She was the victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) at the age of nine and has been fighting the mental and physical scars ever since, frightened that she would never experience the joy of becoming a mother. Now 26-year-old Khadija Gbla is celebrating what she describes as a ‘miracle’ after she gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, baby boy, weighing almost three kilos, on Monday night. Samuel Williams Jr, named after his father, was delivered by emergency caesarean section in Adelaide’s Women's & Children's Hospital at 11.14pm after Khadija went into early labour. The FGM campaigner said there are no words to describe the anticipation she felt as the doctors were ‘tugging and pulling and getting him out’. The pregnancy that she had sometimes imagined was an impossible dream suddenly became real.
@highlight
Khadija Gbla became a victim of female genital mutilation at the age of nine
@highlight
Her mother drove her into the bush in Gambia to be circumcised
@highlight
Khadija did not understand what had been done to her until she came to Australia as a refugee in 2001
@highlight
Her mother called it a 'sign of love' and has never apologised
@highlight
FGM causes infertility as well as complications in childbirth and an increased risk of newborn deaths
@highlight
The 26-year-old, who lives in Adelaide, has suffered years of pain
@highlight
Khadija gave birth to her first child Samuel Williams Jr on Monday night
@highlight
He was born via emergency caesarean because scarring from meant she could not give birth virginally
She hopes @placeholder will be ‘a happy healthy baby’, who grows into ‘a man who is compassionate and kind and a feminist - if I have anything to do with it’.