TheCable

Interesting!

This perception would remain with us for a long time.

Indeed in Africa, men are always fertile. Always!

One of the investigations my wife had to go for while we were trying to conceive was Follicular scan.

We were told it is was part of a process known as Folliculometry – meant to ascertain a few things about her eggs and ovaries as well as effectively predict her ovulation so we could avoid being away from each during such periods.

Folliculomery. Folliculometry I kept on repeating the word at least to get familiar with it and pretend to be at home with what was going on that morning. But my wife seemed to understand what the doctors were talking about. I had to show some interest all the same…since we were in it together.

What later shocked me was when we went for my wife’s next appointment and I voluntarily opted for semen analysis. I felt since my wife was trying to be sure everything was okay with her, I also needed to be sure I wasn’t the one that should actually be on treatment.

“Ha! Madam, na wah for this your husband o,” one of the lab attendants whispered to my wife, grinning as she kept looking at me apparently struggling to conceal her amazement.

I wanted to undergo semen analysis and was asking all manner of questions to be sure what exactly it was.

I must have shattered the lab attendants perception or stereotypes of the average husband of a woman who might be on fertility treatment soon.

“What’s the big deal with me opting to do a semen analysis?” I enquired, eager to dig into what this woman wasn’t saying with the mischievous smiles that had become part of our conversations that morning.

“Oga, it is not easy getting husbands to do semen analysis o,” the woman told me, adding that most men exaggerate their reproductive health and fertility hence they are usually shocked when handed a test result that proves the contrary.

I was shocked.

Society had assumed that when couples don’t have kids, it is because the woman couldn’t conceive. But the reality from the labs is quite the opposite. And in some of these cases, the men are aware of the issues according to my interactions with this lab attendant.

So, whenever we cant see a woman’s baby bump she is infertile even when the man who is supposed to get her pregnant hasn’t done his job. And we don’t care if that man in question has impediments that seem to have limited his reproductive capacity.

When the man is apparently the source of infertility in a union, the African society tends to cover it up and protect him from the ridicule that most women suffer even when it has not been medically proven that they have problems conceiving.

The sad side of the story is when the woman is subjected to physical and emotional abuses as a result of a problem she is not responsible for.

In my interactions with organisations dealing with issues of domestic and gender-based-violence, not a few of them confirmed that infertility among couples have contributed to cases of violent physical abuse with some eventually leading to divorce.

I was told the story of a woman whose husband was diagnosed with aspermia – which is the complete lack of semen with ejaculate. Doctors say this one very difficult situation to deal with. Because if the man is unable to produce semen there won’t be any fluid to carry the sperm into the woman even if he produces them.

This woman was taunted by her in-laws for not conceiving. Of course, she couldn’t have been able to conceive given the problem with her husband. She wasn’t too sure whether her husband knew he had this problem before they got married but what was clear was that the man was always brandishing his clean bill of health whenever she demanded that they both see their doctor.

She was always doing one medical tests after the other just to be sure she had no issues.

During one of such appointments and tests, her doctor said your eggs are healthy and would be released between now and mid-day tomorrow, please make sure you have sex with your husband at least twice this period.

Unfortunately, the man decides to travel for business engagement. I gathered that the man travels whenever he suspects his wife would soon be ovulating.

After several of such suspicious trips, which often coincide with her ovulation period, the woman insisted on either traveling with him or stopping him from traveling. That was when the man resorted to violence and physical abuses.

Sometimes he would beat her to pulp, lock her up in the house for days and then travel.

But there was this trend that she also found rather strange. She noticed that whenever her husband goes for these dodgy trips, one of his cousins would visit the house.

He comes in close to midnight-pretending not to know that his cousin had traveled. Since it is too late to go back home, he would opt to pass the night and throughout his stay he would make passes at this lady, hoping that it would culminate in sexual intercourse.

This cousin is apparently aware her husband has infertility issues and his regular visits when shes ovulating and her husband is  away is an orchestrated move to get her pregnant and save the husband the shame of being seen as sterile or not man enough.

Being her ovulation period, the thinking is that her chances of accepting the guy’s (the husband’s cousin) overtures will be higher and her chances of getting pregnant will be higher too. Ultimately, the baby that would come out of this arrangement may have some resemblance with her husband since he looks so much like his cousin.

But the plan never worked.

The woman didn’t fall for it.

This kept happening for a long time- following the same sequence.

In one instance, the husbands cousin visited with her mother in-law and almost raped her. And the fact that her mother in-law who was in the same house with them didn’t blink while the scuffle with this cousin lasted, got her really troubled.

That was when she decided to tell her husband what has been going on each time he traveled.

The husbands remark was a frightening wake-up call albeit a critical flashpoint.

So, what if my cousin decides to sleep with you? What is the problem with that? Don’t you know that what belongs to me belongs to my cousin too and when I’m not around I always ask him to come over and take care of you?.

That was all she needed to decide whether or not to remain in that marriage. And the fact that the beating from the man had assumed a rather brutal and senseless dimension at this stage was also a deciding factor.

Not accepting to sleep with her husband’s cousin frustrated the game plan and continues to expose him to ridicule. So, the beating she got was an expression of that frustration.

Eventually, she escaped from this hellish marriage – back to her family house and never went back till date.

Why should society continue to torment a woman for a problem she did not create? Why should couples live in hatred and violence or be torn apart due to cases of infertility that could be medically resolved? Why should they even go through the anxiety of waiting forever for a child when they easily could have adopted one or two kids and find an avenue to express the love they have for children pending when they the are blessed with biological children?

The answer to any of these posers is definitely anybody’s guess. But can we take the burden of infertility in marriage off the shoulders of women and get the men to see it as OUR problem instead of HER problem? If this were the case, perhaps the prevalence of HIV amongst women and children attending pediatric clinic as shown in a study conducted years ago in Ife may have indicated a different result.

I would share in the third and concluding part of this series, the result of this study which I am sure would not only make you cringe but also show you how far some women would go (including laying down their lives) to protect cover up their sterile husbands.