The night is always longest for the woman who desires a child but hears only silence from her womb. Beneath the bright smiles of many women, beneath the flowery gowns and carefully powdered faces, lies an ache that no doctor’s report can truly measure. Infertility is a silent war, fought behind closed doors, with prayers whispered into pillows wet with tears.
For some, it begins with the joy of expectation, only for that joy to be cruelly snatched away. Veteran Yoruba Nollywood actress Dupe Jayesimi knows this pain too well. “I was pregnant at the time of my wedding, but I lost the baby,” she revealed in a recent interview. Since that moment, her life became a journey through the endless tunnels of expectations. Medical procedures, hopeful attempts, disappointments stacked like stones on a weary heart. The doctors recommended surgery, promising her womb a new beginning. But life, as always, had other plans.
“When I finally had the surgery, my marriage started falling apart,” she confessed in tears. “My husband would disappear for months. Then, I found out another woman was pregnant for him.” Betrayal is an added salt to the wound of barrenness. The home that should have been her sanctuary became a graveyard of broken dreams. In the quiet of her loneliness, she found solace in alcohol—drowning the pain one sip at a time.
It is not just a medical condition; it is a cross that society hands to a woman and expects her to carry with grace. When a woman cannot conceive, the world looks at her as if she is incomplete. A tree without fruit, a river without water. Even in an era of scientific advancement, the whispers of tradition are louder than the voice of reason. “A woman’s crown is her child,” the elders say. But what happens when the crown is denied? What happens when the body refuses to answer the desperate call of the soul? She will be hated, rejected and stigmatized.
Many have knocked on the doors of hospitals, hoping for a miracle wrapped in white coats and surgical gloves. The doctors, in their well-rehearsed voices, offer options—IVF, hormonal treatments, surgeries. Some women take this path, hoping science will fill the void that fate has left. Others, weary of hospitals and their cold instruments, turn to the herbalists, those ancient keepers of nature’s secrets. “The roots of the iroko tree can summon fertility,” an elderly bushman once said. “But only if the woman’s spirit is ready to receive.” Between faith and medicine, between hope and despair, women tread a delicate path, often losing themselves in the process.
Jayesimi, like many before her, found herself standing at a moral crossroads. A place where pain whispers, “Do whatever it takes.” A place where desperation can blind even the strongest of convictions. “I met an Alhaji who was very supportive,” she admitted. “I only had an affair with him because I wanted to get pregnant and be called a mother. I never intended to marry him.” But fate, ever so cruel, had its own script. The pregnancy she longed for came but refused to stay. “I later discovered it was an ectopic pregnancy,” she said, the weight of that memory evident in her voice. “It had to be removed.”
Some have walked this path and found redemption. Others have walked it and lost themselves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “Desperation breeds its own form of blindness.” In the wilderness of childlessness, it is easy to lose sight of what is right and wrong. Nelson Mandela once said, “A man who takes away the dignity of another loses his own.” But what of a woman whose dignity is stripped away by barrenness? Does she not deserve grace, not condemnation? In the lonely hallways of hope, in the long nights of unanswered prayers, is she not allowed to seek a way out, even if it leads her down forbidden paths?
The Holy Bible tells of Sarah, who waited and waited until waiting itself became a burden too heavy to bear. In her despair, she gave Hagar to Abraham, hoping to build her family through another’s womb. And when Hagar conceived, Sarah’s heart burned with both joy and regret. What she thought was a solution became another burden. The story of desperation is as old as time itself. The lessons remain, yet humanity repeats them, wearing new names and different garments but making the same choices.
Medical doctors will say that the mind affects the body. That stress and fear can stand in the way of conception as much as any physical condition. Herbalists will say that nature provides for every need if one is patient enough to listen. The Holy Bible, in its quiet wisdom, reminds us that “Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3). But what of those whose rewards are delayed? What of those whose waiting rooms become prisons of doubt?
The world is quick to judge the woman who takes desperate steps. It is easy to point fingers at the one who crosses the lines drawn by morality. Yet, those same fingers do not wipe away her tears at night. Those voices of condemnation do not whisper comfort in the silent rooms where hope has become a fragile thing. “A woman must do what she must,” a Bushman once said, “but she must also live with what she has done.”
Jayesimi’s story is not just hers. It is the story of countless women whose longing for motherhood has led them into the arms of strangers, into the hands of doctors, into the hidden corners of their faith. The journey of infertility is not just a medical one; it is spiritual, emotional, and deeply personal. A test of faith, a question with no easy answers. In the end, perhaps the real question is not just what a woman does in her desperation, but whether the world has enough love to hold her in her sorrow. Whether God, in His mercy, still sees her as whole, even when the world does not. Above all, what God has not given you yet, wait in the spirit of faith. Or you adopt a child than going unfaithful.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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