Safina Namukwaya and husband Badru Walusimbi
On Saturday, June 29, a convoy led by an ambulance parted the traffic jam like Moses did the sea, through Busega traffic jam as the Women’s Hospital International and Fertility Center vans headed to Masaka bearing precious cargo: a nnalongo and her twins.
Safina Namukwaya, 70, resident of Nunda, astounded Ugandans when she had twins at the start of the year via cesarean section at the fertility center. She had stayed at the hospital since, because the twins were born prematurely and needed additional care and observation.
Namukwaya is married to Badru Walusimbi, 69, for over 30 years, but had no children of her own until 2020. Thanks to technology and in vitro fertilization (IVF), Namukwaya has managed to achieve what she had been denied the last thirty years, becoming a mother to three healthy children at her age, an unprecedented feat in the country.
Nnalongo – a revered title in Buganda given to a mother of twins – tells the story of how she yearned for motherhood. She has raised nieces, nephews and cousins, but the void was never filled.
“I have raised children in this compound that grew up and just left. They don’t bat an eyelid toward me or even regard me as their mother, yet I took them as my own. This weighed on me and I felt like I have to have my own children before I die,” she told The Observer in Masaka, as she was finally reunited with her husband and four-year-old daughter.
Namukwaya remembers how, like the biblical Hannah, her neighbour always laughed at her for not being ‘woman enough’ to bear any children. Enter IVF and the team at the Bukoto-based Women’s Hospital International and Fertility Centre, after a friend told Namukwaya about the facility.
“This choking feeling I always got, pushed me to go and see this hospital in Bukoto, Kampala. I had my Shs 1m in the pocket and decided to go see what the doctors had to say. They told me it was very possible for me to have children. I could not believe it.”
Doctors diagnosed Namukwaya as having blocked fallopian tubes that could not facilitate natural fertilization. By then, she was exhausted, having tried every herb and herbalist she knew. Her solution was to be IVF, or call it test tube babies.
AGE IS JUST A NUMBER
Dr John Ssekyanzi, a fertility specialist at the fertility centre, said an ovum was collected from a suitable egg donor and her husband’s sperms because she was past the age of producing eggs (menopause) and sperms from her husband, and fertilization was done in a test tube. Since Namukwaya was already in menopause (women stop menstruating between ages 40 and 58), her body had to be fed right and treated with hormones to prepare her uterus for the foetus.
Namukwaya conceived her first child – a girl – in 2020. In 2023 she conceived twins and gave birth this year through the same method.
“This is the first experience the healthcare center has had with a woman above the age of 60. When she approached the hospital requesting a second IVF, we did not turn her down and decided to scan and see if she was fit to carry; seeing as she had carried one at 67, we decided to give her a chance and by God’s grace it was successful,” Ssekyanzi said.
A woman is born with all the eggs she will ever need in life, while men produce sperm as they grow. According to the fertility centre, a 20-week-old female foetus has about seven million eggs. As it grows, the eggs keep reducing and by puberty and menstruation, that woman is left with about 300,000 to 500,000 eggs.
By menopause, a woman has 1,000 to 2,000 eggs left but due to hormonal changes, she cannot conceive naturally. That is where IVF comes in to help rid countless women of the unflattering tag of ‘barren’. According to Ssekyanzi, there is no difference or risk to the child birthed with this method as it too grows and matures within its mother’s womb.
Where a mother’s womb cannot carry babies to full term for whatever reason, the fertility centre also has surrogacy programs, although Namukwaya chose to carry her babies. Ssekyanzi said when the embryo is to be implanted into the mother, it is screened to make sure it is in the very best shape, leaving no room for complications.
It is like literally going baby-shopping as one can even decide the gender and number of embryos she would like. And that is how Namukwaya, a woman used to crying herself to sleep for years because of her reproach, became a nnalongo and the toast of her village as she arrived with with her bundles of joy: Shakira Babirye Nabaggala and Shafique Kato Kangave.
In a small compound where a few villagers and relatives waited, it was a burst of ululation and jubilation as she alighted.
“I am really grateful for the God that created Dr Tamale Ssali [proprietor of the fertility centre in Bukoto]. He has been there for me in more ways than I can thank him. May God bless you and all your work. And to my fellow women, this is real. You will give birth to your child like any other young woman does. Don’t listen to naysayers. I feel so lighthearted and extremely overjoyed now that I have my children,” she spoke in Luganda.
This, from a woman who has watched her husband sire nine children with other women in the course of their marriage.
LABOUR PAINS, AT LAST!
They live in a remote village and when Namukwaya felt early labour pains, there was no means of transport to the main road. As the pain intensified, she called Dr Ssali who asked her to get to the main road at around 5am. With help from a villager she called Hajji, Namukwaya got to the main road where a car from the hospital was waiting.
Apart from some weight gain, Namukwaya did not experience any physical complications that she knows of. Now, assisted reproductive technologies do not come cheap in Uganda and can cost at least Shs 14m per cycle, according to internet resources.
Ssalongo is a small-scale farmer and Nnalongo, who sounded financially independent and even built the small, modest house they live in, still does not look like she can afford all those cycles of treatment.
According to Women’s Hospital International and Fertility Centre, Nnalongo paid for her first procedure in 2020, but the fertility centre, through its charity arm, Faith and Science Ministries, sponsored the twins’ IVF treatment
ashleymwesigye@gmail.com
Source: The Observer
Share this content: