| BABY AFTER 19 YEARS
• Couple relieves journey to parenthood after
years of sorrow and heartache
By CHINYERE ANYANWU
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
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Mr and Mrs Samuel Nwageruo and the baby
• PHOTO: Sun News Publishing
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The auditorium of a church bubbled recently as praise songs
reached an all-time high, marking the dedication of a three
months old baby, a child whose coming ended the shame, wiped
the tears and rolled away the reproach of a couple has experienced
in 19 years of marriage because there was no fruit of the
womb to show for the union.
The couple, Mr and Mrs Samuel Nwageruo, who hail from Alaocha
Eziama Okwe in Onuimo LGA of Imo State, got married in 1988.
When 19 years after marriage their expectation of having children
had not materialised, they became distraught.
Eventually, divine intervention came on July 7, 2007; they
were blessed with a bundle of joy, a beautiful girl. The baby
was named Ayomide by God through his servant, Rev. V. O. Greg,
a year before her birth.
“We got married in 1988,” said Mr Samuel Nwageruo.
“As is the expectation of every young couple, we thought
within a year, a new life would be added to the family, but
it was not to be so. It turned out to be a long, painful 19
years of waiting,” he said.
The 57-year-old Nwageruo, a driver, said the childless period
was the most terrible, perplexing and frustrating period of
his life.
His wife, Mrs Stella Nwageruo, reiterates her husband’s
statement, saying the intense pressure of those years of waiting
was mutual, if not worse on her.
Trying times
For the Nwageruos, the 19 years of delayed childlessness was
a period that exposed them to diverse unwholesome suggestions
and advice from friends and relatives, which heightened their
emotional trauma.
Mrs Nwageruo said: “A relative of my husband, at a time,
suggested I should come to the village and stay for a while,
so that she could arrange for me to have sexual relationship
with another man to see if I would get pregnant.”
To her, the suggestion was evil and she swore to “remain
childless rather than commit such evil against God and my
husband.”
“A friend of mine, who is a nurse,” she continued,
“in her bid to help, asked if I was interested in buying
a baby, that she would arrange it for me. I didn’t accept
the offer because I still believed God would give me my own
child.”
Mr Nwageruo had his share of such offensive suggestions as
his stepfather constantly insisted on his taking another wife.
But, according to him, “taking a second wife was like
taking poison to me.”
The search for help
When it became obvious that a child was not going to come
on a platter of gold for the Nwageruos, they set out to seek
help. Their search for help, according to the couple, took
them to diverse and innumerable places – orthodox medical
care, herbal healing homes and churches.
Hear Mr Nwageruo: “Some people, in a bid to help us,
took us to diverse places. We were even taken to a native
doctor. My wife drank all manner of concoctions to an extent
that I began to pity her. All these were to no avail. Today,
I ask God for forgiveness for the days of going to wrong places
for solution.
“We went to several hospitals. We were subjected to
so many medical tests. Some said the problem was low sperm
count, some medical examinations confirmed my wife had fibroid.
She was eventually booked for surgery.”
Corroborating her husband, Mrs Nwageruo said: “Apart
from hospitals, we went to several men of God for prayers.
To worsen the tension, some of the herbal homes and churches
we visited gave us various presumed dates I would conceive
and whenever those dates came and passed, without anything
happening, I would get more frustrated, worried and bitter
than ever before. But somehow, we kept believing and trusting
God for his visitation.
“Eventually in 2006,” said Mrs Nwageruo, “I
concluded I would go for fibroid operation, but we chose to
do it in a specialist hospital in the East. We notified our
relatives abroad who sent us financial assistance.
“I prepared for the operation, bought all necessary
things, paid deposit at the hospital but along the line, I
told my husband that I needed to go for prayers before embarking
on the journey.”
Divine intervention
The Nwageruos’ decision to seek divine help for successful
surgery, however, was to change the course of their lives.
According to Mrs Stella Nwageruo, “my husband and I
went to a servant of God, Rev. Dr. V. O. Greg, who had faithfully
stood by us from 2005 when we were introduced to him by a
family friend.
Rev. Greg has been helpful to us. He sacrificed a lot of his
time for our sake. By the time we met him in 2005, he had
concluded arrangements to go for a programme in Canada, but
he cancelled the trip to give us proper attention.
We went to him for prayers for successful operation.
“Right in his office, I changed my mind. Within me,
I told God that if he was still the God who could do all things,
the God of possibilities that intervened in Hannah’s
situation, he should intervene in mine.
I pledged that if He could perform a spiritual surgery on
me without any blade touching my body and also give me a child,
that I would donate the money meant for the surgery as a token
of appreciation to him.
“I told the man of God my pledge and he advised me to
go back and think it over properly. I insisted on my pledge
and my husband agreed with me on it. He prayed for us and
we left. I did not go for the surgery again. A few months
later, I took in.”
Baby’s arrival
When I conceived and my tommy began to grow, people didn’t
believe I was pregnant. They said it was fibroid,” stated
Mrs Nwageruo. “When I was two months pregnant, a female
nurse at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), examined
me and said I wasn’t pregnant. At four months, a scan
result I went for said I was not pregnant but my husband and
I continued praying and trusting God rejecting any negative
pronouncement.
“Throughout the pregnancy period, I was very healthy
and strong. I never took even Panadol. The antenatal clinic
I attended was just to fulfil all ritheousness. When time
came, I delivered safely without any complication.”
Describing her feeling after the delivery of her baby, after
19 years of waiting, she said: “The joy was inexpressible.
I couldn’t believe I was seeing a full fledged human
being that came out of my body. The feeling was heavenly.”
Her equally elated husband, narrating his experience after
the delivery of the baby, said: “Immediately I heard
the cry of the baby, I called my wife, she answered; the nurse
put the baby into my hands and I burst into praises and worship
to the extent that patients in the hospital wondered what
was special about the baby. When the doctor explained my story
to them, they joined me in praising God. It was a fulfilling
experience.”
Vow fulfilled
As devout Christians who know the import of entering into
covenant with God, the Nwageruos did not hesitate to fulfil
their vow to God who had performed His own part of the covenant
by blessing them with a beautiful baby girl without the woman
undergoing surgery .
Mrs Stella Nwageruo solemnly declares: “When we fulfilled
the vow after my delivery, we gave exactly the dollar bills
that were sent to us from the US by our relative to assist
us in off-setting surgery bills. We didn’t even change
it to naira. God has been faithful to His side of the covenant,
so we couldn’t afford to break our side of the deal.”
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