HOW I FOUND JOY IN MY BARRENNESS

Rather than remain unhappy and lonely in an abusive relationship over her inability to conceive, a woman decided to adopt two children after walking out of the marriage. Here she narrates her her journey from sadness to joy, and advising women in similar condition to learn from her experience, act fast and believe that God is not finished with them.
.
I read one of your posts on a childless woman. And I feel I need to speak on the pains I went through in the hands of men, especially my husband, and how God wiped my tears. I want to encourage someone with this story so that God is not finished with anybody.

Up till my final year in the University I knew no man. That would show you that I was not promiscuous. I was raised in a mission house where all we knew was church church church. Even in church no man deared speak love to us, we would run. In the University, each time I saw my friends with their boyfriends, I saw them as sinners.

It was when they were talking about getting married after graduation that it occurred to me that I had no boyfriend. Some of my friends began to warn me to be careful with my holy holy life. Not that guys were not coming to me, but i rebuffed them.

The first guy I managed to date was during my NYSC in Jos. This guy came like the man I would marry. I was inexperienced. I wouldn’t know how one thing led to the other and he slept with me. The first person. What did he not promise. He would marry me. I was a shock to him to have been a Virgin at 25. He would take me to his parents. Etc. I felt at last God has justified my chastity. I allowed him regular sex because I thought that was my husband. I shared all i had with him. ALL. Money. Foodstuff. During my NYSC we lived like husband and wife. How my life turned from a holy girl to wayward girl still beat my imagination. Pressure from friends? I never knew that life is deceptive.

The last day of our NYSC, after collecting our discharge certificates in Jos was the last day I saw my husband to be. How he sneaked out on me to his room and packed and left Jos still remain a mystery to me. When on the second day I did not see him, I was nearly mad. I mean MAD. Anyway. Let me cut that now.

The biggest shock came when I got back home in Ibadan and found out that I was pregnant, two months. Daughter of a pastor! We thought it was a delayed menstruation because of jedijedi. It was in the hospital that mum was told I was two months gone.

Anyway, my mum had a close friend, a nurse in the church who invited me to her home. I explained the whole story, how the guy ran away. She took decision on her own and the pregnancy was aborted. The first fruit of my womb! Uncle Bola, do I need to tell you the agony?

I was lucky to get a job and the agony led me into another relationship. I just felt I needed to move on after much counselling by the nurse. She encouraged me to fall in love again and I did. In two years, I got married to a guy. That was in 1998. We lived in Abuja. He was a calm and gentle man. Our home was peaceful and nice. But somehow, I could not conceive.

After about three years, anxiety sets in. Gradually the home I knew as peaceful became another thing. The man i thought was cool, calm and collected became a jerk! An adulterer. An abuser of wife. A drunk. A philander. Just under three years of childless marriage. I became depressed and worried. I began to run from pillar to post. On this issue my mum died in a motor accident along Lokoja-Abuja when coming to stay with me in Abuja.

The biggest shock came to me in 2007 when I discovered that my husband has three children from a woman. I never knew my husband has gotten married to another woman after three years of marriage. He could not just wait.

Medically I was told nothing was wrong with me. And doctors said it baffles them why I am not pregnant. I don’t know where the evil or challenge is coming from. After my husband became totally insane with beatings and abuses, telling me to leave his house, I was told to move out, after all, he has a wife somewhere. I move to Jikoyi Area.

I work with… (a blue chip) and earn well and was doing good. In 2007 I spoke with my boss that I want to leave Abuja for any other state. My boss understood what I was going through. She approved Lagos. But before I moved, my boss who had a similar issue called me to her house where she advised me to consider adopting a child.

I was 46 and I was getting the early menopausal signs. It was a harrowing experience for me to accept I would not carry my own child in my own womb. I agreed. And she gave me letters. Stood for me in two places. I adopted two children, both of them less than a month old from two different places in different towns.

With the children I moved to Lagos. So no one around knew my story. They all thought I just put to bed and everybody call me mama ibeji. The babies sucked my breast .. even in public. The boy was named ….. and the girl …..(three names) They have grown to know me as their mum. I have accepted them in my subconsciousness as my biological twins. I tell people their father died when I was pregnant of them.

I built two four-flats at…. in their names. They are both in primary…. at……, one of the best schools in Lagos. We travel. They have seen the world. Uncle Bola, I have my children now. I know that the children I couldn’t bear, these children would give me. They bear my father’s name.

And for you to know how God works, these twins now look alike. Same complexion, same faces, same height, both hairy, and people tell me they look like me. How these happen I don’t know. But it convinced me that God did it. I believe it’s God’s way of telling me He is with me. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

I don’t feel I am barren anymore. Some of my old friends who thought I was barren don’t know my story because for close to eight years none of them saw me or knew where I was. The two people who knew are my boss, (late now) and the places I adopted them. By the way I don’t even care if anybody knows.

I have given this testimony to you uncle Bola to please post on your walls and your online magazine, www.elifeonline.net, so that people like me who thought God has finished with them on account of conception could get hope to live again. I have a hope and a great expectation. He turned my mourning into dancing again. He lifted my sorrows. I can’t stay silent.