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Have You Ever Tried to Have a Child?

Daily Trust
Zainab Musa Kperogi
COLUMN
13 October 2007

I had planned on writing about career women and how they manage the home front this week. But this idea changed after a discussion with a friend who has been married for almost six years without a child. If you have ever tried to have a child without success, then you will know what I'm trying to say here. I once wrote about infertility in this column before it went on some months' break. It is a topic that can never be fully exhausted principally because an increasing number of couples are becoming childless due to several factors.

There are instances when couples who have given birth to their first child inexplicably live for many years waiting for the next child, which is why the age gap between the firstborn child and the second is, sometimes, much. In some frustrating cases, couples who gave birth to only one or two children have been unable to have more. In the days of yore, only women used to be blamed. However, in after the advent of science, people now have the knowledge that a childless couple could mean that either the husband or wife has problem.

After I spoke with my friend, I felt very sad for some hours, because I understood a little of what she must be going through at the moment. I say this because it is not easy when a married woman, who has not had a child, to continue to have her menstrual period every month. I always read a column in Genevieve magazine called 'A street called hope.' Anytime I buy the magazine, one of the three pages that I read first is that column, where a woman who has been married for more than nine years is still hoping to have a child. Some people may feel that the writer of that column is not genuine, but I think she is, from the poignant way she portrays her frustrations after each baby-making procedure that she undergoes. I equally understand that it can be easy to describe the pains after reading literature on the subject, but I maintain that it is only someone who feels it that truly knows it.

My friend has just undergone a very delicate procedure, which cost a fortune on her emotions and money. Unfortunately, the procedure failed to produce a baby, as she had her monthly flow less than two weeks after. The doctor had told her that she would need to wait for a month to see if the procedure would be a success. But it didn't take that long. So the day we chatted via Yahoo! Messenger, it was two days after the failure of the procedure, and she was understandably in emotional doldrums.

The procedure involves a process whereby a woman's ovaries are stimulated by some fertility drugs/injections to produce enough eggs. Her ovulation is monitored as well as the follicles. Drugs will also be used to ensure the ripeness of the follicles. A transfer/insemination day, which is sometimes done for two days, will be determined and the man will be invited for semen collection. The biologist will process the semen and the best part will be used to inseminate the woman in the theatre. It is a very painful process, and the two-day insemination process is done each day apart. Then the woman will go for pregnancy test after 14 days.

It is really not an easy process, because the woman will have to learn to inject herself at random. I am personally afraid of injections, so I wondered what I would do if I were in her shoes. The process also involves having to go to the hospital every other day so that the follicles can be monitored for almost two weeks before the actual insemination day.

As I said hitherto, only she who feels it knows it, because thinking of the time, energy and money involved alone, any failure of the process will be a huge emotional dent on the most patient of couples, especially the woman, because if she's the one with the problem, one can only imagine her torment.

Many childless couples have had to face the insensitive attitude of some thoughtless friends, relations and colleagues at one time or the other. The torture involved in not having a child is enough, but many people whom God, in His wisdom and ways, has made it easy for become annoyingly insensitive and keep asking stupid questions. There was a time someone once remarked to another very close friend of mine, who has only one child, thus: "What are you waiting for that you've not had another child?"

Of course, my friend simply ignored the question. It is not the choice of any married African couple not to have children. This happens only in western countries where some married couples deliberately choose not to have children, which is why some of their governments like in Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries are beginning to entice their citizens with generous offers to encourage them to have children and thereby avoid extinction of their races.

The procedures involved in childbearing are numerous, and as I already mentioned, many factors are responsible for childlessness - fibroid in women, low or dead sperm count in men, infections on both sides - to mention a few. One of the procedures, apart from the one that I already mentioned above is VCG, to check if the fallopian tubes are not blocked or infected. This procedure is extremely painful, as I once wrote about. Another process is IVF, which is inseminating fertilised eggs into the womb of a woman through her very private part. Women who have undergone this told me that it's also very painful. It equally involves injecting oneself periodically when hormones are favourable.

I cannot fully explain all the processes involved in trying to get pregnant for fear of eventually boring my reader, which I hope I've not done already. Suffice it to say that being childless after marriage is not an experience anybody would wish for, especially in Africa where the number of children used to be, and still is, what determines how wealthy a couple is.

Copyright © 2007 Daily Trust.

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May we be strengthened with the ability, willingness and capabilities to be good ambassadors of Nigeria contributing to its uplifting, rather than its detriment. - Cxsm