PHOTO: Infertile women are women with great courage
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
American civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that no sore can be cured without being completely opened to light and air, which he describes as natural medicines for the condition.
It is probably against this backdrop that a 43-year-old woman, who is resident in Careysburg outside Monrovia, is often open to speak freely about a condition that stigmatizes most women in mainly African settings – bareness.
Being childless is compared to being in agony, Madam Mamie Johnson says.
Unlike other women that are scolded by their husbands for something they have absolutely no control over, her partner is a source of strength, comfort and hope even in the midst of her trouble.
But despite the support of her family members and husband, the anxiety to get child and the pain of living a childless life can be mitigated by nothing, Mamie Johnson says.
“No matter what kind of food or money you have once there is no child cry heard in your house, your life is incomplete and it is full of sorrow,,” she laments.
This woman is being open about her condition not only for the sake of letting people know, seeking help for herself and her husband.
She believes her partner also has some level of reproductive challenge as his sperm is often very clear.
“It is painful for a woman to be childless because there will be no mark left behind when shall have died,”, she says.
Mamie Johnson got married two years ago and she has never experienced pregnancy since birth, she tells this Reporter.
Unlike others facing the same challenge, she admits she is well respected and has never been stigmatized.
“How I wish that one day I could hear my own baby cry,” she imagines.
Financial constraints has prevented them from constantly visiting the hospital, and that’s why they are pleading with Merck Foundation and the office of Liberia’s First Lady Clar Weah to help them find solution to their childlessness.