TEARS OF A BARREN WOMB

By Essie N. Sibanda

Tears of a barren womb is a heartfelt, real-life account and well-researched useful tool that is more than just a book. The author, Essie, details her personal struggles and challenges of infertility in a sole bid to encourage couples and individuals that are battling infertility and speak largely to humanity and bring to the surface the rather stigmatized and taboo subject of infertility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781716165146

Book preview

Endorsements

There is a daunting and inevitable grieving process to go through for individuals and couples who are unable to conceive, and research shows that acceptance is more difficult for women than men. Infertility can put a huge amount of pressure on relationships, affecting their communication and sex life. Many women feel shame, low self-esteem, and experience episodes of depression. There is a vast amount of cultural, societal, social, and religious pressure to deal with, and is most certainly one of the biggest adjustments and challenges individuals and couples face. I feel this topic is not only relevant but necessary. We need to learn, as a society, how to appropriately and sensitively respond to issues of infertility and encourage a culture of open discussion on the subject. I believe through publications like this, we can expand understanding, care, and support. – Domonique Hillam-Thompson Counsellor (specialist relationships and sex therapy)

I feel honored and privileged to endorse Essie N Sibanda and her books, especially this book. Thank you, Essie, for inviting me to the Bara Hope social relationships on Facebook and as a fellow Zimbabwean nurse in the diaspora, I depended on all my family members be it blood or not blood-related during this pandemic.  Being part of the Bara Hope listeners and readers, I feel that you encouraged us during the darkness of the pandemic. After reading your 1st book titled Essie’s Ten Steps of Dealing with Grief, I was strengthened and enriched in my emotional intelligence. Essie's vast life experiences and wisdom are undeniably a gold mine for many looking for hope and encouragement. This book brings to the surface pain and suffering that many people go through and never know how to deal with it. – Nyarai M Makona, Nurse (RGN & ODP) and member of the UKEMT

Epigraph

Hope oh, Hope deliver me from the pain of my fruitless womb!

Preface

For 9 months, the womb meticulously harbors and nurtures life in a marvelous way that only God could have designed it. We owe the female species a great deal of respect and appreciation for all that it goes through and what it takes to facilitate and act as an incubator for humanity’s reproduction and multiplication.  The inherent joy and bliss that comes with the precious gift of children are heavenly and many bear witnesses to this. However, the gift of children is one such gift that evades some households for various and diverse reasons, including medical reasons. This gift can be elusive for some and in fact, many are left imagining and desiring to have children, yet their womb knows no child. Tears of a barren womb is a heartfelt, real-life account and well researched useful tool that is more than just a book. The author, Essie, details her personal struggles and challenges of infertility in a sole bid to encourage couples and individuals that are battling infertility and speak largely to humanity and bringing to the surface the rather stigmatized and taboo subject of infertility. 

Chapter 1: My elusive gift

Children are a great comfort to us in our old age, and they help us reach it faster too.  — Author unknown

The inherent joy and bliss that comes with the precious gift of children can never be downplayed and many households bear witness to this. Such is the beauty of this gift that many people long for it and fortunately live to enjoy it. But what happens if that gift never comes? What happens to the unfortunate ones?  How will you feel when old age creeps up on you and you are still waiting for this gift to no avail? What do you choose to do? Carry on with life or end it?

These are some of many questions I have been asking myself ever since I realised that I am not going to have a child of my own after all. Am I not worthy of the gift or who is worthy of the gift? It is very difficult for any human being to answer such questions because no human being can control what happens with biology.

Some have had In-Vitro-Fertilisation (IVF) one after another and still did not have success in getting pregnant. Again, you ask why?  IVF is what is popularly known as test-tube babies because of the Latin word, In vitro which means within the glass. In essence, the woman’s egg and a donor’s sperm are taken, and the embryo fertilisation is done outside the body in the test tube.

The woman will get hormonal injections to prepare the uterus to become a receptacle for the embryo. Then when the embryo has grown it is then implanted (placed) into the woman’s uterus. I did not want to go into much detail about IVF because that is not the subject for today. You might know people who have gone through IVF with success or without success and some who might have lost the baby when it was implanted, which will be termed it didn’t take. Dr Fino says:

"The most important fact to know about IVF is it's not 100 percent successful—the process can take time, money, and even an emotional toll on your life. There's a significant emotional drain on the couple and the relationship,

I know of a few people who went through the program and ended up separating because of the emotional toll, IVF took on their relationship. It is not only IVF that causes heartbreak, but infertility can become very traumatic and become an enduring persistent open wound that lingers forever causing apathy in the relationship, often leading to break ups.

When I had a shut eye moment, I was greeted by a glaring orange colour and for a second I thought that was a representation of fire then I again thought to myself that it might represent sunset instead. However, when the whole cloud cover is bright orange it is difficult to know what sort of image that is. My mind could not rest, and I thought that the orange colour might represent the vast imagery of the expanse or greatest things that have been oppressed.

As I kept my eyes closed, I walked through the forest-lined by tall green trees which looked like they were falling from the sky covering the whole path. That magnificent sight was crowned by blue skies and the picture appeared like an upside-down lake of blue water with the trees’ reflection well displayed on the surface of the body of water. As I got near the lake, I was able to inhale the scent of the forest and admire the grandeur of the scene. I was overwhelmed by the splendour of the great Creator.

I then sat on the bench to observe a mermaid which shot out of the water in a projectile fashion like a rocket that has been launched and propelled into the sky then at that very moment I woke up, it was just a dream. I am one of those people who have dreams almost every night. You might be wondering why I have just dropped random words in here, but I wanted you to realise that as children we allow ourselves to dream big and dream as wild as we can.

As children we do not carry baggage or wounds which control what and how we think. When I was a child I used to dream and search for meaning in those dreams in my own way or relate with my father about the dreams. I will tell you more about dreams in the later chapters.  My dream as a young teenager was to have four children two girls and two boys, and I had their names written down. I selected three names for each child, a Chewa name representing me, a Ndebele/Shona name to represent the man I would marry, and an English name with a rich meaning.

I was not married then I was in secondary school and was extremely far from being married. But I already knew what I wanted and could envisage clearly what my future with children was going to look like. I was going to study medicine and be semi-retired at the age of forty-five years to work three half days a week so that I could concentrate on supervising the children’s education and their creative aspects.

Growing up one of my dreams was to run houses for children. I wanted to build great schools and have places where children could create and express themselves in art and more. All that planning was being done by a little, free-spirited creative girl who was imaginative and thought the world was her oyster. This girl even knew how to put every one of her plans on paper, but all that creative free-thinking was drowned by just one area of her life.

Children make your life important. — Erma Bombeck

When they say that children make our lives important, but you, unfortunately, do not have any children of your own, your life may seem not so important after all. The reality is that this is my story! A life of feeling that my life is not worth living because there are no children to make it worth living and important. When your life is not important you do not care about anything as life is not worth living.

The African social construct subscribes to the notion that women’s identity comes from having children and the levels of societal respect are determined by how many children one has. Identity is usually a big thing especially where I come from, where it is always tied to the clan lineage and heirship. When you don’t know where you came from it’s difficult to know where you are going and that is worrisome.

However, when you are a believer then you are assured of your identity in whom you believe but that is not the sort of identity I am going to talk about. Here I am talking about your genealogy.

In the void of the fruits of my womb, I stopped dreaming and I suppressed my creativity. I diverted to working very hard and taking care of everyone else except me. I suppressed my emotions and feelings which turned into anger. I also suppressed my ambitions because I was afraid of being judged and all I wanted at this point was just to fit in.

On the other side of life, I became dysfunctional because I had lost hope, failing to grasp my life’s purpose, no children to look after, and although I had many dependents, that did not matter much or help a great deal. Depression does not talk; it manifests in so many ways and mostly people do not even realise it. There I was in depression.

I became a mere symbol for human connection, being available, approachable, supportive, caring, nurturing for other people yet I was isolated, separated, lonely and deeply saddened with no drive or zeal to life. Because I could not have children, I felt like my life was not important and without notice I had succumbed to the brutal social detect.

Humans have a great way of suppressing unpleasant emotions and preacher Jimmy Evans calls these hurt pockets. I held onto the large hurt pocket of suppressed feelings and emotions, unmet goals, broken dreams and wishes, and failures, coupled with great anger.

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri, in the Divine Comedy says:

Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.

What Dante was telling us is we are not on this earth to be monsters but to be vessels of moral excellence with a conscious awareness. But how am I going to instil