ART

The person who sent this story wants to encourage anyone who is passing through any difficult situation to hold on to God and believe that miracles do happen.

Emeh (not real name) always believed that children came naturally with marriage and she looked forward to having a house full of them when she got married. Marriage came very easily and then began the very long wait to have even one child.

At first, it seemed like a fluke, how could she (who was pure before marriage) find it difficult to conceive. There were times when she questioned God and very many nights she cried herself to sleep.

Sex with her husband Edet (not real name) became a scheduled one which only happened during her ovulation. Hours after sex, she would put her legs up against the wall just to be sure that every drop of semen went to the right place. Every month, after every intercourse with her husband, Emeh felt all the symptoms that she read of pregnancy, yet by the next month all her hopes would be dashed as soon as her period came rushing like a river which overflowed its bank.

Each time she saw a pregnant woman, she would be very nice and cautious and all the time wishing that the pregnant woman was her. She gave money freely to anyone who just had a new baby whether she knew the person well enough or not. She prayed and fasted and hoped and believed yet years and years passed, still there was no pregnancy.

After the third year without a child, her brothers and sisters in law became hostile to her, they demanded to know why she had decided not to make their brother a father. And when it looked like her parents in law were the only sane ones, her mother in law showed up in her house without prior notice and threatened the living day light out of her.

There were so many occurrences that made her heart bleed then, They were hardly invited to children’s birthday parties and children who visted with their parents were always eager to go because there no children to play with. She was once called barren by her house help who wouldn’t take any corrections, she was rude to Emeh who asked her to leave her house, on her way out of the house, she called her that dreaded name “Barren”; Emeh cried for days.

She went through all sorts of procedures, she unblocked tubes and took fertility drugs and shots for years, Emeh and her husband had several tests both inexpensive and very expensive ones just to ascertain that both parties were able to make babies. Of all the challenges she went through, the most difficult one for her was when her husband started acting funny, he would get home late and very drunk. Thankfully, he quickly retraced his steps and provided the comfort that his wife needed.

After exactly ten years of marriage, Emeh and Edet decided to explore Assisted Reproductive Tehnology. Before taking this decision, they prepared their minds for the opposition and criticisms that they would face from friends and family for finally losing hope in God and trusting science more. Emeh was thirty years old at this time and it took another five years for the Intro Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) to click. Emeh and Edet were over the moon as expected when the doctor confirmed to them that they were indeed  expecting two or more babies. Emeh prayed special novenas and never relented in her prayers till the day that she put to bed. She was delivered of four healthy babies; three boys and one girl.

The babies will be dedicated in church in a few weeks and Emeh’s husband is working very hard to throw a big party for his quadruplets.

Emeh and Edet are from very strong catholic homes and both families are not excited about the birth of their babies, Edet’s mother says that they are science babies and has vowed to boycott the dedication party.

Emeh says that she is in a better position to let them know that if God had not sanctioned it, it wouldn’t have happened, after all she still did not conceive immediately on ART, she still prayed and fasted and believed that it would happen one day. She has also vowed never to speak again to anyone who does not attend the party in celebration of her miracles from God.

As a Catholic, I do not believe in any form of ART, but what do you say to a woman who suffered years of ridicule and sadness for the delay in chid bearing?  What do you say to a woman who has bought and kept children’s clothes from the month that she got married till date?

Wouldn’t you rather rejoice with her who is basking in the euphoria of God’s blessings in her life? Do all children not come from God?  What makes these children different from God’s children? When God said, “Let the little children come to me” where these ones not part of them?

How do you explain to a woman who just heard the cry of a baby in her home for the first time after fifteen years of marriage that ART is not God’s original plan of conceiving?