Chronicle Editor
Andile Tshuma
The December-January wedding season has finally come to an end. Congratulations to the newlyweds!
Weddings are beautiful; the glamour, the food, getting together with family and friends, and looking good. The wedding day is one of the most important days in a bride’s life.
However, the wedding day can also be the beginning of a nightmarish life. Soon after the first wedding anniversary, relatives may start to expect a roundish tummy, a baby bump, or even a fully developed pregnancy. They sometimes do not expect and end there, but go to the extent of asking, if they do not see what they want to see.
People do not have babies in their first year of marriage for various reasons. Some choose to wait a little longer and postpone child bearing to a later time as they focus on bonding as a couple. Some choose to work hard and ensure stability before starting to make babies. Some try for a baby from day one of marriage, but are not as lucky and will still be trying for a child when people start asking. For some, having children is totally out of the picture, they are not interested in children while for others, they may adopt as they know that biologically due to some reason, they cannot have children of their own.
Despite all these reasons, people still put so much pressure on newly weds to have children. Uncles will ask the man, aunts will ask the makoti, but more often than not, it is the woman who bears most of the trouble.
If a woman marries into a big family, and remains without a child for longer than society deems acceptable, the childless couple is not as respected as every other couple, even younger couples in the family, as long as they have children.
The woman, as usual, is to blame.
While there have been many advancements in reproductive medicine, infertility remains a taboo in many societies and women continue to carry the stigma, even if it has not been proven that they are the source of childlessness in the couple.
Those who suffer from infertility, both men and women, often receive very little to no support at all from their communities as they battle with the inability to have children.
It becomes very hard for childless women to attend social functions such as weddings and baby showers. At weddings, the relatives will remind you that they attended your own wedding four years ago and the family has had three weddings since, all the couples have since had children, what are you waiting for.
At baby showers, friends and relatives may share mean jokes, sometimes without intention to hurt you, and keep on saying the next baby shower or baby welcome party should be yours.
Women in such situations end up being introverted, choosing to alienate themselves from such toxic environments.
An older friend recently shared on how she had spent a lot of money in seeing medical specialists and going on special diets for over two years without success, only for her husband to be encouraged by his friend to go to the men’s clinic, where he was diagnosed with low sperm count.
The couple is still trying for a child, however with more hope now as they know the root cause of their childlessness. This old friend however narrated that while they chose not to disclose to their families that they now knew why it was taking so long for them to have a child, the family still maintains that she must be the one having problems conceiving as there is no history of infertility in her husband’s family.
The World Health Organisation says at least one in six couples will face challenges in conceiving at some point, while in Southern Africa one in four couples experience difficulty in conceiving.
The secrecy surrounding infertility causes more harm than good.
“You really get so depressed and often feel that your marriage is in shambles and you are to blame as you can’t fall pregnant. The extended family makes things worse, but I was relieved to discover that all was well with me and my anatomy and my husband needed some medical attention for us to be able to have our children. He was not very supportive and often believed that I was the problem, but I am showing support because it took a lot for him to go to the men’s clinic anyway,” my friend said.
As women, we are brought up to aspire to marriage, settling down and having babies. However, when that does not happen, we are made to feel like failures. No matter how successful a woman is professionally, the career is not enough because society will ask if she has a husband or children.
So, for most women, at the back of their minds, success is reached when they have a husband and children. Without that, you would not have “arrived” because that is one thing you would have been living up to from your childhood.
Conversations to sensitise society on infertility and childlessness are key, and conversations on teaching people to respect the privacy of couples are also very important.
Infertility must not be viewed as a woman’s or man’s problem, but as a couple’s problem to face together.
According to the WHO, about 50 percent of infertility is due to male factors while female factors also constitute the other 50 percent.
Failure to conceive in women may be as a result of blocked fallopian tubes, due to previous surgery, sexually transmitted diseases and endometriosis. It can also be caused by polycystic ovarian syndrome, premature ovarian insufficiency, excessive exercise and stress. Men can fail to reproduce due to factors such as low sperm count and blocked sperm ducts, among others.
While some people may ask out of love, others fail to ask in a manner that does not belittle the childless person, so families and friends should just stop asking people when they will have children; if your assistance or opinion is needed, it will be sought. — @andile_tshuma
Online Reporter