Iboro, from Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria, originally studied Communication Arts and worked as a Client Service Executive at LTC-JWT Advertising until 2005 when she joined Virgin Nigeria Airways as a Marketing Coordinator, responsible for branding and marketing communication. Iboro said, "I wanted to add more value to my CV and pursue new challenging responsibilities in multinational companies, so enrolled for the Masters at the Robert Gordon University."
Iboro and her husband Emmanuel Jude had to put all their savings towards her studies. Indeed, they were both accepted to study in the UK, but because they did not have enough finances to study simultaneously, he had to defer his offer while he continued to work in Nigeria to support her.
Five months before Iboro began the course in September last year, she sadly suffered a miscarriage when she was 20 weeks pregnant. She continues, "It was a very traumatic period for us." However, after one of her husband’s visits to her in November 2007, Iboro found out she was pregnant again.
Early in her pregnancy she went for a scan and discovered she was expecting triplets. She continues, "It was really shocking because there is no history of multiple births in either of our families. However, we accepted it as God's blessing for our previous loss."
Iboro continues, "It was not easy attending classes and carrying so much weight around. Sitting up to study and doing my coursework was very uncomfortable. I could not put in as much effort as I would have liked to and had to seek assistance from friends and lecturers to help with such things as borrowing heavy books from the library. I had to deal with fatigue, swollen feet, and pelvic pain from the weight. It was a relief after the second semester since I did not have to go out every day to attend lectures and could work on my dissertation from home."
At 34 weeks Iboro had to be admitted to hospital for close monitoring in case she went into early labour, with the target date for an elective c-section at 36 weeks so that the babies would be able to survive without neonatal care. At 35 weeks and six days, on 24 July, Iboro gave birth to three healthy baby boys Nathaniel, Johnathan and Ethan.
Iboro's mum came over to Aberdeen to help with the babies and stayed so that Iboro could complete her dissertation. She continues, "Being a go-getter, I just had to keep going with my dissertation even though I knew I was straining my health and was not giving the babies all the attention they required. I had the option of deferring but I chose to continue and, barely a month after giving birth, I returned to complete my studies. Even though the babies would be more settled when they are a few months older, my mum would not be here to help out and that would mean incurring expenses on child care.
"There were days when I barely wrote a sentence because I was shuttling from one baby to the other; however I made sure that I worked every other day. Most times, while my mum held two babies, I held one with one arm while typing my dissertation with the other!
"I was given an extension for my dissertation submission and was determined to meet this deadline. The babies needed to feed every three hours and just when we managed to feed the last one, we realised it was almost time for the next feed. So, I had to eat, scribble some words, and prepare to feed them again. I hardly ever had three hours straight sleep at night, and of course there was hardly any sleep during the day.
Regardless of how hectic it's been, studying here has been really worthwhile. Meeting people from different parts of the world and learning more about their cultures has been quite an experience. I thank my friends and lecturers, who were very helpful and supportive, without whom things would have been almost impossible. I thank God, my darling husband, our triplets, my family and in-laws for their love and support."
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