Nigerian Woman, Ajibola Otubusin Who Had Her Miracle Child At 67 Shares Her Inspiring Story

• Olamide
• October 29, 2018
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It was a moment of mixed emotions filled with tears and joy as a Nigerian woman, Ajibola Otubusin who gave birth through IVF at 67 got interviewed exclusively by Punch.

According to her, she was a point of mockery to everyone due to her inability to bear a child which lasted for 40 years.

ALSO READ: This 67-Year-Old Nigerian Woman Just Had Her First Child Through IVF

Ajibola Otubusin got married at the age of 25 at the Methodist Church in Yaba, Lagos, on December 10, 1977.

Ajibola narrated how she met her husband,  Professor Samuel Otubusin. According to her,

“I am somebody who has the call of giving. I love to give. At that time, Samuel was studying at the University of Ife while I was at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital for my Basic Nursing Programme. We met through both of our aunts, who were good friends.

“In those days at the University of Ife, if you failed a subject, you would repeat a whole year. He was surviving on only bursaries at the time, which could barely sustain him, so during one of our conversations as friends, I saw he needed help, which I offered.

“I promised I would help him by sending him something out of my own monthly stipends. We were not thinking of marriage. We were just great friends, but then, friendship turned to a relationship and then the relationship turned to marriage.”

Like several other women, she was indeed hopeful that by the end of the first or second year of her marriage, she would hold her child. This hope lasted for over 30 years of negatives results.

She said with tears in her eyes,

“I expected to bear children and be fulfilled, but then, I started noticing I was unusually becoming sick, I was having some health issues. I initially thought they were small problems but when I went to a hospital at Kainji, I was referred to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, who told me I was still young and that I was getting sick because I was worried too much about having a baby.

“But I knew there were problems with me. I knew I had a problem with my thyroid. But the doctor insisted I would get over it. I went back to the hospital and this time around, I was referred to the Eko Hospital in Lagos, and there, they noticed I was suffering from hepatomegaly (an enlargement of the liver). They identified five other health problems and from there, I started battling with various diseases.”

Ajibola consulted doctors at the UCH, Ibadan and one of the surgeons referred her to a hospital in India. Meanwhile, the doctors in India tried artificial insemination but it didn’t work.

In her words,

“However, the doctor at the Indian hospital said he would try an artificial insemination since I didn’t have a serious infertility problem. (Artificial insemination is a deliberate introduction of sperm into a female’s cervix or uterine cavity for the purpose of achieving a pregnancy through in vitro fertilisation).”

Although the treatments administered to her didn’t work, she was more determined to have her own child. She said,

“Thankfully, I got better after a series of treatment in India and eventually I returned home. Knowing it was only the infertility issue I had to deal with, I intensified efforts again with the support of my loving husband.

“I had been visiting St Ives Specialist Hospital, Lagos for 10 years before I travelled to India but I stopped going due to my poor health. But when my health improved, I went back again early this year with my husband, and I met Dr. Tunde Okewale, who understood our plight and encouraged us not to be shaken by previous experiences. We tried the IVF procedure and here we are today, with our first child!”

Ajibola shared her moment of frustration during 40 years of waiting during the interview.

She said,

“It is normal in our environment that if you are childless, people would call you various names. But what helped me is my husband’s faithfulness and support, as well as my own positive attitude. I don’t easily get angry over issues. When people told me something negative or called me names, I would just go back home and pray instead of crying.

“Some people in my husband’s family confronted me, ‘Release your husband, let him go. Stop tying him down, you are a witch.’ But I usually told them jokingly that I was not tying my husband down. As a matter of fact, if he wanted to marry as many as 10 wives, I told them I didn’t care. It’s even better for me because I would have some peace.

“My husband taught in the university and where he worked, he could have also married any female lecturer. But he is a devout Christian. I remember a man in his family once told me, ‘You married the best person in our family. If you had married someone like me, I would have left you a long time ago.’ I told him, ‘Thank you, sir.’”

Ajibola expressed how she felt when she found out she was pregnant. In her words,

“It was on February 22, 2018, I discovered it, but I still had some health issues. I was still seeing blood, so I didn’t believe it. I went for a scan and the doctor asked whether I was doing any stressful work. He asked me, ‘Do you want to lose this pregnancy?’ I asked, ‘Which pregnancy?’

“He then showed me the monitor and I noticed some activities in my womb. I said, ‘Wow, this might be my time!’ I breathed a sigh of relief on that day. My joy became fully made.

“Meanwhile, I still told my husband not to think too much of it, maybe the doctor didn’t want to make us sad, that’s why he said I was pregnant. But my husband encouraged me. He had always stood by me.”

She also narrated her experience during the pregnancy. She said,

I didn’t go about with the pregnancy, because I didn’t want to feel weird. I had to be sensible.

“After about two months of the pregnancy, I started antenatal care here in Abeokuta at the Atoke Medical Centre. And last Saturday, my bundle of joy came!”

Ajibola went ahead to encourage other women going through a similar problem to keep their hope alive. She said,

“So my message to women in similar circumstances is that they should hold on. They shouldn’t go about visiting herbalists and taking concoctions because they want to have a baby.

“That was a decision I took right from time. There were suggestions that I should visit herbalists, but I didn’t give in. You don’t know what concoctions you would take and would spoil your womb. The best thing is to be patient until one’s time.”

Professor Samuel Otubusin also expressed his joy in his interview. He said, “God is ever faithful”.

, Dr Taofeek Ogunfunmilayo, who is the founder of Atoke Medical Centre, Abeokuta where Ajibola had her child had this to say about the bundle of joy,

“Mrs Otubusin came here for the first time in April, following the referral from St Ives Fertility Centre. She was referred here when the pregnancy was just two months old and I took over her antenatal care. I had to introduce some drugs because of her age, but thank God things went smoothly.

“When the pregnancy was 16 weeks old, we did cerclage insertion for her and what this entailed was that it would help close the opening of the womb into the vagina so that the womb wouldn’t open too early before the baby got matured.

“We monitored her on an outpatient basis until the pregnancy was 30 weeks old. Then we had to do foetal kick-chart, wherein the mother would know the well-being of the baby in the womb. With the procedure and help of some radiologists, the pregnancy progressed. Immediately it clocked 36 weeks and two days, that was on October 20, we planned her for surgery. I told the specialists at St Ives and they also came here.

“We took her to the theatre room at 11am and by 12.30pm, the surgery was over and behold, it was a boy, weighing 2.5kg! We wanted to feed him with formula before because we thought the mother was stressed and should be allowed to rest after the surgery. But by the following day, she was already breastfeeding the baby.”

“Since I have been practising, I have never seen anything close to this: a 66-year-old woman becoming pregnant and having a baby. She is one of the oldest women to have had a baby through IVF.

“It is amazing, and I am happy it happened in Nigeria, because it shows we are moving forward. It is really a success story because many women have been calling me since Mrs Otubusin’s story broke. But for the high cost of IVF, I believe many women passing through similar challenges would have had their stories changed.”