The agony of a mother who has lost her children and her menses too!

This morning i received a visitor. She wanted to see me and on asking her where she lives, i realized she lives in my neighborhood. Maggie was one of those who had been chosen among many to share her story with me by her group. I sat to listen to her.

From her looks and confidence, you cant tell her agony unless she shares. This confidence she told me has been gained from attending support groups and knowing that she is not alone and the fact that she believes in God. She in fact told me that her Sundays are dedicated to church and she does not accept anyone to visit her on that day.

Maggie's first born died at 11 years after a pneumonia attack. Her second born followed suit dying before he hit two years from diarrhea. All this time Maggie did not know what was ailing her nor her children and later led to their premature deaths. After the two children died, Maggie's health deteriorated. In fact, while she was mourning her second born, she bled continuously for two weeks.It was after this continuous bleeding stopped that she has not received her periods in the last ten years.

This year, Maggie started feeling pain in her womb and when she was rushed to hospital, a certain procedure was done. Maggie is not literate enough to understand what she could have been ailing from and so i could not really tell what the procedure was all about. But she told me that after that procedure, she had greenish discharge for weeks and now she feels better.

Maggie who is only thirty eight years old lives with two of her niece's children who passed on too as a result of HIV complications. Many however know that those are not her children as they call her granny. But her agony is the fact that people tend to brand her as a barren woman while she knows very well that her own children died. She wishes she knew the existence of the monster HIV then because most probably she would have saved her children. She would like to have children but how when she has not had menstruation for ten years? She tells me that doctors give her hope that one day she will have a baby. But how and when is what bothers her so much. The fact that she is now approaching 40 is really scaring her a lot and slowly killing her hopes of ever having another child. She wishes she would scream to everyone that she is not barren and that sometime in her life she enjoyed bringing up her own children. 

As a parting shot, maggie said, "i am only 38, may not have had menses for the last ten years but i have hope that some day i will prove to all the doom-Sayers that am not barren. I will give birth to my third child". With this i cried, i saw resilience in a woman who has gone through so much agony. I could only give her hope as her doctors do, that one day she will hold her baby in her hands!