Last week, I wrote how I ministered in Christ Methodist Church on the Cause and Effect of Infertility. Today, we will review the Solutions I offered them. Top on the list is Acceptance by the couple that they have a problem. Many people see Infertility as the wife’s problem. She is the one, who runs after ‘Prophets’ and does all the fasting and prayers. Some of their mothers-in-law will tell them, “A goat is better than you, for it bears babies but you don’t. If it dies, we eat the meat, but you are useless, alive or dead”.
This is the colour of many families in need of babies. Believing that she is the cause of the Infertility, it may lead to her divorce. The position of scientific research is different. According to the Mayo Clinic, US, about 20% of infertility cases are due to problems from men, about 40% -50% from women and about 30% – 40% from both men and women. Neil deGrasse Tyson said, “The good thing about science is that it is true whether or not you believe in it”. We better do!
Medication: It is good for the couple to see a doctor, in fact, a gynecologist. He may give drugs or apply advanced fertility treatment such as Intra Uterine Insemination or it may require IVF [In-Vitro Fertilization]. If it fails, it may lead to reconstructive surgery. If I buy bags of cement, at my age, I may not be able to carry them. I may contract someone to do so for me. In the same way, IVF may be contracted on a surrogate mother if the doctor feels that the lady will not be able to carry the pregnancy. The legal implication must be considered, to avoid any future claim of the baby by the surrogate mother. Sperms may be borrowed if the husband’s own is ineffective and if the problem is from the wife’s egg, it can also be borrowed. Some Christians are reserved on this.
Accept the challenge: That was my stand, when we had a minor delay but my wife insisted that we saw a doctor. Some couples in the US decide that they will not have children, not because of any problem, but to retain the wife’s shape. Imagine! Another reason some of them refuse to have babies is to avoid the pains of nursing babies. Oyibo!
Child Adoption: This is also another option. I did not believe in it until 1998, when I was invited to dedicate a baby the General Overseer of a certain Church had adopted. As I was preparing my message, I discovered from Genesis 15:2, that Abraham, the Father of Faith, adopted Eliezer, Mordecai adopted Esther, his niece – Esther 2:7 and the Lord Jesus, adopted all the children of God – Ephesians 1:5.
There are three questions people usually ask me about child adoption: ‘If after adopting a child and I later have my own child, who will be my first born?’ This question reveals a hidden truth that the couple may not have accepted their adopted child as their child. The adopted child is your child and is not inferior to any other child you may have. The second question is, ‘If the child grows up and someone tells him, one day, that I am not his mum, what will I do?’ I advise couples that live in community [Face-me-I-face-you type of] houses to change residence at the point of adopting a child. This is to avoid gossips. However, I will tell the child that, ‘A certain lady I do not know and who does not know me gave birth to you. She did not like you. She rejected you but thank God that she did not do what some women, like her, do. Such women kill their babies by throwing them inside the latrine pit or stream. Some of them abandon the babies in the bush for animals to feast on them. When I saw you, I loved you, took you home and started caring for you and when you grew up, I sent you to school and even to the university. You own the things in this house. Tell me frankly, who is your mum?
They also ask me how they can accept a child, whose father may be an armed robber. ‘Well, thank God for Christianity, if not, is it not only a woman, who knows who is the father of her children? All the children you see, are you sure you know their dads?’ I ask them. A woman told her husband that he was not the father of their daughter in the university. Of the four children in a family, a wife once told her husband that he was the father of only one of them. Shall we then stop marrying since we are not sure if our wives will tell us one day that we are not the fathers of all the children?
Prayers: I delayed purposely the solution by prayers, since it is the bottom soup. In Matt. 17: 21, Jesus declared, ‘This kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting’. That explains why the doctors may do everything they can do, yet the couple may have no children. When LUTH told us that one of my wife’s tubes was blocked, I knew that the battle line had been drawn. On Easter, 1979, I declared a fast for us and a friendly couple having the same challenge. Though not a minister, I ministered on faith. Challenged our wives, I said, ‘If you believe in my ministration, do not carry pads with you the day you expect your menstruation because a pregnant woman has no business with sanitary towel’. Three weeks after, my wife was pregnant. The other lady was not. A month later, on my way from Kano, God told me that she was pregnant. When I arrived home and told my wife, she asked me if I saw her in Kano. The next morning, during the worship service, the lady told me that she was pregnant. The door of childbearing was thus opened for the two families.
You can disagree with your doctor and he can still treat you and you become pregnant. You do not need any personal relationship with him before he treats you. With prayers, there must be a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. You must be born-again. You have to confess your sins to Him and invite Him consciously into your life and receive Him as your Lord and personal Saviour. You might have done that but have backslidden, God will not also answer you. That was why Elijah was not in haste to pray in Mt. Camel during the context of which God/god to worship. He repaired, first of all, the Alter of God that had broken down –1Kings 18:30. Sin is a reproach. Whoever covers his sin will not prosper. Sin hinders prayers
Six years after wedding, our first daughter did not have any baby. A family member ridiculed her on that openly. My wife and I accepted the challenge and changed our prayer pattern. It was bye-bye to ‘ice-cream’ prayer of, “God we beseech You…” It was warfare. We were in it when news came to us that she was pregnant, a twin – a boy and a girl!
God visited Sarah as He promised. Prayer! Isaac prayed for his wife, in Genesis 25:21 and God blessed them with a twin. Prayer! Hannah fasted and prayed with a great burden and God blessed her with Samuel and other five children. Prayer! Rev. Zacharias, though very old, was on his duty post when the angel of God told him that God had answered his prayers. Prayer! I refuse to cherish his request for a sign as a proof that God would honour His Word. The sign was that he would be dumb for 9 months, a Pastor! That child was John, the Baptist. We need to pray because, ‘This kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting’, seems to be ferocious today.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0802 3002-471; [email protected]