My 7-Year Ordeal with Childlessness: “I did terrible things I can’t even tell anybody.”
Dr. Sandra Ekwunife, Managing Director and Chief Consultant of Perfect Slimmers Ltd, Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos was childless and overweight for almost seven years after her marriage to Barrister Ekwunife as a Part Two student of University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
The search for a baby made her try almost anything possible. She tried the medical line, the herbal line and even the spiritual way. No solution came. Her problem actually was blocked fallopian tubes because of too much fat.
She went to Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), three times for tubal flushing. But the tubes remained blocked. Operation was ruled out, because of the type of skin she has which grows keloids easily when cut. So, if the tubes are operated upon to remove the fat, keloids might develop from the stitches and gum the tubes together, which might lead to worse complications.
Anambra-born Dr. Ekwunife was formerly into fashion business and had a boutique at Alade Market, off Allen Avenue, Ikeja, a business that regularly took her to places like Hong Kong about three times a year, especially when festive seasons are approaching. It was during one of such trips that she was introduced to a Chinese herbal institution that runs departments for slimming, infertility, beauty, skin therapy and so on.
Initially, she registered with the outfit to shed weight. Though childless then, she weighed 105 kg. She was placed on herbal slimming, and in one week, she lost 7kg. Progressively, she kept losing weight until she was okay. In the process, she also registered with the fertility department, and in three weeks, her blocked tubes were open and free through the therapy she was placed on. She passed out all the fat blocking her tubes. Today, she is a mother of two and the third one is on the way.
But in-between the time she got married and the time she took in for the first time after seven years, is a gripping story which only Dr. Ekwunife herself can tell:
Marriage
I got married December 15, 1993. I was still in school then, at University of Nigeria, Nsukka. And after the wedding. And after the wedding , I started the normal family life. And the realities started coming. Childlessness, when after a year, two, three and no child came, the problem started. There was pressure from both families, friends and in-laws, everybody wanted to know what was wrong. Some people really cared. Others were just being mischievous. It was like a mixed reaction from here and there. And then it hit us, because I and my husband were not expecting that. Usually when you are getting married, you want to settle down and start having babies. But some of the time, it doesn’t work out that way. I suffered childlessness for nearly seven years. It was in the sixth going to the seventh year, that I actually took in. I took in in February, 2000.
The search for a baby.
When you fail to conceive, you may go through all the tests and they say no problem. You find that sometimes, people stay childless for three, four or five years and don’t have any obvious problem. Or maybe they failed to find out what the problem is. So you don’t sit in a place, waiting for a miracle to happen. Or maybe you sit at one place, waiting for the miracle and the miracle refuses to come. You’ll be moving from pillar to post, trying all sorts of things. Anything they tell you to do to have a baby, you’ll do it. And I’ve done a lot of things that I wouldn’t want to tell you. Most of them are unspeakable. But you go through them because you have people who pass through such and they have a testimony. They have a bundle of joy, they are showing you. So it’s like wherever you are, some people are always ready to offer some help. Whether good, not too good or bad, you’ll be tempted to go into it, because you want a child.
Criticism
Where I really faced the criticism is where people who know me, who know my background, happen to come in contact with me, and they know my present condition. Because my mother is into herbal medicine, people go to see her at Enugu-Ukwu in Anambra state from as far as Jos, Kano, Maiduguri, just name it. So it’s like she can do it for other people, but she can’t do it for herself. When the problem started, my mother was telling me, why not stay at Enugu-Ukwu for three months and take herbs. Because there are some you have to drink, there are some you have to use to have your bath and they will even soak you with the herb, from your waist down. They do all that.
My mother tried to convince me and told me to temporarily give up the ambition of finding a job, stay at Enugu-Ukwu for three months, solve my problem and then I can come back to Lagos.
Local herbs
But there is something about these native herbs, unlike the oriental or Chinese herbs that come in varieties and very tasty, wine like flavours. There are some native herbs that if you smell them alone, you’ll keep vomiting. There is one, if you open the pot, everybody around will start sneezing. They are so raw that only the strongest of really determined people can take some and stomach them. Because when you take something and your body does not retain it, then it can’t work. There are people like that. So the medicinal part of it bothered me.
Spiritualism
And you know, in the villages, natural medicine goes hand in hand with spiritualism. There are things you will take, and you don’t speak to anyone. There are things you take and nobody should touch you. The belief is that, if you fail any of the rules for any particular one, the healing power will go.
In my own case, my grandmother told me that when she got married, her mother was into herbal medicine. That she didn’t want to do it when her mother died. Then, she was a business woman and quite comfortable with the rice business she was doing, shuttling between Abakaliki and Enugu-Ukwu. So she really didn’t want to go into herbal medicine, that it was a problem that pushed her into it. Her mother told her that if the work is calling you and you refuse to do it, nothing else you do will succeed. That you won’t succeed in any other thing apart from that work. So, it is better for you to obey at first, than when you have to be dragged into it. It really scared me. She told me that the work is calling me. That I may never have children unless it I go into it. But I told myself that I will never give in without a fight. In fact, that I will never give in at all. Because I dreaded the idea of settling in the village, doing nothing else but alternative medicine.
Initial Experience
I was not into alternative medicine then. I didn’t know anything. The only thing I knew about herbs then was what I learned from my mother and from my grandmother. Like somebody who just put to bed and normally, the breast milk should start flowing the same day. But the breast may be dry for three months. Somebody like that, there are herbs you will get and use to wash the breast. The next morning, the milk will start flowing. It is as simple as that. All these everyday problems, that’s what I learnt from my grandmother. With the little I knew when I attended breakthrough seminars or even from my neighbourhood, women who don’t even know my background, will just, out of intuition, approach me with problems concerning their children, like convulsion and I will tell them what to do from how I had seen it treated way back in the village. And when they do it, the problem will go.
Realities
It is very hard to practice herbal medicine in the village, with all the rigour of harvesting roots and herbs from the bush, sometimes in the dry season when the soil is hard. I did it for my mother and grandmother. Sometimes, I would use digger to dig out the roots and my palms will peel in the process. When you get to the end of it all, you will not charge money, they are supposed to give you what they like or else, the medicine will not work. So, it is like slavery if you ask me. For somebody who has an ambition, I don’t think it is viable. That’s why you get to the village and they some people’s medicine is working, they’ve not spoilt it with money. That some use money to spoil their work. And they believe in it a lot and I think for some reasons I don’t know or I can’t really explain, it works for them that way. When I sit down and think of all that, I said that I can’t give in without a fight. In fact, I won’t give in at all. That means I will leave my husband, leave Lagos for the village to practice herbal medicine. From the village, I came to Lagos. Then I would leave everything in Lagos and right back to the village where I was coming from. It was difficult for me, so I refused. Though I later learnt the hard way.
Counseling
In fact, every pastor I saw prayed for me about it. They say it is familiar spirit. Some say it is a covenant. Every pastor and anybody that sat me down for counseling, I used to tell them what I think this is my problem. All I want to do it break away from this lineage. That I simply do not want to do anything that has to do with herbal medicine. I am an Anglican married to a Catholic. I attended Catholic Charismatic meetings; I was really digging deep into Christianity. It was the reverend father that called me and told me that alternative medicine is not demonic, that what is demonic is the practice that people attach to it.
That if you get bitterleaf, wash it and drink the water, that it will help cleanse your system, suppress diabetes, open your arteries and veins, so that you don’t have arteriosclerosis. But when you get that bitterleaf, you jump up seven times, you climb a special mountain and offer sacrifices and ask something to help you heal with bitterleaf, it is all those practices that make traditional medicine fetish. But there is nothing fetish about it if practiced without such things. So, instead of letting that knowledge die, I would rather be coming to the clinic at St. Leo’s Parish Ikeja to share my experience with the reverend sisters there. Maybe one day, I will get a breakthrough. For, there is nothing wrong with the knowledge. That if I like, I can go back to the village to learn everything there is to learn, and then come back to Lagos. That I don’t need to carry a shrine with me back to Lagos, or dress up in rags, or wear only white for my medicine to work. He was trying to encourage me and he really got me there.
Boutique
I was running a boutique then, off Allen Avenue, at Alade Market and the boutique was okay. I went for this organized trip to Hong Kong with three friends, one of them is called Toyin. Four of us shared one hotel room. One thing about organized trips is that at the end of the day, you will get about 40 percent discount on what you would have spent if you went alone because you will share a lot of things with others and also, you tend to make better purchases on organized trips.
While we were in Hong Kong, Toyin registered in a health farm and later introduced me to the health farm. The first day I got to the health farm, I discovered it was a big place, just like a golf course. And there were a lot of people, both whites and blacks.
After some time, Toyin said I should start laughing. I asked what for? She said it is Laughing Yoga. It is part of the game. That it is the time for laughing Yoga. I told her I will not laugh without a cause. People just kept laughing without saying what was funny. Nobody said anything. Some fell on the floor rolling and just laughing. By merely looking at their faces and the demonstrations, I lost control, and joined them. We laughed. After the laughing session, we went home.
But before we went home, there was a yellow card that was going round. Toyin said if I fill the form and mention her name as the person who introduced me, they will give her a 10 per cent discount in whatever she wants to do, because she is already a member. I filled the form and put her name. then I was weighing 105 kg. I was barely managing to carry myself when she introduced me to the place.
Chinese woman
The Chinese woman we met there for the slimming took a look at me and said I was so dirty. She spoke through an interpreter. I said to myself, did I come all the way from Nigeria to this place to be insulted or what? When she looked at my face, she asked for another interpreter. That came and said I was so clogged up. I said that’s better. They placed me on the weight loss thing. They have various departments that handle various problems. They have a department for infertility treatment, another department for dermatology, anything that has to do with the skin, another for hair, people who are going bald, people whose hair are cutting, people who have burns on the scalp. It is like a very big institution. They have a herbal home, a slimming house, a beauty home, a fertility clinic. They do it all.
Blocked tubes
The woman examined me internally; at the end of the examination, she said my tubes were blocked. My doctor had earlier found it out. He said it was tumour. We went to LUTH and we did flushing three times, three sessions and it was very painful. After each flushing, I went for a scan, it was still the same, except for the third flushing, where there was a little improvement.
I would have undergone an operation then, but the doctor at LUTH said that I have the type of skin that develops keloids, it will be of no use. I told the doctor that if anything happens to me, keloid will grow. That was why I did not undergo any operation. Because they told me that if they have to operate the fallopian tube to clear them, there is a tendency that keloid would grow and it will just gum them together. Then there will be no hope at all. But if it doesn’t, then I might be okay. And the success rate was about 25 percent when you don’t develop keloid. Then zero when I do. So we just gave up on that. And my husband was worried. In fact, everybody.
I was just imagining all this problem, why me? My grandmother had eight children, my mother had eleven. Why can’t I have just one? Why? All my sisters, immediately they have three, four, five kids. They go for family planning to prevent pregnancy. So why can’t I have just one.
Ordeal
Sometimes I will cry and cry and ask God why? Sometimes I will just give up and say even the child, I don’t want again, let me just be myself. But you can’t help it. There are people around you. You have in-laws, you have a husband to care for. At a point, it was as if I was only trying to have a baby for my husband and not for myself, either. Because I totally gave up. I said if this has to do with me alone, then I will forget about it. What’s the heck about having a baby anyway? You know when you are having a lot of problems, you have to justify your situation, so that at least you can balance your sanity.
Hope
After the first day on the herb they gave me at the centre, I went back to my hotel. I stooled and stooled, the stooling was just so much. I asked Toyin, is this normal? Toyin said yes, that it happened to her the first time she took the herb. That what will happen is that when I take the herb again in two days time, because you don’t take the herb everyday, the stooling will reduce, that I was probably passing out all these because my body was like changing. The herb had started working already, cleansing my system, after that it will start melting the fat.
The next morning, I stood on the scale, I had lost 2kg. I said this is impossible. Because I have registered in almost every slimming home in Lagos. Just ask for Sandra, they know me. Why they know me is because when you have a client that just doesn’t lose weight. You know them because they keep complaining and complaining. They will be wondering what is wrong with me.
There will be times I won’t eat at all for three days, I will be drinking water. You know what will happen? My body will retain all the water I drank. I will not pass ordinary urine for those three days. Then the problem I will face will become water retention. I would find out that instead of losing weight because I am not eating, I was adding more.
So when I started losing weight daily and progressively, everyday they gave me a restricted diet. This, they do depending on your health and your kind of person. Like what they give menis different from what they give women. Because men burn their food faster than women, that’s why a lot of men actually over-eat, but they carry themselves well because it appears their system works twice faster than that of women. So I kept on using the herbs, losing weight. In the first week, I lost about 7kg.
Later, they told me that instead of taking one capsule every two days, that I should be taking one capsule every three days. That I have to slow it down, so that it will not affect my superficial fat, that is, all these fat that is part of the skin. So that I won’t look haggard, or bony or skinny. I kept to the diet programme because it doesn’t make sense when you are losing weight, you are again eating food that will make you add weight.
I kept up with physical activities. Like in the morning, after I’ve lost all that weight, I will jog. Before that time, I could not dance. I started with walking. Before I knew it, I was jogging. After two weeks, I was actually going down.
Baby
I told my friend Toyin about the weight loss. She started asking me why don’t I want to have a baby? She said Igbo people are fond of making money. That they want to have all the money in the world before they start having babies. I told her I have a problem and it is blocked tubes. She said that two tubes cannot be blocked at a time. I told her unfortunately mine are. What do I do? She said that’s what I should be talking about, not losing weight.
So we went back to meet the woman at the centre. She examined my lower parts and said my tubes are blocked, condensed fat. That there are herbs she will give me and it will clear whatever is blocking the tubes in three months. But if I would let her, that she will remove it all and open my tubes in three hours. But she said it is going to be manual, no anaesthesia, nothing. I was afraid. People who had gone through it before and those who had seen it done, said I won’t feel pain. I said no, I’m afraid, I would rather go three months than this instant thing. Toyin tried to persuade me.
Herbal soaking
They told me they will give me herb that could do that,but I would come for a herbal soaking and massage for three consecutive days. What the soaking and massage will do is to soften the fat. When it softens the fat, if I take the herbs, I will pass it out faster than I would have done, if I use only the herbs. Those three days of herbal soaking, I was red throughout. The thing is as if you are sitting in a pan of hot water, but it was worth it. The massage from the old women was another thing. I saw them as weak old women, but when they touched me, it was like the strength of seven men put together.
After about three days, I started taking the herbs. Then gradually, I started passing out all those blockages. It was coming out like menstruation. It started coming out blackish, then it turned red, to blood red, to brown. Then it turned light brown, then yellowish in colour. Then it started looking like pure fat. Just like melted cow fat. It started looking pure yellow, then water. Then happened for about three weeks.
Free
One day,they said I should go for another scan. I did and my tubes were just free. No blockage, nothing, just normal. This is a treatment that was supposed to last for 12 weeks or three months. It happened that in three weeks, my tubes were clear. They said I should get fertility herbs that will boost fertility generally. I started drinking a mixture of herbs in the form of herbal tea. When I came back to Nigeria, I was slimmer. I had lost 14 kg or more. People who knew me were asking what was happening to me. I was slimmer and I was free!
They have programmes that they run for students. They have a satellite campus in Togo. If you can’t go to Hong Kong to sit for exams, if you are running the programme, you can go to Togo and sit for the exam. It is a three month programme. People from a lot of places, just name it, South Africa, Zimbabwe, even Ghana, were running the programme. It is like an international thing. They offer 10 to 12 courses. What I specialized in was infertility. Infertility because I wanted to get to the root of my problem. I wanted to get a short-cut into the cure. I told them I wanted to enroll and I enrolled in the school and started the courses. I did it to let me see whether I will get some information from there that will help me solve my problem.
Menstruation
There was a period I didn’t menstruate at all. My menstrual cycle was coming in batches. When I start taking things, I will start menstruating again. Not regularly. Maybe if I see this month, another onewill come in the next three or four months. Then another one will be the next six months. But there was a time I didn’t see my menstrual cycle at all for a year and eight months at a stretch, that is 20 months at a stretch. It was terrible. I will see a doctor and the doctor will say I will give you the tablet that will induce menstruation. I will take it all, nothing will happen. They will write injection for me, I will take them and nothing will happen. We continued like that, off and on. I will try the medical line, I will try the herbal line, I will go the spiritual way.
I will fast and fast. It became such that my neighbours thought I was a pastor. If they don’t hear my voice praying and singing, they will think I traveled to Hong Kong, or to the village or somewhere. Or maybe for some reasons, I just decided not to pray. When they see me, they will say pastor, it’s like you are not around, we didn’t hear your voice? Did you travel? My neigbours thought I was a pastor. But I wasn’t. I was just praying. It is like when you are praying for the peace of the world.
False prophets
They told me to tie some money in nylon bag and throw it inside the river. Meanwhile, somebody will be there waiting to pick it up. They said I should kill a spotless ram. A lot of things. They sort of manage you like a customer. When you stop coming, they start calling your number. They told me I should not eat palm oil for three months. They told me that I was going to have a dream were somebody is chasing me. That once I have that dream, I should wake up. That immediately I wake up, I should use a bundle of N500 notes to clean all my body. That it must be N50,000. that anyone I use to clean my body, I shouldn’t touch it again. I should throw it into a bag, at the end of it all, I should take it to the pastor to burn it. Then all my problems will disappear. A lot of things. I didn’t follow them to the river to bathe me because I was scared, because they said I was from the river.
Then my in-laws will say they want to take me to a place. If I say no, they will say they said it, that they were told I have six children in the river. That I will never have children again. One thing that baffles me is that they were so confident that a white garment pastor predicted that I will not have a baby, because I have 12 children in the river and that is final.
When they saw me pregnant, they said I’d gone abroad to take an injection that enlarges the stomach. Because my in-laws sort of believe that I am exposed. When I was pregnant with Precious, my first child, most people didn’t believe I was pregnant. When I put to bed, somebody who is close to me, I don’t want to mention his name, asked my husband whether he actually went into the labour room with me. Whether he actually saw the baby coming out. It was like it is not her baby. It was like I bought the baby. People went all about saying what they liked but I am happy because I know that finally it came. I am so happy.
Pregnancy
I was taking the fertility boosting herb for a month, then the second month I took in. and when I took in, I knew it, because it was like everything that will happen to me then will come in a very forceful way. Like if my period is coming, for instance next week, it will start giving me sign from this week. It is like when your body is just working at its optimum. You can predict things before they happen. The time the egg was released, I knew it. I had a very sharp pain, that I couldn’t stand straight for up to three hours. The pain was just there. I told my husband it was like an ovulation. He said maybe I am a soothsayer too.
When I became pregnant, my husband was very happy. Very, very happy. He bought me my first car. That was a Toyota Starlet. I hadn’t put to bed, I was just pregnant, that was the second month, he bought me a car. I was just so happy. Though at the beginning, I was afraid, I love to be frank with you. I will look at my tummy, touch it and say it is two months and it is not showing. I will stand in front of the mirror and be looking at myself. When will it start showing? It continued. The third, the fourth month, it started showing a little, the fifth month it was obvious. Everybody knew I was pregnant. I was the happiest woman on earth.
In-laws again
My in-laws didn’t believe I was pregnant. They said I was fooling my husband because he is such a busy man. When it was like the fifth month, when it became obvious that I was pregnant, that was when I started hearing the story that I took an injection that blew up my tummy, so that at the end of the nineth month, I will go and steal a baby and say I have put to bed. My husband was with me all through in the labour room. He will take my hand and touch the baby and say push, push harder, the baby is coming, the head is out, a little push and it will be over. He was with me all through. Even the second baby, he was with me all through. People were trying to get over the first shock, the second one came. I had my first baby on October 21, 2000. then October 29, 2002, I had Chioma.
The second one wasn’t like the first one. I was happy, very happy. People were not as skeptical as they were during the first one. Are you sure it is her baby? Are you sure she is pregnant? Do you know I will go for this village meeting when I was pregnant with my first baby, somebody I know very well will come and touch my tummy to know whether it is foam I put there or actually a baby. It was that bad.
Mother and grandmother
My grandmother was very, very happy too. She said I am the only one that disobeyed the call and got away with it. You know what my mother told me? My said I am fooling myself. That if I don’t practice our people’s traditional medicine, and I go to Hong Kong, China and learn Chinese medicine, and carry Chinese herbs and come to Nigeria, and treat people with herb, that I am still a herbalist. That I am still obeying the call whether I like it or not. As far as my mother is concerned I am still answering the call. Instead of wearing rags, I am wearing a coat. Instead of treating patients in a shrine, killing goat and ram, and chanting incantations, I am sitting in an executive chair, in a well furnished office in Lagos. And I am still dispensing herbs. What am I ? I am still a herbalist. So to my mother, a herbalist can wear rags or animal skin, or a herbalist can wear coat. It is as simple as that.
Children
Yes, I will like my children to answer the call like I did in their own way. If somebody had forced me to come back to the village and practice traditional medicine, I would never have been happy. Nothing would have made me happy. But as I am here now, somebody can call me from Ghana, and say Dr. Sandra, somebody gave me your number, this is my problem. They don’t even need to come to Nigeria. I will send it via courier. The next day, they will receive it or the next two days depending on the courier I use.
Today, I combine what I learnt from my mother, grandmother, Chinese medicine, then books. I read books a lot to practice. I can go to the internet, there could be this new German herb that clears the eyesight. And we don’t have it here. What do I do? I will log on. Transact the business with them, send them the money, they will send me the herb. I don’t even need to go to Germany to know what they have or to use what they have.
CULLED FROM DAILY SUN, NOVEMBER 3 2003
Dr. Sandra Ekwunife, Managing Director and Chief Consultant of Perfect Slimmers Ltd, Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos was childless and overweight for almost seven years after her marriage to Barrister Ekwunife as a Part Two student of University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
The search for a baby made her try almost anything possible. She tried the medical line, the herbal line and even the spiritual way. No solution came. Her problem actually was blocked fallopian tubes because of too much fat.
She went to Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), three times for tubal flushing. But the tubes remained blocked. Operation was ruled out, because of the type of skin she has which grows keloids easily when cut. So, if the tubes are operated upon to remove the fat, keloids might develop from the stitches and gum the tubes together, which might lead to worse complications.
Anambra-born Dr. Ekwunife was formerly into fashion business and had a boutique at Alade Market, off Allen Avenue, Ikeja, a business that regularly took her to places like Hong Kong about three times a year, especially when festive seasons are approaching. It was during one of such trips that she was introduced to a Chinese herbal institution that runs departments for slimming, infertility, beauty, skin therapy and so on.
Initially, she registered with the outfit to shed weight. Though childless then, she weighed 105 kg. She was placed on herbal slimming, and in one week, she lost 7kg. Progressively, she kept losing weight until she was okay. In the process, she also registered with the fertility department, and in three weeks, her blocked tubes were open and free through the therapy she was placed on. She passed out all the fat blocking her tubes. Today, she is a mother of two and the third one is on the way.
But in-between the time she got married and the time she took in for the first time after seven years, is a gripping story which only Dr. Ekwunife herself can tell:
Marriage
I got married December 15, 1993. I was still in school then, at University of Nigeria, Nsukka. And after the wedding. And after the wedding , I started the normal family life. And the realities started coming. Childlessness, when after a year, two, three and no child came, the problem started. There was pressure from both families, friends and in-laws, everybody wanted to know what was wrong. Some people really cared. Others were just being mischievous. It was like a mixed reaction from here and there. And then it hit us, because I and my husband were not expecting that. Usually when you are getting married, you want to settle down and start having babies. But some of the time, it doesn’t work out that way. I suffered childlessness for nearly seven years. It was in the sixth going to the seventh year, that I actually took in. I took in in February, 2000.
The search for a baby.
When you fail to conceive, you may go through all the tests and they say no problem. You find that sometimes, people stay childless for three, four or five years and don’t have any obvious problem. Or maybe they failed to find out what the problem is. So you don’t sit in a place, waiting for a miracle to happen. Or maybe you sit at one place, waiting for the miracle and the miracle refuses to come. You’ll be moving from pillar to post, trying all sorts of things. Anything they tell you to do to have a baby, you’ll do it. And I’ve done a lot of things that I wouldn’t want to tell you. Most of them are unspeakable. But you go through them because you have people who pass through such and they have a testimony. They have a bundle of joy, they are showing you. So it’s like wherever you are, some people are always ready to offer some help. Whether good, not too good or bad, you’ll be tempted to go into it, because you want a child.
Criticism
Where I really faced the criticism is where people who know me, who know my background, happen to come in contact with me, and they know my present condition. Because my mother is into herbal medicine, people go to see her at Enugu-Ukwu in Anambra state from as far as Jos, Kano, Maiduguri, just name it. So it’s like she can do it for other people, but she can’t do it for herself. When the problem started, my mother was telling me, why not stay at Enugu-Ukwu for three months and take herbs. Because there are some you have to drink, there are some you have to use to have your bath and they will even soak you with the herb, from your waist down. They do all that.
My mother tried to convince me and told me to temporarily give up the ambition of finding a job, stay at Enugu-Ukwu for three months, solve my problem and then I can come back to Lagos.
Local herbs
But there is something about these native herbs, unlike the oriental or Chinese herbs that come in varieties and very tasty, wine like flavours. There are some native herbs that if you smell them alone, you’ll keep vomiting. There is one, if you open the pot, everybody around will start sneezing. They are so raw that only the strongest of really determined people can take some and stomach them. Because when you take something and your body does not retain it, then it can’t work. There are people like that. So the medicinal part of it bothered me.
Spiritualism
And you know, in the villages, natural medicine goes hand in hand with spiritualism. There are things you will take, and you don’t speak to anyone. There are things you take and nobody should touch you. The belief is that, if you fail any of the rules for any particular one, the healing power will go.
In my own case, my grandmother told me that when she got married, her mother was into herbal medicine. That she didn’t want to do it when her mother died. Then, she was a business woman and quite comfortable with the rice business she was doing, shuttling between Abakaliki and Enugu-Ukwu. So she really didn’t want to go into herbal medicine, that it was a problem that pushed her into it. Her mother told her that if the work is calling you and you refuse to do it, nothing else you do will succeed. That you won’t succeed in any other thing apart from that work. So, it is better for you to obey at first, than when you have to be dragged into it. It really scared me. She told me that the work is calling me. That I may never have children unless it I go into it. But I told myself that I will never give in without a fight. In fact, that I will never give in at all. Because I dreaded the idea of settling in the village, doing nothing else but alternative medicine.
Initial Experience
I was not into alternative medicine then. I didn’t know anything. The only thing I knew about herbs then was what I learned from my mother and from my grandmother. Like somebody who just put to bed and normally, the breast milk should start flowing the same day. But the breast may be dry for three months. Somebody like that, there are herbs you will get and use to wash the breast. The next morning, the milk will start flowing. It is as simple as that. All these everyday problems, that’s what I learnt from my grandmother. With the little I knew when I attended breakthrough seminars or even from my neighbourhood, women who don’t even know my background, will just, out of intuition, approach me with problems concerning their children, like convulsion and I will tell them what to do from how I had seen it treated way back in the village. And when they do it, the problem will go.
Realities
It is very hard to practice herbal medicine in the village, with all the rigour of harvesting roots and herbs from the bush, sometimes in the dry season when the soil is hard. I did it for my mother and grandmother. Sometimes, I would use digger to dig out the roots and my palms will peel in the process. When you get to the end of it all, you will not charge money, they are supposed to give you what they like or else, the medicine will not work. So, it is like slavery if you ask me. For somebody who has an ambition, I don’t think it is viable. That’s why you get to the village and they some people’s medicine is working, they’ve not spoilt it with money. That some use money to spoil their work. And they believe in it a lot and I think for some reasons I don’t know or I can’t really explain, it works for them that way. When I sit down and think of all that, I said that I can’t give in without a fight. In fact, I won’t give in at all. That means I will leave my husband, leave Lagos for the village to practice herbal medicine. From the village, I came to Lagos. Then I would leave everything in Lagos and right back to the village where I was coming from. It was difficult for me, so I refused. Though I later learnt the hard way.
Counseling
In fact, every pastor I saw prayed for me about it. They say it is familiar spirit. Some say it is a covenant. Every pastor and anybody that sat me down for counseling, I used to tell them what I think this is my problem. All I want to do it break away from this lineage. That I simply do not want to do anything that has to do with herbal medicine. I am an Anglican married to a Catholic. I attended Catholic Charismatic meetings; I was really digging deep into Christianity. It was the reverend father that called me and told me that alternative medicine is not demonic, that what is demonic is the practice that people attach to it.
That if you get bitterleaf, wash it and drink the water, that it will help cleanse your system, suppress diabetes, open your arteries and veins, so that you don’t have arteriosclerosis. But when you get that bitterleaf, you jump up seven times, you climb a special mountain and offer sacrifices and ask something to help you heal with bitterleaf, it is all those practices that make traditional medicine fetish. But there is nothing fetish about it if practiced without such things. So, instead of letting that knowledge die, I would rather be coming to the clinic at St. Leo’s Parish Ikeja to share my experience with the reverend sisters there. Maybe one day, I will get a breakthrough. For, there is nothing wrong with the knowledge. That if I like, I can go back to the village to learn everything there is to learn, and then come back to Lagos. That I don’t need to carry a shrine with me back to Lagos, or dress up in rags, or wear only white for my medicine to work. He was trying to encourage me and he really got me there.
Boutique
I was running a boutique then, off Allen Avenue, at Alade Market and the boutique was okay. I went for this organized trip to Hong Kong with three friends, one of them is called Toyin. Four of us shared one hotel room. One thing about organized trips is that at the end of the day, you will get about 40 percent discount on what you would have spent if you went alone because you will share a lot of things with others and also, you tend to make better purchases on organized trips.
While we were in Hong Kong, Toyin registered in a health farm and later introduced me to the health farm. The first day I got to the health farm, I discovered it was a big place, just like a golf course. And there were a lot of people, both whites and blacks.
After some time, Toyin said I should start laughing. I asked what for? She said it is Laughing Yoga. It is part of the game. That it is the time for laughing Yoga. I told her I will not laugh without a cause. People just kept laughing without saying what was funny. Nobody said anything. Some fell on the floor rolling and just laughing. By merely looking at their faces and the demonstrations, I lost control, and joined them. We laughed. After the laughing session, we went home.
But before we went home, there was a yellow card that was going round. Toyin said if I fill the form and mention her name as the person who introduced me, they will give her a 10 per cent discount in whatever she wants to do, because she is already a member. I filled the form and put her name. then I was weighing 105 kg. I was barely managing to carry myself when she introduced me to the place.
Chinese woman
The Chinese woman we met there for the slimming took a look at me and said I was so dirty. She spoke through an interpreter. I said to myself, did I come all the way from Nigeria to this place to be insulted or what? When she looked at my face, she asked for another interpreter. That came and said I was so clogged up. I said that’s better. They placed me on the weight loss thing. They have various departments that handle various problems. They have a department for infertility treatment, another department for dermatology, anything that has to do with the skin, another for hair, people who are going bald, people whose hair are cutting, people who have burns on the scalp. It is like a very big institution. They have a herbal home, a slimming house, a beauty home, a fertility clinic. They do it all.
Blocked tubes
The woman examined me internally; at the end of the examination, she said my tubes were blocked. My doctor had earlier found it out. He said it was tumour. We went to LUTH and we did flushing three times, three sessions and it was very painful. After each flushing, I went for a scan, it was still the same, except for the third flushing, where there was a little improvement.
I would have undergone an operation then, but the doctor at LUTH said that I have the type of skin that develops keloids, it will be of no use. I told the doctor that if anything happens to me, keloid will grow. That was why I did not undergo any operation. Because they told me that if they have to operate the fallopian tube to clear them, there is a tendency that keloid would grow and it will just gum them together. Then there will be no hope at all. But if it doesn’t, then I might be okay. And the success rate was about 25 percent when you don’t develop keloid. Then zero when I do. So we just gave up on that. And my husband was worried. In fact, everybody.
I was just imagining all this problem, why me? My grandmother had eight children, my mother had eleven. Why can’t I have just one? Why? All my sisters, immediately they have three, four, five kids. They go for family planning to prevent pregnancy. So why can’t I have just one.
Ordeal
Sometimes I will cry and cry and ask God why? Sometimes I will just give up and say even the child, I don’t want again, let me just be myself. But you can’t help it. There are people around you. You have in-laws, you have a husband to care for. At a point, it was as if I was only trying to have a baby for my husband and not for myself, either. Because I totally gave up. I said if this has to do with me alone, then I will forget about it. What’s the heck about having a baby anyway? You know when you are having a lot of problems, you have to justify your situation, so that at least you can balance your sanity.
Hope
After the first day on the herb they gave me at the centre, I went back to my hotel. I stooled and stooled, the stooling was just so much. I asked Toyin, is this normal? Toyin said yes, that it happened to her the first time she took the herb. That what will happen is that when I take the herb again in two days time, because you don’t take the herb everyday, the stooling will reduce, that I was probably passing out all these because my body was like changing. The herb had started working already, cleansing my system, after that it will start melting the fat.
The next morning, I stood on the scale, I had lost 2kg. I said this is impossible. Because I have registered in almost every slimming home in Lagos. Just ask for Sandra, they know me. Why they know me is because when you have a client that just doesn’t lose weight. You know them because they keep complaining and complaining. They will be wondering what is wrong with me.
There will be times I won’t eat at all for three days, I will be drinking water. You know what will happen? My body will retain all the water I drank. I will not pass ordinary urine for those three days. Then the problem I will face will become water retention. I would find out that instead of losing weight because I am not eating, I was adding more.
So when I started losing weight daily and progressively, everyday they gave me a restricted diet. This, they do depending on your health and your kind of person. Like what they give menis different from what they give women. Because men burn their food faster than women, that’s why a lot of men actually over-eat, but they carry themselves well because it appears their system works twice faster than that of women. So I kept on using the herbs, losing weight. In the first week, I lost about 7kg.
Later, they told me that instead of taking one capsule every two days, that I should be taking one capsule every three days. That I have to slow it down, so that it will not affect my superficial fat, that is, all these fat that is part of the skin. So that I won’t look haggard, or bony or skinny. I kept to the diet programme because it doesn’t make sense when you are losing weight, you are again eating food that will make you add weight.
I kept up with physical activities. Like in the morning, after I’ve lost all that weight, I will jog. Before that time, I could not dance. I started with walking. Before I knew it, I was jogging. After two weeks, I was actually going down.
Baby
I told my friend Toyin about the weight loss. She started asking me why don’t I want to have a baby? She said Igbo people are fond of making money. That they want to have all the money in the world before they start having babies. I told her I have a problem and it is blocked tubes. She said that two tubes cannot be blocked at a time. I told her unfortunately mine are. What do I do? She said that’s what I should be talking about, not losing weight.
So we went back to meet the woman at the centre. She examined my lower parts and said my tubes are blocked, condensed fat. That there are herbs she will give me and it will clear whatever is blocking the tubes in three months. But if I would let her, that she will remove it all and open my tubes in three hours. But she said it is going to be manual, no anaesthesia, nothing. I was afraid. People who had gone through it before and those who had seen it done, said I won’t feel pain. I said no, I’m afraid, I would rather go three months than this instant thing. Toyin tried to persuade me.
Herbal soaking
They told me they will give me herb that could do that,but I would come for a herbal soaking and massage for three consecutive days. What the soaking and massage will do is to soften the fat. When it softens the fat, if I take the herbs, I will pass it out faster than I would have done, if I use only the herbs. Those three days of herbal soaking, I was red throughout. The thing is as if you are sitting in a pan of hot water, but it was worth it. The massage from the old women was another thing. I saw them as weak old women, but when they touched me, it was like the strength of seven men put together.
After about three days, I started taking the herbs. Then gradually, I started passing out all those blockages. It was coming out like menstruation. It started coming out blackish, then it turned red, to blood red, to brown. Then it turned light brown, then yellowish in colour. Then it started looking like pure fat. Just like melted cow fat. It started looking pure yellow, then water. Then happened for about three weeks.
Free
One day,they said I should go for another scan. I did and my tubes were just free. No blockage, nothing, just normal. This is a treatment that was supposed to last for 12 weeks or three months. It happened that in three weeks, my tubes were clear. They said I should get fertility herbs that will boost fertility generally. I started drinking a mixture of herbs in the form of herbal tea. When I came back to Nigeria, I was slimmer. I had lost 14 kg or more. People who knew me were asking what was happening to me. I was slimmer and I was free!
They have programmes that they run for students. They have a satellite campus in Togo. If you can’t go to Hong Kong to sit for exams, if you are running the programme, you can go to Togo and sit for the exam. It is a three month programme. People from a lot of places, just name it, South Africa, Zimbabwe, even Ghana, were running the programme. It is like an international thing. They offer 10 to 12 courses. What I specialized in was infertility. Infertility because I wanted to get to the root of my problem. I wanted to get a short-cut into the cure. I told them I wanted to enroll and I enrolled in the school and started the courses. I did it to let me see whether I will get some information from there that will help me solve my problem.
Menstruation
There was a period I didn’t menstruate at all. My menstrual cycle was coming in batches. When I start taking things, I will start menstruating again. Not regularly. Maybe if I see this month, another onewill come in the next three or four months. Then another one will be the next six months. But there was a time I didn’t see my menstrual cycle at all for a year and eight months at a stretch, that is 20 months at a stretch. It was terrible. I will see a doctor and the doctor will say I will give you the tablet that will induce menstruation. I will take it all, nothing will happen. They will write injection for me, I will take them and nothing will happen. We continued like that, off and on. I will try the medical line, I will try the herbal line, I will go the spiritual way.
I will fast and fast. It became such that my neighbours thought I was a pastor. If they don’t hear my voice praying and singing, they will think I traveled to Hong Kong, or to the village or somewhere. Or maybe for some reasons, I just decided not to pray. When they see me, they will say pastor, it’s like you are not around, we didn’t hear your voice? Did you travel? My neigbours thought I was a pastor. But I wasn’t. I was just praying. It is like when you are praying for the peace of the world.
False prophets
They told me to tie some money in nylon bag and throw it inside the river. Meanwhile, somebody will be there waiting to pick it up. They said I should kill a spotless ram. A lot of things. They sort of manage you like a customer. When you stop coming, they start calling your number. They told me I should not eat palm oil for three months. They told me that I was going to have a dream were somebody is chasing me. That once I have that dream, I should wake up. That immediately I wake up, I should use a bundle of N500 notes to clean all my body. That it must be N50,000. that anyone I use to clean my body, I shouldn’t touch it again. I should throw it into a bag, at the end of it all, I should take it to the pastor to burn it. Then all my problems will disappear. A lot of things. I didn’t follow them to the river to bathe me because I was scared, because they said I was from the river.
Then my in-laws will say they want to take me to a place. If I say no, they will say they said it, that they were told I have six children in the river. That I will never have children again. One thing that baffles me is that they were so confident that a white garment pastor predicted that I will not have a baby, because I have 12 children in the river and that is final.
When they saw me pregnant, they said I’d gone abroad to take an injection that enlarges the stomach. Because my in-laws sort of believe that I am exposed. When I was pregnant with Precious, my first child, most people didn’t believe I was pregnant. When I put to bed, somebody who is close to me, I don’t want to mention his name, asked my husband whether he actually went into the labour room with me. Whether he actually saw the baby coming out. It was like it is not her baby. It was like I bought the baby. People went all about saying what they liked but I am happy because I know that finally it came. I am so happy.
Pregnancy
I was taking the fertility boosting herb for a month, then the second month I took in. and when I took in, I knew it, because it was like everything that will happen to me then will come in a very forceful way. Like if my period is coming, for instance next week, it will start giving me sign from this week. It is like when your body is just working at its optimum. You can predict things before they happen. The time the egg was released, I knew it. I had a very sharp pain, that I couldn’t stand straight for up to three hours. The pain was just there. I told my husband it was like an ovulation. He said maybe I am a soothsayer too.
When I became pregnant, my husband was very happy. Very, very happy. He bought me my first car. That was a Toyota Starlet. I hadn’t put to bed, I was just pregnant, that was the second month, he bought me a car. I was just so happy. Though at the beginning, I was afraid, I love to be frank with you. I will look at my tummy, touch it and say it is two months and it is not showing. I will stand in front of the mirror and be looking at myself. When will it start showing? It continued. The third, the fourth month, it started showing a little, the fifth month it was obvious. Everybody knew I was pregnant. I was the happiest woman on earth.
In-laws again
My in-laws didn’t believe I was pregnant. They said I was fooling my husband because he is such a busy man. When it was like the fifth month, when it became obvious that I was pregnant, that was when I started hearing the story that I took an injection that blew up my tummy, so that at the end of the nineth month, I will go and steal a baby and say I have put to bed. My husband was with me all through in the labour room. He will take my hand and touch the baby and say push, push harder, the baby is coming, the head is out, a little push and it will be over. He was with me all through. Even the second baby, he was with me all through. People were trying to get over the first shock, the second one came. I had my first baby on October 21, 2000. then October 29, 2002, I had Chioma.
The second one wasn’t like the first one. I was happy, very happy. People were not as skeptical as they were during the first one. Are you sure it is her baby? Are you sure she is pregnant? Do you know I will go for this village meeting when I was pregnant with my first baby, somebody I know very well will come and touch my tummy to know whether it is foam I put there or actually a baby. It was that bad.
Mother and grandmother
My grandmother was very, very happy too. She said I am the only one that disobeyed the call and got away with it. You know what my mother told me? My said I am fooling myself. That if I don’t practice our people’s traditional medicine, and I go to Hong Kong, China and learn Chinese medicine, and carry Chinese herbs and come to Nigeria, and treat people with herb, that I am still a herbalist. That I am still obeying the call whether I like it or not. As far as my mother is concerned I am still answering the call. Instead of wearing rags, I am wearing a coat. Instead of treating patients in a shrine, killing goat and ram, and chanting incantations, I am sitting in an executive chair, in a well furnished office in Lagos. And I am still dispensing herbs. What am I ? I am still a herbalist. So to my mother, a herbalist can wear rags or animal skin, or a herbalist can wear coat. It is as simple as that.
Children
Yes, I will like my children to answer the call like I did in their own way. If somebody had forced me to come back to the village and practice traditional medicine, I would never have been happy. Nothing would have made me happy. But as I am here now, somebody can call me from Ghana, and say Dr. Sandra, somebody gave me your number, this is my problem. They don’t even need to come to Nigeria. I will send it via courier. The next day, they will receive it or the next two days depending on the courier I use.
Today, I combine what I learnt from my mother, grandmother, Chinese medicine, then books. I read books a lot to practice. I can go to the internet, there could be this new German herb that clears the eyesight. And we don’t have it here. What do I do? I will log on. Transact the business with them, send them the money, they will send me the herb. I don’t even need to go to Germany to know what they have or to use what they have.
CULLED FROM DAILY SUN, NOVEMBER 3 2003
THE PROBLEM OF INFERTILITY CUTS ACROSS ALL NATIONS AND RACES. THE FOLLOWING IS A STORY THAT WILL ALSO ENCOURAGE YOU. CLICK BELOW TO READ:
http://www.prayerbabies.blogspot.com
HOW TO SELECT BABY'S SEX
How to select baby’s sex – By Dr Sandra: For those who tried sex selection through charting and were disappointed, herbal remedy through skillful manipulation of the acid-base content of a woman’s body is offering a new hope.Dr Sandra Ekwunife, chief consultant, Perfect Herbals Ltd, Ikeja, Lagos, says that if a women’s system was predominantly acidic, she would have only baby girls while the alkaline extreme produces baby boys.
She revealed that for a 50-50 chance of either a baby boy or girl to be the case, a woman’s acid-base balance has to be neutral.The ebullient alternative medicine practitioner and now a mother of five, who is a living witness of the technique, had a predominantly acidic medium that made her have three girls consecutively.
Changing her predominant acidic medium to alkaline, she had a set of twins in February, all boys.According to her, "sex selection is very possible. Scientists have done so many researches on it. It works. But it doesn’t work for everybody. I am an example, I had three girls consecutively. It was not as if I didn’t desire a boy, I did. If there was anybody who should desire a boy, it was I, because in the place I come from, if you have even 10 girls and you don’t have a boy, that home is not fully yours. Any woman may just come in and have a boy for your husband and that will be his heir.""So, I needed a boy, but I never had them.
I went through anything you can imagine. From mating on ovulation to anything you can think of. They said I should time ovulation, I did; Make an hour before ovulation day I did. Mate an hour after ovulation, I did. Mate six hours after ovulation, I did. But it didn’t work. It worked for some people though. It works for some, it doesn’t work for some."But today we have a sure remedy for sex selection.
It comes in the form of herbal medication, which will change the system. When the PH level in the human body is balanced, you can either have a boy or a girl. But when the body tends to be too acidic or too alkaline, the woman will have more boys or more girls. You will find a situation where a woman will have boys all through or girls all through, despite all the efforts she is making to time ovulation, and it will continue that way until you change her system."Even olden days herbalists know about it and used the knowledge to get heirs for kings. Sex selection has been there in our traditional society, just that we overlooked it.
"There is another theory that says that having boys all through or girls all through could be as a result of a man having predominantly X-chromosome that form girls or predominantly the Y-chromosome that form boys. But there is no man that do not have Y-chromosome. So, a lot of attention is put on the woman, but when the woman’s PH level is changed, she gets the sex of baby she wants. But for you to get that result, the man also must be examined and treated if possible. The man can have low sperm count or no sperm at all, what is referred to as axospermia.""So, what we do is that we run a test for the woman as well as the man. If the man’s sperm count is low, we treat it, if it is normal, we boost it in cases like this to make the man above average.
If the sperm count is high, it is to the advantage of the couple because it will make them have more boys. When the sperm is high, you have more boys, when it is low, you have more girls."The normal or average sperm count is 60 million sperm cells. We need as much as that for conception because the vagina kills some sperm cells even before the race begin. The vagina acid can massacre over half of the sperm. So, we need the quantity that will swim up, that will make it through the cervix. Some will still go up the wrong tube, at the end of it all, you have little sperm cells that make the race. So, we need an average of 60 million sperm cells for guaranteed conception, no story."As we are looking at the man, we are also looking at the woman. Because the egg must be there, they must be very healthy, they must be very fertile.
If the woman’s system is too acidic; it kills a lot of sperm, especially the Y-chromosome sperm cells that bring the male child. Because the Y-chromosome is smaller and more miniature then the X-chromosome. The killing of the Y-chromosomes reduces the quantity of it and makes the woman to have a girl. So, the acidic medium kills and weakens the Y-chromosomal cells making the X-chromosome to over-take, to bring about a baby girl.""But the first and major thing the woman needs do, is to check out the system, whether it is alkaline or acidic.
Women who are acidic look for boys because they keep having girls, while women who are alkaline keep having boys and look for girls. You will see a woman who is having the seventh child just to have a girl, and unless she changes her system from alkaline to acidic, she will still have a boy. We can do that easily in my clinic, it doesn’t take time, within a month or six weeks utmost, we change the woman’s system."If the system is acidic, the women will be having girls all through, we change the system and make it more alkaline.
Another thing is that once the system is changed, the woman will keep having the same sex of babies until you turn it to normal. For instance, if a woman is having girls all through and you change the system, through the herbs she is taking, to alkaline, she will start having boys all through. If she desires a girl, she will not have a girl again until she changes the system to be acidic medium. When the system becomes balanced, which will happen over the years, she will then have either a boy or a girl."Most people naturally have a balanced body, neither too alkaline nor too acidic.When it happens that way, the woman will give birth to either a boy or a girl. It will be a 50-50 chance.
"So, for sex selection, mating on the 15th or 16th day of ovulation may work, but not for everybody. When the body is in the normal PH level, which is 7, it is okay, it can happen, but when it is not like that, it is not possible, you can’t achieve it."
