By Gillian Nantume.
Children are a joy to have; and the yearning to be a mother is something few women can escape.
By 2002, Amina Musoke* had lived through the joy of bringing four children into the world. Her oldest, a boy, was eight years old, and the youngest was two. Living on the outskirts of Kampala, theirs was a low-income, but happy family, until tragedy struck.
“I was at work. There was a boy, much older than my children, who lived with us and took care of them. Like many young men, whenever there was a fault with the electricity supply he would try to repair it. On that day it rained heavily and the electric wire fell off the pole.
When the rain reduced to a drizzle, the children went out to play. One of them, I never got to know which one, stepped on the wire and was electrocuted. The second child came to pull him away and was also electrocuted. The other two died trying to help their siblings,” recalls Musoke.
In one day, in the space of a few seconds, Musoke lost all her children. Two years earlier, after the birth of her youngest child, she and her husband had decided that four children were enough.
Musoke underwent tubal ligation surgery.
More commonly referred to as “having the tubes tied”, tubal ligation is a surgical procedure in which a woman’s fallopian tubes are tied, blocked or cut to prevent eggs from reaching the uterus for implantation. It is considered a permanent method of birth control.
A ray of hope
While Musoke was grieving for her children, her husband got another wife and started a new family.
“After three years, in 2005, I started wondering if it was possible to have a child again. I wanted to find out if the doctor who had “tied my tubes” at Mulago hospital could rejoin them so that I could conceive.”
At 29, the doctor said, Musoke was still young enough to conceive without difficulty but since tubal ligation is permanent, he could not help her.
“He gave me Dr Tamale Ssali’s number, saying he might have a solution for my problem. I wanted a child and when the doctor explained that it was possible, I believed him. But it was a very emotional time for me because I had no one to share my hope with. I could not tell my husband.”
It took Musoke two years to get the courage to seek IVF treatment and by then, she had saved Shs150,000.
In 2007, she went to the Women’s Hospital International and Fertility Centre in Bukoto, Kampala.
The registration fee for the IVF treatment took Shs50,000 out of her savings.
“A doctor explained the procedure of getting pregnant through IVF but said it would cost Shs2.5m.
I wanted to cry because it was the kind of money I had only heard about. I had never had it, and there was no hope of getting it. My husband was not even aware where I had gone that morning.”
Returning home, dejected, Musoke went to sleep convinced that a baby was out of her reach. Then at 7am the next morning, she was awoken by a message on her mobile phone.
“Dr Ssali sent me a message to come to the hospital. While reviewing my file, he had been touched by my experiences. That morning, I opened up to my husband about my plans. He did not agree with having children that way but he accompanied me to the hospital.”
At the hospital, they required proof of the tragic accident in which Musoke lost her children. Thus, Musoke had to bring a letter from her Local Council (LC) chairman, the police and witnesses.
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