For 14 years, Gospel artist Nancy Masara and her husband, Abel Mokaya were looking for children. But today their home peals of laughter from their one-and-a-half-year-old triplets.
Speaking to People’s Daily this week, Masara beams with joy as she looks at the playful triplets – Patience Mokaya, Esther Kemunto and Samuel Elias– running around the house.
To Masara and her husband, this is nothing short of a miracle.
“I sometimes look at the children and wonder whether they are really mine,” says Masara.
She recalls her struggle with childlessness, how she sought medical help from different hospitals and how at some point she avoided visiting their rural home in Riakuro, Nyamira county as a result of the open stigma and pressure that had begun to mount from relatives after clocking her fifth year in marriage without a child.
“I got married at 22 years and getting a child was never part of my concern. That is until I turned 30. I started visiting hospitals including herbal facilities to look for answers,” she says.
At the height of her desperation to get children, she advised her husband to marry another woman to fulfil his dream of becoming a father and save him the humiliation that comes with being childless. He rejected the offer.
“Deep in my heart, I had started giving up and I expected my husband to be cheating on me because all tests had shown that he was okay.
I had already allowed him although I would cry silently. I was surprised when he told me he was not ready to let me go. He repeatedly assured me he would be by my side forever. He even suggested that we adopt a child if God had not planned a biological child for us,” Masara says.
Years came and went and the couple traversed the country seeking solutions to her problem.
“The number of hospitals I visited in this country in search of a child are more than I can remember,” she says.
Her story changed when she bumped into a gynaecologist and fertility expert at Pandya Memorial Hospital in Mombasa who told her there was a 50-50 chance of becoming a mother.
The doctor then put her on medication and she would go for frequent check-ups to monitor the situation. December 2016 was the turning point of her life.
“I remember it was mid-morning when the doctor broke the most exciting news I have ever had in my life—that I had conceived… I was torn between crying and jumping in joy,” explained the mother of three a midst sobs and tears of joy.
The announcement would mark a new beginning full of hope, a complete departure from the trauma she has known in all her marriage life. But it came with financial strains.
“We would spend up to Sh20,000 per month just for antenatal clinic,” she says adding that her husband who works at a local clearing and forwarding agency was forced to borrow a Sh500,000 loan to enable them settle some of the growing hospital bills.
On July 7, 2017 she delivered triplets through Caesarean section (CS). They were delivered in a space of two minutes apart and were put under special care as they were born prematurely.
“The firstborn weighed 1.1 kilogrammes, the second born was 1.8 kilogrammes and third born was 1.7 kilogrammes,” she says.
The family, however, had to contend with a Sh2 million hospital bill after the children were discharged. But nothing could dampen their joy.
Taking to Facebook today, she shared a newspaper clippings of her interview with People’s Daily.
“In the sight of the lord I can’t hide my joy or what God has done to me, no challenge is permanent when God says yes no man can say no, maybe ure in situation where u feel like giving up, maybe u re asking God questions why he has not answered your prayers,maybe people re calling you names which u can’t understand, u have nowhere to hide your head don’t be tired or never give up the best place to be is at the feet of Jesus, no prayer can be answered in Jesus name, one day, time, sec God will take away your shame and pain in Jesus name. Thanks God for triple joy..”
Credit: LIB