TOL

~ thinking out loud ~

I used to have a friend who also suffered from infertility. She was prone to miscarry, and had a couple of them every year. Even I cried for her loss. We were quite close. She was the only person I could really share my frustrations with. But last year she finally and successfully gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and I haven't heard from her since. Not one word, not a single hello, NOTHING!

I was a bit surprised by her attitude. She doesn't pick up my calls or reply my emails. I sincerely thought there was something other than infertility that bound us together. But looking back now, it seems that's all there really was to it.

Friendship should be mutual, based on shared values. I'd hate to impose on someone that is clearly no longer interested in my well being. Plus I'm not really the 'reach out to other people' kind of person. So, there goes that 'friendship'.

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On a different note (or the same note), I vividly remember how we used to differ on the cause of our infertility. She fundamentally believed that she was being afflicted by sorcery... believing a jealous relative (mother in-law. Specifically widowed mother-in law. The bulls eye as far as finger pointing is concerned!) to be the cause, while I believed there had to be a scientific explanation for why I was not getting pregnant and why she was having recurrent miscarriages.

I'm not claiming to be better than her, because only God knows what's in our hearts. However when it comes to religious practices I am way more observant than she is, yet it's strange that I immediately looked to science for my solutions while she turned to the supernatural. We are both Muslims, yet my own faith gave me the conviction to seek a logical explanation. As a Muslim I believe nothing happens without the Will of God, and at the same time He has given us the knowledge to understand our bodies and how they function. In other words, you can't just sit there pointing fingers and praying for change without moving your arse!

If like her, I had accepted the 'evil relative' theory, I'd probably still be wallowing in foolishness, chasing shadows, partaking in exorcisms and damning myself to hell in the process. Yet here I am today, diagnosed with a genuine medical condition, receiving treatment and fully on my way to recovery.

I don't know why highly educated Nigerian women are still neck deep in stupidity and outdated shittery. I'm sure this mentality pervades in other societies where belief in the supernatural still holds sway. I know another woman whose mil advised her to seek medical help after a year of marriage without getting pregnant. Instead of doing the smart thing, she went to consort with - here, respectfully referred to as 'old school folks' - who effectively poisoned her mind; told her that the cause of her infertility was jealousy. And that her mum in-law was preventing her from getting pregnant through supernatural means.

Fast forward to two years later, she is womb-less and scarred for life. She had to have a hysterectomy because she had uterine fibroids that grew so large they had to take the whole thing out together with her womb. She almost lost her life in the process, needing massive blood transfusions. If she had gone to have herself checked out when her mil suggested it, she might have had a different story to tell today.

Situations like hers are all too common. Regardless of religion or ethnicity, there's a pervasive rottenness in our society that attaches a lot of stigma to infertility, supernatural shittery to be precise. Yet it is an irrefutable fact that  100% of sexually active members in a society cannot be 100%  fertile 100% of the time. There will always be a minority that need a little help with their fertility. Even among the majority, certain factors have to be in place before conception can successfully occur. Unfortunately, there will also be those that due to accident, injury, genetic abnormality, or some unexplained reason, remain infertile.

The sooner women realize that, the sooner they'll stop buying the bullshit being peddled, seek genuine medical help and get to the bottom of their affliction and stop consorting with 'old school' folks who literally go witch hunting whenever things go wrong. It's one thing to be diagnosed with unexplained infertility and quite another to not be diagnosed, at all!

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