MY STORY: I became a mum after losing four pregnancies

Jackie and Ben Akwah have been married for the past 20 years. They have two children, a boy named Unni Izebe and a girl named Tania Imani.

“Our son is 12 and our daughter eight,” says Jackie. “We named our son Unni which means ‘God answers prayers’ in Hebrew, and ‘Izebe’, which means ‘The long awaited child’ in West Africa.”

Their son’s name embodies an eight-year struggle that Jackie and her husband endured in their quest to have a child. Over this period, they lost multiple pregnancies and newborns. “We lost 12 children and nearly gave up,” says Jackie.

QUEST BEGINS

The quest to have kids began shortly after their wedding on November 27, 1998 at the Nairobi Pentecostal Church, Woodley, in Nairobi. Already, their love had endured and overcome tribal barriers. “I am from Western and my husband is from Nyanza. Not everyone in our homesteads was comfortable with our relationship,” says Jackie. A few weeks after their wedding, Jackie conceived. “I was excited at the prospect of becoming a mother and eagerly waited for the baby to come,” she says. But in the middle of her second trimester, she realised that her pregnancy was not developing as it should. “I was too underweight for the period I had carried the pregnancy,” she says.

She took a scan at the Nairobi Hospital, which revealed that she was carrying twins.

CONSTANT MEDICAL ATTENTION

She was put under constant medical attention. In her 32nd week, though, Jackie went into premature labour.

“My uterus could no longer contain the babies. Luckily, they were born alive. But they were underweight.”

Jackie and Ben named their babies Natasha and Natalie. They were placed in life-supporting incubators. Two weeks later, in November 1999, Natasha passed away after her lungs collapsed. “Even as we mourned, we feared that Natalie might not make it too,” says Jackie.

“By God’s grace, she pulled through and two months later, we were discharged from the hospital.” Their happiness was short lived. In April 2000, Natalie contracted pneumonia.

We rushed her to Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital, where she was admitted at the ICU. Unfortunately, she passed away,” says Jackie.

REMAINED HOPEFUL

Losing the twins was devastating for Jackie but she remained hopeful. “I had no doubt that I would have my own children.

I consoled myself that I had just been unlucky,” she says. In 2001, Jackie conceived twins again.

“I took early precautionary measures. I went for a scan and followed my prenatal prescriptions to the letter.”

In her 24th week, though, Jackie suffered from cervical insufficiency, which meant that she would have a preterm delivery. “The doctor said that the survival chances of the babies were too slim, and we decided to let them go,” she says.

Following this loss, doctors conducted tests on Jackie and discovered that her uterus was bicornuate. This meant that it was divided into two, and whenever she conceived, fertilisation and conception occurred on both sides of her uterus on different days. “I was given the option of a corrective surgery, but this came with a caveat that the cut off part may regrow, and have multiple conceptions of up to nine embryos,” she says.

She turned the option down and decided to keep trying and praying.

Jackie remembers how comments and snide remarks from friends and some family members made things worse to bear.

There were people who said that her husband had made the wrong choice by marrying her while others said she was cursed.

“Some of my close friends saw my situation as an opportunity to lure my husband with the promise of bearing him children,” she says. “I felt betrayed. I cried a lot."

Even though her husband was open to the idea of adopting, Jackie had not fully warmed up to it. “I wasn’t ready to adopt. I did not want to look at my adopted child as an option B because I would be incapable of loving them completely,” she says.

In 2002, 2003 and 2004 Jackie lost three more sets of twins at 32, 24 and 16 weeks. By the time they lost their sixth twins in the sixth week of pregnancy in 2005, Jackie’s faith had vanished. She was emotionally devastated, felt incomplete, and began to accept that she was not meant to have her own children.

Her situation began to affect her marriage.

“We would argue just like any other normal couple, but no matter how unrelated our argument was, I would get this sneaky feeling that it was because of my childlessness,” she says.

“When I look back, I am grateful that my hubby understood and remained caring throughout.”

In early 2005, a candle lit for Jackie. “I had just found out that I had conceived. I was not sure whether to be thrilled or sad. I had become numb to the joys and anxieties of pregnancy,” says Jackie. After a medical examination, Jackie was informed that unlike her previous pregnancies, she had not conceived twins. “I was told that conception had occurred on one side of my uterus which meant that the baby had very high chances of surviving,” she says. Immediately, Jackie took a nine-month bed rest. Her cervix was closed with a McDonald’s Stitch. "It was an anxious period. The more I inched closer to my due date, the more my hope swelled. Yet, the more I feared that the worst might strike again,” she says. But she made it through and on February 25, 2006, she had her firstborn son, Unni Izebe.

“He was born at 35 weeks. He was strong and he pulled through to become my current handsome boy,” she says jovially.

After the birth of her son, Jackie says that she felt challenged to have another baby. “I wanted God to vindicate that this was not a fluke; that indeed, I could have children of my own,” she says. She fell pregnant with her second born, who went the full 39 weeks. “She was born weighing 3.5 kilograms in 2010,” she says.

PAIN, ANXIETY

Jackie says that it is never an easy battle for women struggling to become mothers. “The pain, anxiety, and false hopes have no measure.

But with a little more love from family, Church, spouses and friends, the burden can become easier to bear,” she says.

“Never lose hope of ever seeing the fruit of your womb. God answers prayers, and He will answer yours just as He answered mine if you hold on and keep on trying.”