OOPS, I JUST FOUND OUT MY SPOUSE DOES NOT WANT CHILDREN

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

The Today Show on NBC has this program entitled ‘Everyone has a story’ where viewers are invited to send in stories of difficult situations in their lives that they have triumphed over. The winner is notified and invited to be on the program, where a special song written especially for their story, is sung for them and they are showered with gifts.

This program was introduced last year and it is back again this year. Last year when I found out about it, I was very excited wondering if there would have been any stories of triumph over infertility which to date, in my opinion, is not given the attention it deserves on the airwaves and so many people who are currently dealing with this condition would be all too happy to hear them. I remember when I was struggling I would have given anything to hear such stories , so that I would know that I was not alone in my struggles and that one day, I would triumph too.

There was no infertility story on this program, but another story did get my attention. It was about a woman whose husband did not want children but sadly she wanted. She was, as a result very sad and depressed about this and went through pretty much all the issues that people suffering with infertility have to deal with.

I am not sure about the details surrounding this issue, if she knew that her husband did not want children before her marriage to him, or if she found out after marriage. This she did not say, but it sure left me wondering.

This is not the first story of this kind that I have heard, as I know of individuals who are currently dealing with this kind of situation in their marriages. Courtship, I believe, is designed to get to know each other inside out before marriage and therefore, if it is done as it should, issues like these should surface so that one can decide whether or not they will take the relationship further into marriage.

This woman had a noticeable subdued nature about her and it left me wondering if whether or not she is in a healthy marriage. Is it that her husband has the final word in the relationship and does not care what she wants, whether or not she wants children? This would be so unfair and would indeed render the marriage very unhealthy, because marriage is about compromise and much slaying of self.

It is hard to imagine someone being subjected to a life without children only because their spouse does not want any. I know of couples who do not want children, but this is a mutual agreement. My heart went out to this woman so much and I am happy she has decided to be a mentor to a deserving child, which seem to have given her life purpose.

My husband and I dated for a good couple of years. I know dating is much shorter these days and can be as short as even a month. A month to me is really short though, but regardless of how much time is given to dating, it should be used as effectively as possible, in getting to know each other.

In our years of dating, we found out so much about each other, that when we got married, we knew each other well enough. We knew what made each other ticked and knew that we both wanted children because, we both loved them so much.

Courtship is the platform that all marriages are built on and so an effective courtship should equal a successful marriage.

Be encouraged therefore and until next time, keep clinging to hope.

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y T H E O D O R E

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.

Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Our son will be two tomorrow, June 16. Two years ago we welcomed our miracle baby and now he is growing up, we have no baby anymore. We will not be celebrating his birthday in any public way, we will doing something private. We are not big on throwing him birthday parties, instead we try to invest in more tangible and meaningful things for him and that was one of the reasons why we made the effort to have him visit with his grandparents recently and believe me, the bonding I saw with his grandparents was better than any party you could have thrown him.

I have learnt so much about parenting in this short time. I have learnt what it really means to love unconditionally. To have to discipline our son because of something naughty he did and then watch him run into your arms a few minutes later with a special hug or kiss for you, totally forgetting the discipline he just received. I would imagine that, that is how it should be with our relationship with God as well. He disciplines us and wants us to run into his arms soon after when we need comfort.

Throughout our struggle with primary infertility, I have often heard mothers say that whenever their children hurt, they feel that hurt in the bottom of their stomach, some even hold on to the bottom of their stomachs and cry in pain. I always felt jealous of these moms because I was not sure I would ever be able to relate in this way to what they were feeling. Thank goodness I now totally understand and can relate, even though thankfully my son has not suffered any real hurt, only the occasional falls where he hit his head on the floor. Those do terrify me and I do feel the hurt in my stomach, especially that he cries so hard whenever he suffers one of those falls.

Last night we were watching the movie, ‘not easily broken’ by T.D. Jakes and the physiotherapist in the movie lost her son to a swimming accident. He won his race but he went too hard into the wall of the pool and seemed to have suffered a head injury and sadly died. This overwhelming sadness came over me and I suddenly pictured myself in the same position. Believe me, this was not my child and it was acting, but I felt the pain deep down in my stomach as if it was my child, it was frightening. I saw my husband turned on two occasions and looked at our son who was sleeping on the sofa beside us and I knew he was going through the same thing I was going through. What came to me forcefully was that this child was an only child and his mom was a single mom and so she is now all alone. I revisited the whole issue of having an only child and vowed again that there is no way I will settle with just one child, as long as I can do something about it.

I had no idea parenting was so challenging, but so worth it. Mind you I have heard stories and I have witnessed enough parenting going on around me, but you never know the extent of something until you experience it yourself. At times it has me wondering if this is probably why God seem to not have wanted to give me children, the fact that I might not be able to co-op with it. Trust me with a child as active and daring as ours, you would be wondering too, ‘what did I get myself in.’ The thing is, the minute I start having those thoughts, he does something so sweet, so cute that those thoughts immediately disappear and I start thanking God for him all over again. While visiting with family recently, one of my brother-in-laws said to me that I deserved a medal for parenting, after seeing the amount of energy that our son has and how you constantly have to have an eye on him in case he hurts himself or someone else. I was able to respond to him in the most practical way, that I came into this experience with an open mind. Of course we all would like to think that we will have the calmest and easy to control children, but what a quiet and dull world that would be. Can you imagine it? Quite frankly, I prefer the noise, to me its a sign of life and good health.

What can I say, parenting has taught me unconditional love, unselfishness, patience, “to cry a little, live a little and let my poor heart break just a little, for that’s the glory of, that’s the story of love.” These are the words of a song I heard sang once and I have remembered them since. Parenting has also taught me trust in a new way, because when our efforts to be the parents we ought to be to our son seem insufficient, we can only move onward through faith in God, that everything will turn out well.

One of the vows I have made is to ensure that our son enjoy and live in the moment of his childhood as much as possible, so that when he is older, he does not come up missing anything.

To all of you struggling with infertility, my prayer is that one day you will be able to write a post on your blog site such as this, but you have to hold on to hope. You have to picture it happening for you. You cannot afford to lose heart or hope or else you lose everything.

Until next time, keep clinging to this hope.

Romance, where are you, I did not hear you leave

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.

Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Over the years that I struggled with infertility, sadly sex became so monotonous and such a chore as I was just so consumed with trying to conceive a child. Sex most times had to be planned around my fertile days, if I ever knew when they were. I did so much charting of my fertile days over that period that I drove myself crazy, which is to be blamed on my PCOS condition.

Everyone knows that planned sex is not necessarily best but that became our regime. I remember on many occasions getting so overwhelmed afterwards that I cried thinking, here goes another month when my hopes would be shattered. Little wonder the romance in our relationship began to fade and we watch helplessly as this happened. I would even vent at times thinking, what is the purpose of sex for us then when it is not doing what it was designed to do, procreate.

I know many couples who are currently battling infertility and those who have battled it, can attest to this, infertility does affect the romance and passion in your relationship. Sadly this can damage your marriage beyond repair as we see evident in couples getting divorced because of this and other issues with infertility.

I was reading another infertility blog and the writer did a post on this same subject with some recommendations for keeping that ‘loving feeling.’ I will share them with you, as I could not have said these better myself:-


“ Plan a date night: Make time to be alone and together, ideally on a weekly basis. Do things that encourage interaction, especially the types of things you enjoyed doing when you first became a couple. Talk about anything that comes to mind EXCEPT money, your jobs, and–you guessed it–fertility!

Plan for nonsexual physical connection: It’s important to start to link up having fun and being together physically. Some great ways to do this are to consider nonsexual physical activities like ballroom dancing, taking a yoga class, working out at the gym–things that make you feel physically good about yourself, and one another.


Plan getaways: There are times when you need to throw caution (and your fertility protocol) to the wind, and just get away. Sometimes a change in scenery can help recharge a relationship. Plan for these breaks–even an overnight can do wonders.”

http://iammorethanmyinfertility.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/infertility-and-sex-a-reminder-of-the-problem/ Feel free to check this blog out, it is very encouraging.

When I was trying to get pregnant, I remember thinking that if we were blessed with a child, I would so happy, so in love with my husband and this child. Everything would be perfect.
Well I am for most of those parts, but you all who have children know how much attention they take and worst if you are in our position, having yearned for a child for so long, you just want to fuss over them and smother them with all the attention possible. The downside to this is, having a relationship that is already strained romantically, gets more complicated when there is a third party (one so special) involved. I am not discouraging anyone, just telling you the facts as they are.


We are using the above recommendations as well even though we are now further along in our struggle. I wish we had this advice earlier on in our struggles but it is not too late to draw on them . It is a work in progress but we have a strong foundation, one built in love and founded in Christ. We wouldn’t want it any other way, not when we have been through so much together and now have so much to be thankful for, and so we know we will be able to bring back that loving feeling.

I hope the same for you too.







Until next time

My Infertility Story - My infertility and my family cont'd.

Now for the good part, my infertility and my in-laws, and I will be focusing on my mother-in-law, as she is the one who was visibly yearning for grandchildren.
I was somewhat able to talk to my mother-in-law about my infertility, but ofcourse not the part where she would have known exactly how much pain I was in. Like my mother, my mother-in-law began making her comments about grandchildren here and there, quite harmless comments, but sadly as time passed, I did not see these comments as harmless anymore. They began to cut deep within me and this became worst as my struggle intensified. This was even harder to take because, since I spoke to her on occasions about our struggle with infertility, to the point where she even recommended some of the doctors we saw. I thought that she should have known better than anyone else and be more supportive of us.
I now began to feel very insecure around her as I often wondered if she was thinking that I was not good enough for her son because I was not able to provide her with the grandchildren she wanted so much. As a result of this, our relationship, in my opinion did not develop in a more meaningful way, as the insecurity from my infertility was interfering with this process.
The biggest blow came when one of my husband’s younger brother and his wife announced that they were expecting a child. My mother-in-law called to share the news with us, and sadly I did not take it very well because I thought she could have been a little more empathetic in how she broke the news to us, given our struggle to have children. She was understandably very ecstatic and sadly, try as I may, I could not share in the moment, as I now saw all our efforts to provide the grandchildren proving futile. We were beaten to the chase.
This soon turned ugly as I began to tell her that over all I found she was not empathetic to what we were going through, as I expected her more than anyone else to understand and that some of her comments were now beginning to hurt and she should by now be thinking of stopping and start to support us in this regard.
This did not go over very well with her and my mother and sister got involved, to the point where I was told that I was jealous of my brother-in-law and his wife, I am faithless and weak and have no use for God and that was why I was going through all this, and that I am known to cause hurt on people as I had done it before. I could have easily taken my life at that point, as I thought now that my family knew the degree of hurt that I was going through because of my infertility, albeit, not in the way I wanted it known to them, I would have received their sympathy and the understanding and support I was so yearning for.
I was happy this happened, because after the initial hurt, something new was given birth to. My family now became sympathetic, apologies were given, relationships restored and I now began receiving the love and support which I think I truly deserved from my family.
This was indeed a new day, because as the saying goes, the darkest hour is just before dawn. This was to be the dawn of my triumph over infertility and now I was able to move towards this triumph, my family with me.

In my next post, I will address how I think a family can help and support another family member experiencing infertility, from my perspective of course. You don’t want to miss this either.