My Baby Testimony: YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Sunday, December 30, 2007

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

The issue of infertility is a personal one and many people who are going through it tend to keep their pains and frustrations to themselves. However it helps when you learn about other people who went through the same experience; you will be encouraged by their stories.

There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Even with a complicated medical diagnosis or sometimes ‘unexplained fertility,’ miracles do happen. They can also happen to you!

Infertility is a worldwide problem and even if you are not an African reader you will be able to identify with these couples, the ladies especially, as they tell their stories. You will cry, and ultimately laugh with them.

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Overcoming delay in childbearing

Are you facing the challenge of delay in having children? Hang in there; God will grant you that perfectly legitimate desire: to be a parent. Please be encouraged; you are not alone! It is God’s will that you have children. It is the right of every child of God, not a privilege. That is what He says in His word, “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth…” no exception. Gen 1:28 KJV.

It does not matter what has been diagnosed as the cause of your infertility; is it fibroids, blocked or even absent tubes? Anovulation? Hormonal imbalance? Low/Nil sperm count, A hostile womb? Too tiny or even non existent womb? Maybe it’s been called ‘unexplained.’ Whatever name the condition has been given, IS ANYTHING TOO HARD FOR THE LORD? Gen 1:18a. God has no favourites when it comes to answering prayers, all He says is BELIEVE (Mark 11:24).
You may have been mocked or made to feel useless or incomplete. In some parts of the world, a married woman is almost regarded as a witch if she is childless (it is often assumed that she is the one with the problem). It’s not unheard of, when they run out of patience, for members of a man’s family to physically throw out a wife while her husband stands meekly by!

Even where there is no stigma or hostility, it is perfectly natural to wonder why conception seems to come so easy to others and not to you. Often you feel so miserable and consumed with longing to have a baby of your own. You try to put on a happy face and conceal your misery when you go for baby showers or naming ceremonies but you only and maybe your partner, know what you are really going through. You go out and it’s like every second woman you pass either has a baby bump or a toddler clinging to her. You hear the happy laughter or cries of children everywhere but in your own home.

you will laugh last:

The Nation visited Laughter Foundation on a Saturday. At the background of the pulpit were displayed Nigerian and Israeli flags. A huge crowd of mostly women worshippers danced rhythmically to the music. Pastor Gbenga Osho walked in at exactly 7am. The cool, calm and collected Pastor stepped to the pulpit and began to dance with the crowd that spilled into the adjacent compound.
"In Genesis God said, ‘Go into the world and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it.’ You will all have children in Jesus’ name." The crowd responding to the pastor’s pronouncement thundered, Ameeeeeeen.
One old worshipper told The Nation that he came "all the way from Italy, having waited in vain for 20 years to have a child." He said, "My wife’s now pregnant."
The establishment of the church was the result of a direct difficulty faced by the Osho family in having a child. Years back, the family was childless. They met one of Nigeria’s topmost gynaecologists who advised that the couple should go home. "You can never have a child. There’s nothing you can do. Just go home, relax, eat and counsel yourselves until the end of time," the gynaecologist was said to have told them. But the family never gave up. They chose prayers.
"I won the battle because I was treated by the number one Doctor, God," Pastor Osho said.
Three years ago, Omolade had sat on a couch in her family’s apartment and pondered over her childlessness having suffered several miscarriages. Based on recommendation of people, the family joined the Laughter Foundation where they joined others in seeking divine intervention.
One Wednesday, last November, caring doctors ran helter-skelter at the Onabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, OOUTH as Molade was in labour.
For the past nine months, Omolade explained, the doctors led by Dr. Peter Adefuye, unlike the usually snobbish Nigerian medical officials in many government hospitals, had counselled her, appealing to her to be calm as she weathered the storm. "These OOSUTH doctors and medial workers are wonderful. They did a great job. They were caring, humane and they treated me and every pregnant woman with dignity that is uncommon in a country where most professions have lost their dignity,’ Molade told The Nation.
At noon that Wednesday, her husband placed a call to Pastor Osho around noon to break the good news: "Praise the Lord sir. My wife has delivered a baby boy. The baby cried with a strong Ekiti accent," the pastor retorted characteristically, "Praise God." Penultimate week, the family marked the naming of a child after five years of what Omolade said was a ‘the most tortuous journey of her life." She said: "I believe not having a child is a spiritual problem." Her belief is probably deeply planted in the hearts of most Nigerians.
Medical or spiritual, the extremes women go to when seeking the fruit of the womb reflects the society’s attitude towards this problem. This is unlike in the Western world where some couples even agree before marriage that they would not have children at all. Some seekers find solution and give birth to children. Others seek in vain. What is certain is that our society’s view is not likely to change soon.

Source: The nation, January 2, 2008

when a woman is most likely to become pregnant:

In African tradition, a marriage without offspring is considered useless. Some parents at times, advice their wards to try their luck somewhere else, all because the wife has failed to become pregnant after years of marriage.

To some people however, children are precious gifts from God. They keep hoping that one day, they will have their own children.

Medical research however says that 40% of barrenness may be a result of careless timing of intercourse between husband and wife apart from diseases that breed infertility in women.

A woman is most likely to conceive just after the time she ovulates. An egg lives for about twenty four hours after it is released from the ovary. If a woman is going to conceive, the egg has to be fertilized within these twenty four hours.

If you want to become pregnant then the time to make love is around the time of ovulation. The best time of all is the day before ovulation. This gives the sperm time to travel up into the Fallopian tubes and so to be waiting when the egg is released.

You can find out when you ovulate and so when you are likely to conceive.

HOW TO FIND OUT WHEN YOU OVULATE

There are several ways of finding out when you ovulate. If you use all the methods together, you will get the most accurate idea of your time of ovulation.

The Calender Method
1. If your monthly cycle is fairly regular, you are probably used to working out when your next period is due. You can work out when you ovulate in the same way. First you have to get to know the pattern of your monthly cycle. Keep a record of your periods. Each month, record the first day of bleeding, in your diary or on a calendar. Do this for a number of months.

2. you can now work out the length of your monthly cycle. For each month that you have recorded, count the days from the first day of the next. If you have a regular cycle, the number of days between your periods will be about the same each month. But if the numbers vary a lot, you obviously have an irregular cycle and you will need to use the temperature or mucus methods to find out when you ovulate.

3. The length of a woman’s cycle varies. But most women ovulate about fourteen days before their next period. So using what you know to be the usual length of your monthly cycle, work out the first day of your period. Now count back fourteen days and you have the time when you are likely to ovulate. If you have intercourse around this time, you have a better chance of conceiving than at any other time in the month.

things some women go thru in the quest for a baby

Evangelist Abeke Ojo runs a famous church at Iju in Lagos and specializes in praying for women seeking fruit of the womb. She herself was once an object of indignity in her search for a child of her own after 18 years of marriage.
"I was locked up in a small room at Ofa in Kwara State without food for 14 days during which every night I was flogged by a man I could not see. The herbalist told me I was being flogged by spirits. Nearly at the point of death on the 10th day, I ran away to Lagos." she said. She now has a child, which she linked to her "direct relationship with God through persistent prayer and fasting."

Change in diet 'could help older women have babies'

Women in their 40s and 50s could increase their chance of having a baby by making a "drastic" change in their diet, it has been claimed.

Sarah Dobbyn, a nutritionist and author of The Fertility Diet, said the influence of diet on fertility is often overlooked.
She claims that making alterations, such as cutting out alcohol and sugar, will allow women to hit the "snooze button" on their biological clocks.
Following an improved diet could also help women to conceive even when they are entering the fifth decade of their lives, according to the book.
It could also benefit women who believe that IVF treatment is their only hope of becoming pregnant.
Miss Dobbyn said: "Huge amounts of money are being spent on assisted conception techniques by hopeful couples who do not know that alcoholic and caffeinated beverages are liquid contraceptives, sweeteners can prevent ovulation and seemingly innocent foods such as peas, rhubarb and soya all inhibit fertility."
The Fertility Diet sets out a month-by-month diet and lifestyle plan which should be followed by both partners, to maximise the chance of conception.
It recommends cutting out smoking, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, caffeine and soya in the first month. Peas and rhubarb are also banned, following studies linking them to infertility.
By month two, couples should have given up all meat and cut out sugar and dairy products.
Come the third month, consumption of eggs and fruit juices should be reduced.
Couples are also encouraged to eat unlimited quantities of beans, pulses, organic herbs, spices and nuts from day one.
Fruit and vegetables should be eaten raw wherever possible to help balance the body's hormones.
Would-be parents are also advised to lose weight if overweight, keep stress to a minimum, and try to get a good night's sleep.
Miss Dobbyn, 43, who plans to try for a child of her own soon, spent two-and-a-half years sifting through research papers and books on fertility to write The Fertility Diet.
She believes the advice will help older couples to conceive.
She said: "It is a pain to give up caffeine, it is a pain to give up wine, but won't it be worth it when you have your own baby?"
SOURCE:the telegraph
However IVF doctors questioned how effective the meat and dairy-free diet would be.
Professor Bill Ledger, a fertility expert from Sheffield University, said: "We tend to create a lot of guilt in people these days.
"The worry is that some gullible young woman will read this book and start living that life and miss out on a lot of fun and normality."

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Sunday, December 30, 2007

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

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