After being childless for 17 years, woman bears triplets… ‘At a point I advised my husband to marry another wife’

Weekly Trust: How long have you been married? Mrs. Felicia Ewurum: Seventeen years. Though, after two years into the marriage I had a baby which unfortunately died. So the past fifteen years my husband and I have been looking for the fruit of the womb. Disturbance from different quarters urging my husband to marry another […]

Weekly Trust: How long have you been married?

Mrs. Felicia Ewurum: Seventeen years. Though, after two years into the marriage I had a baby which unfortunately died. So the past fifteen years my husband and I have been looking for the fruit of the womb. Disturbance from different quarters urging my husband to marry another wife, he got a lot of pressure from his friends, not necessarily his immediate family. It wasn’t easy for him but he kept his belief in God that it will happen at the right time.

WT: For you, was there ever a time when you gave up hope?

Mrs. Ewurum: Yes, I did, especially when after seven years and there was no sign of anything positive. I was disturbed, though we were very hopeful and kept praying and hoping God was promising us a surprise. But at a point I couldn’t bear it any longer, the pressure, the humiliation and all that. So I advised him to marry another wife that would bear him children. But he refused and would not hear any such thing.

WT: You have lost one. How does that feel?

Mrs. Ewurum: It was not easy. But when I think back at all that I went through and that I still have two of them alive, I take solace and give God all the glory. If at my age, forty-three, God gave me an opportunity many never had, I am forever grateful. I prayed and asked him if he could give me just one and he gave me three. So, If he decides to take one back, who am I to question?

The babies were born a bit premature. I was in the market when one day and all of a sudden I had a rupture. I was taken to the hospital and they said a cesarean section had to be carried out to save the babies. The operation was successful and the babies were put in incubators. But along the line the drip that was put on my late baby and there was a problem during the change. After removing the drip, blood kept flowing out. So we asked to bring blood because he lost a lot of blood, the doctors tried all they could but he bled to death.

WT: Can you recall how you felt when you found out that you were pregnant?

Mrs. Ewurum: Actually I never really took it as anything because I have had those kinds of signs before but whenever I went for a test it always came out negative. So I did not take it seriously and even refused to go to the hospital even after six weeks. But my health kept being unstable so I had to go to the hospital. So when I went to the hospital and complained, a pregnancy test was carried out and it turned out positive. When the nurse read my result to me and said it was positive I had to ask her if she knew what she was talking about. She then hugged me and said congratulations. I knew she would not joke with a thing like that because she knew my situation. Having convinced me that I was pregnant, I didn’t know when I lay flat on the bare floor of the hospital and started glorifying God. I cried all day.

When I came back from hospital, my husband was in his room waiting for me. But instead of going into his room and telling him the news I went straight to our chapel. We have a room reserved as our chapel in the house for God, where we pray. I just went there and started singing and crying and glorifying God’s name. My husband heard my cries and rushed in and was confused and kept asking me what the problem was because he saw me crying in a manner I have never done. He thought it was one of the normal results of negativity and he was trying to calm me down. Then I pulled myself together and told him I was pregnant and he was going to be a father. He immediately knelt down and we started praying.

WT: How did you react when you found out it was a multiple birth?

Mrs. Ewurum: The day I went for ultra sound scan I was told I was going to have twins. I couldn’t believe it. I asked myself several times if it could be possible for me to be pregnant with twins. I was happy. About three months later I went back to the hospital for another scan recommended by the doctor. When it was done I was told that the babies are now three.  I called my husband to tell him immediately.

WT: Did you have to do fertility treatment and all of that?

Mrs. Ewurum: No, nothing of such happened. It just came naturally. We have had friends praying for us but it did not mean that we did not have some that took joy in making mockery of our situation or even against us still being a couple. I have had someone tell me to my face that what I needed was not cars or material things, that what they wanted was for me to prove that I was a woman by giving birth to a child. This they actually told me to my face and I felt so bad about it.

WT: How are you enjoying motherhood?

Mrs. Ewurum: Are you kidding? I am enjoying every bit of it. For me to still be favoured by God at age 43 is something miraculous. Childless women should have faith in God and believe in Him in all situations as it is only He who can solve every problem in this world. They should make sure they don’t move from one place to another where they will not get real children. They should face and focus on God.