Every woman has a desire to be a mother one day. It is a feeling that makes any woman feel complete. Delayed conception can come with pressure from friends, which may lead to depression and stigma. Sometimes God has his own time of uplifting our fallen spirits and filling our joy cup with an abundance of blessings. This is my journey of motherhood, entailing trials, perseverance, and most importantly hope.
When I got married in 2010, I knew, just like any other couple, that we shall live happily after, have the number of babies we desired, and enjoy a good life with them! What I didn’t know is that everyone has a different and unique story based on their personalities. I was no exception.
First, I experienced my monthly periods at age 16, and for a teenager like me back then, they had not been regular. My cycle could go up to 60 days, and that was enough for a celebration because forward to the red days could be the last thing a teenager could look forward to.
At some point, I started developing facial hair, which I didn’t care much about. However, I tried hard to dismiss it, but it went on until I got married and was ready to conceive.
My journey dates back to 2011, and during this time, I was not keen on counting my safe days. This is because I didn’t know the right cycle to use. My periods were already irregular, therefore placing me at a position of conceiving anytime within the long cycles. This, for sure, I knew, wouldn’t be easy. After six months in marriage and trying so hard to conceive without success, I felt that it was time to seek medical help.
I booked my first appointment with a gynecologist, and later I would be diagnosed with the polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal disorder that causes enlarged ovaries with small cysts on the outer edges. Even though its cause is not well understood, it may involve a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Treatments can help, but it can’t be cured. Symptoms include menstrual irregularity, excess hair growth, acne, and obesity. – a case example would be a lady who is struggling with weight acne and similar problems.
I had never heard of such a condition in my life, but through the Internet, I started researching it. I got so much information, and for the first time, I began understanding some of the things that were happening to me. I fully understood the irregular periods, the facial hair, and the excessive weight gain since I wasn’t scared by fitness exercises. I dedicated my time to do so much research on the condition as if I was preparing for an exam on the topic. The doctor assured me that with the disease, I would conceive with little medical assistance.
For a start, I was put on clomiphene (fertility tablets) to help me ovulate and consequently conceive. I did four cycles but did not see any positive results. Oooh, and each time the periods would delay, I would buy pregnancy kits, anxiously, and excitedly waiting for those two lines. I had to rehearse a small skit of how I would tell my husband the good news. However, luck was never on my side.
After four failed cycles, I felt that the gynecologist was not giving me any hope, and I became impatient. Therefore, I decided that it was time to try my luck with another gynecologist. Since I had been in the marriage for a considerable amount of time, my family and close friends were anxiously waiting on that day; I would give them the good news – that I was pregnant. As a matter of fact, some were bold enough to share their proposals on when I should have babies. There is another lot that talked in low tones behind my back. They never miss in society.
The stigma in delaying children is real, and many people (including the learned ones) still believe in some myths regarding this complicated issue. The most common one is that a person who has problems bearing children must have done so many abortions, causing severe destructions to her uterus, huh! In African culture, especially in my community, the whole village expects to see a newly married wife with a booming tummy just days after the union. To them, getting pregnant is so typical, and there should be no difficulty.
So, here I am in my second year of marriage, trying to conceive silently because, with the stigma around this issue, it wasn’t safe to tell anyone that I was expecting. Sharing my problem with people around me was so risky since they wouldn’t offer any solution. Often, they would just judge. This was my greatest fear.
While walking this journey, I realized that there is nothing that can make a woman feels more alone or stressed out and depressed than trying to conceive. Thankfully throughout this journey, I had a very supportive husband who walked with me through the entire journey. Despite all that, I could still ask myself if he would finish the journey because I didn’t know the time. I feared he might succumb to the pressure, which had begun to build.
One day I decided to open up to a friend who would later refer me to a fertility specialist. When the friend gave me the doctor’s card, I felt a relief in my heart since I knew I would consult not only a gynecologist but also a fertility doctor! I quickly booked my appointment and visited the clinic, but he, like the other one, put me on three cycles of fertility treatment, which were not successful. You can imagine the disappointment. But I was not anywhere near giving up. I remembered the Swahili say, ‘Mtafutaji hachoki, akichoka ashapata,’ which loosely translates to a person searching for something cannot afford to give up until he/she finds whatever they are looking for.
This kept me going. The doctor then recommended more tests because, at this point, he was almost convinced that there could be other conditions. According to him, he had treated PCOS patients successfully within one to three cycles. The tests suggested were for both my husband and me. I was to do an HSG test (to check if the fallopian tubes were okay), and my husband was to do a semen analysis test. I went ahead and did the test and confirmed that my tubes were fine. The problem came on the side of my husband. The truth is that we then stayed for two good years without seeing a gynecologist since he didn’t have the guts to do the test. When he felt the time was running out and no miracle was happening yet, he finally composed himself and did the test, and he was fine.
Four years had just clocked in, and I was still on the journey. We had started being anxious and feeling pressure within ourselves too. The honeymoon was long over now, and we felt we needed some babies to be around. Our gynecologist later suggested that it was time to try intrauterine insemination (IUI).
IUI is a fertility treatment where sperms are placed directly in a woman’s uterus in a stimulated and monitored cycle to assist in conception. We tried two IUIs in a natural cycle and two in artificial cycles, which both failed. At this point, the doctor suggested we try In-vitro fertilization (IVF). IVF is a fertilization process where an egg is fused with sperm outside the body, in vitro. The process involves monitoring and stimulating a woman’s ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova from the woman’s ovaries, and letting the sperm fertilize them in liquid in the laboratory to form an embryo transferred to the woman’s womb after three or so days.
Since IVF is not cheap and no insurance company pays for such, we had to look for money even as we gathered more information. We had gotten ourselves to a point where we were willing to spend anything we had to get what we could get for free- a baby. So in 2016, we were ready and did the first IVF. Unfortunately, it also failed. Stress started checking in and almost slipped into depression. The physical, emotional, and financial strain was too much. I cried and stayed in bed for two weeks, praying, questioning, and blaming God. However, I regained peace within myself and moved on. When this first IVF process failed, I was advised to try another cycle with donor eggs. I didn’t listen to this request. I finally told my husband that I was done trying and shifted my mind to adoption.
For almost a year, we never talked about the issue of getting babies. Later in 2017, my husband started convincing me that we give IVF another try. I wasn’t ready for any of this, but he remained persistent and succeeded in convincing me.
In November 2017, I started treatment at a different IVF clinic; I prayed and fasted about it with my payer partners. The process went on successfully, but after egg harvesting, my body reacted so badly. I was hyper-stimulated, and the embryos could not be transferred. So the doctor suggested that I give my body some time to heal and be ready to receive the embryos. The embryos were then preserved. I remember how we used to joke with my husband about our ‘‘babies in the fridge’’ to refer to our cryopreserved embryos. The transfer was to be done in February 2018. I talked to the doctor if we could move the transfer to July 2018 since I had an assignment away from home.
From January to June 2018, I was away from home and focused on healthy eating, exercising, praying, and trusting God, and for the first time, I experienced regular periods. This was a true power of healthy living, which is a therapy on its own. When I came back home, I did detox to prepare my body for the scheduled assignment. Having been away from my husband for six months (a long period of a dry spell), we were so much on ‘‘catching up’’. My scheduled appointment was on 4th July 2018, which was the second day of my cycle. The day came, and there was no red dot. I was so shocked and still didn’t believe I could be pregnant. Thoughts started running in my mind; maybe it was the weather change, or I was haunted by the demons of hormonal imbalance. Another one week of waiting came and passed, and nothing showed. I became worried because the IVF process requires a patient to start medication on a new cycle.
Therefore, I opted to take the test, just for the sake, and later consult the doctor for the way forward. The results came positive, and shock was all over my body. I trusted God that the results were as real as they appeared and did not take another test.
As a believer, I grabbed the blessing and possessed it. When my husband came, I told him the good news, as obviously, he refused to believe. But I later confirmed to him, and he became so happy. We cried tears of joy and immediately booked an appointment with my gynecologist. As much as we believed the test was positive, we feared that it could be a chemical pregnancy.
When I did my first scan at around eight weeks, the heartbeat could not be felt, and so the doctor asked me to come back after twelve weeks for the same. That is the longest four weeks I have had in my life. It was a mixed reaction all over – feeling good that I conceived for the first time and getting so anxious about the results.
When the day came, I was the first person at the clinic, trying to remain as composed as I could. The sonographer did the scan and could feel the baby’s heartbeat. I got so emotional and cried on that bed until she got concerned; tears of joy were freely flowing. It was the best feeling in a long time. Nothing can describe the magic of that faint fluttering you feel when your baby moves and kicks inside your belly.
It was time to thank God for this huge miracle. Even though I was aware God could do such a miracle, I didn’t just think it could be in me. Yes, He did it at his right time! I conceived naturally, and to this date, I have never gone back to the doctor for my pending IVF test. My embryos (our babies in the fridge) are still intact.
In March 2019, we were blessed with a baby boy, Jesse (gift) Amaya (a miracle in my husband’s dialect). He is a constant reminder that God exists, and he is a faithful God. Nothing is more fulfilling than I have than being a mother. I hope my motherhood journey encourages you. And that was my miraculous Journey to Motherhood.
Noella.
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