Conception – Source Getty Images Angela Onwuzoo Lots of misconceptions about infertility abound, and particularly damaging is the cultural belief that only women can have reproductive challenges, thus, absolving men of any responsibility. This has created gaps in how infertility issues are handled in homes, reports ANGELA ONWUZOO. 14 years ago, when she was still single, Mrs Jumoke Albert, loved attending birthday parties and christenings.
As a party lover, the businesswoman, who owns a thriving boutique in Lagos, planned to celebrate her own children when she got married. The 42-year-old housewife, never envisaged facing a challenge in terms of conceiving her own child because her siblings were all married with kids, and had no form of delay. Sitting on the edge of a black sofa in their three-bedroom apartment in Yaba, Jumoke recalled with a sombre voice, how months of waiting after her colourful wedding in 2010, had turned into long years of waiting with so much pressure and being blamed for her childlessness.
Wiping her tears at intervals, while narrating her experience to our correspondent, the businesswoman said her 14 years of marriage had been very horrific. The humiliation and ridicule she endures daily from her husband’s family members, who constantly accuse her of being responsible for their childlessness, are troubling. The business administration graduate said she had been constrained to stay away from any merrymaking both in the family and the neighbourhood t.