Sacrifice’
This is a really interesting read