Infertility does not impact being fertile

At peace with it

One of the side effects of this radical radiotherapy is infertility, she said, in our conversation about what to expect after treatment.

I had made peace with not having children long before chemotherapy zapped the reproductive capacity of spermatozoa 15 years ago. Until that saying about planting trees which suggests the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the next best time to do that is now, for me, there is a limit to which bearing children should be discounted.

At ease with myself

My father was potty training my half-brother at 69 when I at 43 had made peace with the idea that I was 13 years beyond the time I would have found it a worthwhile experience to have children. I never even tried.

It was an advertisement on television that helped me settle this matter. A career woman talked of how she continued her education when her peers got married and raised families, and now, having achieved everything, she realised as the children of her old schoolmates were leaving university, she was just on ‘Incy, wincy spider,’ with her own child.

There was no point looking for that parenting boat, not only had it sailed away, it had docked at too many ports for me to swim out to sea to board it, I had better concentrate on being an uncle where I am allowed to be that to nieces and nephews.

Besides, my half-brothers could easily have been my sons, my father likely thought it was his responsibility apart from my brother to keep the name alive for posterity. You can never be too sure of the motivations for these things.

At these with life

Infertility is not an issue, and it happened because of a life-saving medical intervention. Indeed, people might be more concerned about sexual facility and function for pleasure than for reproductive purposes. The African man in me does not have a predilection for progeny.

In early 1990, I walked past the Cathedral Church of Christ in Lagos where a funeral had brought the most influential people in society to celebrate the life of a lady who had died childless, aged 93. What it brought to light was an inalienable fact, both the one with children and childless will be buried by children, who might not be yours. There is comfort in having lived a good life.

Infertility is not a disability that it becomes a state of mind, the world offers amazing ways to be fertile with imagination, ideas, insights, and inspiration to be just as impactful with the implements of our humanity.