Women, Infertility and the Society....



I just finished watching another Nigerian movie where a married couple (Bayo and Nike) were having trouble conceiving.

Barely a year after getting married, nosey friends and family members were already wondering why she wasn't pregnant yet. Are you eating vegetables? Are you having sex during ovulation? You have gained weight, are you expecting? Questions came from every corner and no one seemed to care if the questions were inappropriate or not.
Fast forward to 24months after the wedding and people stopped asking questions and instead went ahead to utter mean comments to Nike. She must have been promiscuous when she was younger, perhaps she had aborted all her children...As a result, Nike soon became withdrawn and avoided family events...

The final straw was when Bayo's mum came to visit them from the village and brought along a young girl for her son....She claimed the girl was from a good home and would be able to conceive quickly. After all, she was growing older and wanted to see her grandchildren before she died.. she said....


Nike was angry and asked her husband to talk to his mum and send the village girl packing...But to her disbelief, Bayo didn't do that..Instead, he said he didn't want to upset his mum and would talk to her later about sending the girl away....


It was as if Bayo was being remote-controlled...Soon he started saying it was important for him to have kids and he didn't want to die without having a child to carry on his name...After-all, he had impregnated a girl when he was in University and as a result, he was sure he was fertile...


Nike was hurt and disappointed!!!  Not only was she not aware that Bayo had impregnated anyone in the past, but now Bayo was starting to sound more like his mother. What happened to marriage being for better for worse?? Was the inability to conceive enough to counter all the marriage vows??


Days turned into weeks and soon enough Bayo was spending most nights with the village girl in the room assigned to her in the hope of having a baby....To cut the long story short, the village girl never conceived and it was discovered that Bayo was actually the one with the low sperm count...Nike moved on and remarried someone else and went on to have twin girls....


The story is a very familiar one here in Nigeria and there is always pressure on married couples especially the woman who is expected to get pregnant within the first year of marriage. Some even prefer if the couple are expecting before the wedding.


The truth is that in Nigerian society, most people assume if a couple is having delay with conception, it must be a problem with the woman...People conclude she must have had lots of abortions or contracted infections in the past which affected her reproductive organs!!!


Strangely enough, women are usually the culprit in harassing other women about delays in conceiving. The ones responsible for mean comments are usually women and hardly is it a man. And if an investigation is done, you will find that the same woman who makes the mean comments also had difficulty or delay in conceiving..It is almost like women want to ensure other women go through the same difficult experience they had....!!!


Reality is that life is not fair.....I know many women who were promiscuous and some even had several abortions..only to get married and deliver twins within a year or some have several kids after....On the other hand, I also know of women who married as virgins and waited for 7years or more to have children. It really has nothing to do with how good a person is...


Ultimately, God decides if and when a couple will have children. It is important for us as a society to understand that Children are GIFTS from God and not a result of how good a person is or has been!! We should refrain from making insensitive comments to couples trying to conceive. If it is not kind, don't say it. If you are genuinely concerned, get on your knees and pray for the couple and watch God perfect it in due time....




Photo Credits:
honeymooninghargetts.blogspot.com
www.luvmycrzylife.com

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