Image by Andrea Buso
Hi everyone, I hope you had a great week ahead and the weekend has started off well.
Once again, thank you all for the love and support for Affiong and for my writing. The thing that gnawed at me the most was how people who were in close contact with her daily expressed surprise at the magnitude of what she went through yet maintained a semblance of normalcy. I would say I am surprised but really, I am not. Our society supports a culture of silence. As women, you are expected to go through life struggles as quietly as possible. I recall getting waxed in preparation for my surgery because isn’t this a normal pre operation procedure, Lol…provide a beautiful landscape for the doctors to work with :-). Anyway, I had a friend ring me while in this torture mode and I mentioned to her I was getting my fibroids taken out in a few short days. She was quiet at first, then said, remember when I was ill in October? She and I were taking classes together and she fell ill and was admitted in the hospital, I had rung her to check in on here a few times so yes, I remembered. She says, Well I had fibroids surgery that time. Oh, that was all I could mutter. Afterwards, she’d explain that she felt stigmatized by others and so didn’t want to share anymore. Her male colleague had ridiculously asked if she would be able to have babies after the surgery. Very insensitive.
I am also not surprised because my own mother never talked about her struggles with conception when she got married - she had a retroverted uterus. My sister also only mentioned the cysts she had been diagnosed with for years when I started writing ourwomb stories. Sigh. I spoke so openly about my fibroids before and after I took them out. Unapologetically so, they were very much a part of me, growing inside of me so why not. I had a friend jokingly tell me on the hospital bed, a few hours after my surgery was performed, that she was so happy I had finally taken them out so she could stop hearing about it. I was deeply hurt. Naturally, I kept all my post operation struggles from her. No one should be afraid to speak their truth to you.
On to today, I am bringing you the concluding part of Afie’s journey. You can find part one here if you missed it last week. Last week, I left things off after Afie was set to begin another round of IVF treatment and was informed she had an endometrial cyst which would need to be removed to increase the success rate of this IVF round. This would have brought her to a third surgery, but she was adamant, spurred on by her faith to reject that diagnosis. Afie decided to keep working with the Napro technology specialist whilst making radical changes to her lifestyle.
She went organic as much as possible. Switched to natural black soaps, shea butter, no relaxers in her hair, and used organic make up. I do not know what organic makeup means though. I am getting some “Zobo” stained lips imagery as I type. But seriously, all these make up probably contain strange substances and preservatives. I had read once about small doses of arsenic and heavy metals to increase pigment hues for eye shadows and the likes. How many of us ruthlessly check the ingredients in our make up? I don’t. I am thinking especially lipsticks, which a lot of people ingest unknowingly while eating.
She embraced essential oils and stopped using perfume. Ah…I do not know how I feel about this honestly. No perfume in this hot Lagos. This is a recipe for disaster, No?
She introduced more greens in her diet. Broccoli, Kale, lettuce, spinach, Pumpkin leaves AKA Ugwu and Maca powder which is touted as an elixir.
She phased out plastics entirely in her kitchen. Microwave and plastics are not your friends. I know this now. I used to be the queen of microwave by the way. In fact, I lived three years with no cooker and made all meals in the microwave. I read it somewhere that everyday we ingest the equivalent of an ATM card in plastic unknowingly. I respected myself fast. Even “Bottled water” ferried and stored in sweltering heat and the likes.
She entirely changed all her household cleaning products to natural ones.
She mentions that this season was bloody expensive, and I am sure it was. The more important thing is to make minor changes one at a time and what do you know, when she went back to the hospital three months after this lifestyle change, there was a clear difference in her body. The doctors were pleased with the significant chances and resumed the IVF treatment. And “heaven smiled on me” she quips. The IVF was successful, and she was pregnant!!! She could not believe it, she had three tests done to make sure she was not dreaming.
Her first trimester was fantastic. She was walking on air but by the second trimester, all hell broke loose right from the beginning. She experienced bleeding and had to get a cervical cerclage to keep the babies in. She describes the fear of getting this procedure done as “out of this world”. She had been told of someone’s amniotic fluid punctured in the process causing a miscarriage and as you can imagine, after what it took to get here? She says, I prayed myself into this procedure. She also notes that she retained water so much so that if she touched her legs, water oozed out of her skin. She found this quite scary and it does sound so. Her hips to her feet were also abnormally huge, she was convinced they would never go back to being normal. I can confirm they are normal now. Ultimately, She was placed on bed rest till the babies were to be born.
About 27 weeks into her pregnancy, she went away to have the babies. On arrival in the US, she went to check in routinely with her doctors, a quick hello, I am here o. What happened next was akin to a Grey’s anatomy episode; her words. She was rushed straight into the labour emergency area. Preeclampsia, Her blood pressure was off the charts at 200/110 and she had such low blood platelets that the doctors were worried about her other organs being affected. She was stabilized and monitored on a per second basis. I remember when she told me of this just after the babies were born, she mentioned that she begged her way out of the hospital, the bill was not a joking stuff and the doctors wanted to keep her till the babies arrived. Ermmmm who knows when that will be. She promised to report herself daily to the hospital instead. She would carry on like this until 31 weeks when the doctors decided the babies needed to come out to save her life. The N-series as we know them arrived. Two gorgeous girls and a handsome boy. Three. Healthy as could be. They would spend a few weeks in the hospital getting an extra boost, but all was well. God stood by us is her final statement. I ask her, what do you want to leave everyone with on your journey? Stay in the place of faith and always find the strength to pick up yourself every time. Rest if you must. Cry all you want but have grace in your heart to heal and receive. Stellar words Afie. We are all humbled that you’d share your journey with us. Thank you and we all wish you and our babies a lifetime of love and laughter.
Before I jump off this week, I promised excerpts from the book “It starts with the eggs” by Rebecca Fett. The author was diagnosed with diminished ovarian reserves at age 26 and told she had an incredibly low chance of conceiving with her own eggs. She put her molecular biotechnology and biochemistry degree to work to understand the science of egg quality and fertility, reading every clinical study that could possibly be relevant. It is worth the read as a guide to healthier living whether you are trying for a baby or not. But here are important takeaways for my lazy friends, ;-)
Avoid phthalates and other toxins from plastics. It’s nearly impossible to entirely avoid phthalates, also known as “the everywhere chemical used to make plastic more durable. They are present in many beauty, home, and personal care products. They are known to decrease the production of estrogen by your follicles, which is critical to follicle growth and egg development.
Take the right supplements. The most important supplement to take is a good prenatal vitamin. But with so many options on the market, it can be hard to determine which one is best for you. The important ingredients to look for: folate, B12, B6, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, selenium, and iodine. Based on specific fertility issues, the author also suggests other supplements including CoQ10 (egg quality), melatonin (age or egg-related infertility) and myo-inositol (for women with PCOS).
Adopt a healthy diet that supports your hormones. Women following a Mediterranean diet have higher success rates for IVF. What is a Mediterranean diet? One that emphasizes vegetables, healthy fats, lean meats, and seafood, and minimizes processed food and refined starches and sugars. In other words, Rice, Garri, Yam and Bread are not your friends.
Help your partner adopt a better lifestyle too. All too often, the focus in fertility is on the woman. I love how there is an included chapter dedicated to sperm quality. After all, sperm is half the equation. I had to put that part in bold too because equality ;-). Basically, your partner should follow the steps above. Supplements, diets, minimal exposure to toxins and reduced alcohol. Buhari’s economy is sorting the last part of the equation already. Liquor is a costly something.
Alright then, that is all I have the mental bandwidth for today. You already know, share! share! share! People are quietly dealing with stuff and masking it, you will never know who you are helping plus we need to keep the conversation going. If you need a listening ear of your own, email me at hello@ourwombs.com and I’d be in touch. Subscribe here to be in the know and follow on Instagram @ourwombs as well.
Oh, I will take a break next week, but I’d be back writing in no time. Till then, Toddles.