How I struggled with infertility in my early 20s

Days after days I would wait to get pregnant. At first I was not  worried; I was in my early 20s and I thought time was still on my side. I also had never heard of anyone that young struggling with infertility or taking years let alone months before conceiving.

And anyway I was really not ready to get pregnant. I was just following the doctor’s advice.

I had been diagnosed with fibroids and the doctor advised that I try and get pregnant before he surgically removes them. It was the size of a watermelon and he feared if he operated, it may tamper with the uterus, lowering my chances of ever getting a baby.

The doctor had given me six months to try and get pregnant and they lapsed.

I was put on fertility treatment. After taking the fertility drugs for five months, I stopped.

They were draining me financially. I was struggling to spend Sh4,000 every month on the drugs plus paying Sh2,500 consultation fee to see a doctor so that we discuss how I was not getting pregnant, how I should keep trying.

In fact, the doctor thought by saying ‘‘we should keep trying’’, it would make me feel better. It didn’t. It was my problem.

After six months, I stopped taking the fertility drugs and stopped seeing the doctor. I told myself I was still young and taking fertility drugs would make me have triplets or quadruplets. I had never thought through motherhood. But when months turned into two years, I started getting worried.

Fibroids run in our family. My two cousins have fibroids and they are infertile. My aunt had an ovarian cyst and struggled for years to get a baby. She later got three children through fertility treatment.

I never knew I had fibroids but I have been having heavy and painful menses for years and was given contraceptives when I was in high school. I used to vomit, have nausea, backache, diarrhoea and sometimes I would be hospitalised to be given intravenous painkillers for the cramps to ease.

One day I had a stomach ache. During the physical examinations, the doctor discovered a big hard mass in my lower abdomen. She said it felt like a five month old pregnancy.

Medical tests showed I had one big fibroid and four other small ones. I decided to see the first obstetrician. It took me four hours on the queue before my name was called. At 10pm, the nurse told me the doctor was ready for me.

The doctor looked at the scans and told me he will surgically remove the fibroids. He gave me two days to prepare for surgery.
After the two days, I did not go back. I felt the doctor ambushed me. He said the surgery would improve my chances of getting pregnant, but he didn’t even ask if I had been trying to get pregnant.

He did not even ask whether I was married or engaged, he assumed the man who had accompanied me was my husband. The doctor didn’t even ask about the symptoms I had experienced over the years.

I wanted him to explain to me so many things but he said I should not worry, the surgery would go on well. I felt he was too quick to dismiss the condition as too simple and booked me for surgery.

He had asked me to do a painful medical test to show if my fallopian tubes were blocked. The radiologist kept asking me how long I had tried getting pregnant and I told him not even for a day. He asked me why then I was doing the test and I said the doctor advised.

After that test which showed my fallopian tubes were not blocked, I decided to seek a second opinion. I was starting to lose interest in my second doctor. Not that he was not good. In fact he was very professional and had helped my aunt through her infertility problems.

But I still did not know if I really wanted to be a mother in my early 20s. I never had a longing to have or hold my own baby.

But soon this changed. I started becoming desperate. I started praying and taking the fertility drugs. One day I cried to God asking Him to give me a baby even in old age like Sarah in the Bible. When my close friends got children I stopped visiting.

Getting pregnant became urgent. But for two years nothing happened.

I had lost hope until one day I started feeling nausea and decided to buy a home testing kit. I was finally pregnant. I called the doctor, he was so happy as if I was carrying his baby.

Four months later, I miscarried. I had not even felt the baby move and yet he was no more. I would go to the office and wonder if people could see that I felt like a husk, empty.

The doctor advised that I try again and I did not give up. Getting pregnant meant I was not barren and despite being in my mid 20s, I felt that I was ready to be a mother.

Six months later, I became pregnant. The fibroids were growing bigger as the baby grew. My boy had very little space in the uterus because the fibroids had taken up a big space. But he was a fighter. I carried the pregnancy to full term.

Almost immediately I was on drugs to shrink the fibroids that had by the now ballooned in readiness for surgery. The injection cost Sh27,000 and could only be administered a few times to avoid the risk of osteoporosis.

A few months later, I was scheduled for surgery. I was asked to come with three blood donors because I would lose a lot of blood as the fibroids were still substantially big. The surgery went on well, I did not require blood transfusion.

I was not ready for pregnancy, but I am glad today that the doctor coerced me into it.

Narrated by Diana Mwango.