By the time we came back from our honeymoon, my wife was pregnant. That was the happiest day of our lives, knowing that God has blessed our effort in a special way. We were happy but the pregnancy wasn’t easy for my wife. In the first trimester, she could hardly walk. She spent a lot of her days in the hospital. She would be discharged today and tomorrow she would be back with another issue. At one point, we were scared we were going to lose the child. A couple of months later, that fear was replaced by the fear of losing my wife. We had to pray. We had to invite God to take over and he did. From the seventh month, until she delivered, she was a little bit stable. We had a girl.

The day she came, I looked at her little face and said, “So it’s you. You nearly took away the life of your mother. Welcome, our joy.” 

My wife really suffered but once the baby was born, all the memories of her suffering dissipated. We were back to our normal life. We brought in my wife’s mother to help take care of the baby. The first time we told her the gender of the baby she said, “All this suffering for just a girl? I thought it was boys who give such trouble to their mothers. The next one better be a boy.” 

We understood why she wanted a boy as a grandchild. She gave birth to five girls. She never had a boy though she kept trying. She didn’t have one so she was relying on her daughters to have a boy for her. Her first daughter has two children. They are both girls but it takes nothing away from the fact that girls are also worth it. 

She’s a good woman. She did a lot of things right When she was living with us. She took care of not only the baby but all of us. Apart from constantly reminding us to give birth to a boy the next time, everything was alright with us. She left our place when our daughter was three years old and was ready to go to school.

When our daughter was one, she asked us when we were going to add another one. On our daughter’s second birthday, when we asked her to pray over the cake, she whispered; “God, as they eat this cake, let it turn into a boy child for them so a year by this time, we’ll hear the cry of a boy in this house.” She laughed after the prayers and we laughed along. There was nothing wrong with the prayers. A wish for a child can never be wrong but eight years later, we still don’t have another child. All we have to show for our effort is just a dream that never comes to pass and a prayer that goes up and never comes down. 

We don’t know what’s actually wrong. We started visiting clinics when our daughter was five. I thought something went wrong with my wife’s womb when she was carrying the first one. She had been checked and her reproductive system examined but they didn’t see anything wrong with her. “Or the fault is from me?” I asked myself. I visited clinics for a check-up. Nothing was found to be wrong but they gave us drugs that will speed up things. Years later, we are still here, no second child and no sign of a second child coming. 

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We came to accept our fate and dedicated the rest to God. His time is the best, we can only try but the problem now is my mother-in-law. She thinks there’s something wrong. She thinks we are hiding something from her concerning our inability to have a second child, specifically a male child for her. She visits herbal centres on our behalf and brings the herbs. She goes to prayer centres on our behalf and brings us the directions the prophets give to her. She fasts on our behalf and tells us what she saw in the spirit while fasting and praying. She had become a constant reminder in our lives, reminding us of the lack of a second child when all we want to do is move on with our lives.

Currently, my wife is under pressure to do everything just to satisfy her mother’s wishes. I don’t like it. I don’t like the way she’s controlling our living space. I hate her constant calls in the morning to tell us what she dreamt about in the night and what we have to do. She’s making us miserable but anytime I complain to my wife she tells me, “You’re a man so you don’t understand. When people laugh, it won’t be at you but at me. I’m the one they blame.” 

“Blame for what exactly? It’s not as if you don’t have a child. We already have one so what’s the fear? And who’s blaming who?” 

I just don’t understand what’s happening in my own marriage. My wife’s mother is controlling everything. She dictates what we should eat and what we should not. She dictates what we should put in our soup and what we should not put in our stew. Since December last year, my wife goes home to her mom on every weekend. Friday after work, she won’t even come home. She’ll leave the office and goes straight to her mom. I’ll only see her again on Monday after work. When I’m lucky, I see her on Sunday evening. I don’t know what they do while together. My wife tells me, “You’ll see the results very soon.” 

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I feel I’m losing the sanity in my marriage and I want to do something about it. I don’t want to bruise egos or step on toes or destroy relationships beyond repair while trying to put my foot down. Already, they say I don’t understand what they’re going through because I’m a man. I don’t want to act in a way that would give the impression that indeed, I don’t care and I don’t understand. I want that, at the end of everything, there would be peace in my home. How should I go about this?

–Akala

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