ANCEDRAM Ogun chairman, Soretire celebrates son’s birthday, narrates ordeal before having a child

By Oluwafemi Dosu

The Ogun State ANCEDRAM chairman, Pastor Abiodun Soretire is celebrating his son Inioluwanimi’s 6th birthday today June 26.

In an article obtained by Gospel Film News, Soretire narrates his ordeal before having a child and how long it took him and his wife, Asake to wait upon the Lord.

The article is entitled: “BABY COMETH! Doctor Condemned Us to IVF; We Condemned Ourselves to God.”

Read below what he has to say:

“I was 29. She was 28. We were both virgins on our wedding night. Equipped with tornadoes of blessings at our wedding, we strolled towards the easy-looking journey of making baby.

“Months piled and it seemed it was not as easy as it seemed. Asake mi shed blood every month without let. A mountain is gradually rearing out of an anthill. Her mood got corrupted and worsened by the day. We didn’t bargain for this, Lord. Though she confessed she had feared this most. Like Job, the thing she feared has dawned on us. In a year’s time, we became hospital definition of infertility. No, babies weren’t coming at all. Miscarriages would have been a better deal – at least our joy would have gone up some scales. This is no carriage at all.

“I knew her to be in the choir before our union but I put her in the children department instead, from the outset of our union in our new church. That helped a bit. More so, one of the church sisters submitted her two sons to easily associate with Asake mi. In fact, the people in our neighbourhood took them for her children. But, what is yours is yours, which makes the dunghill to gladly hug the rag. We were not counting in months again but in years.

“But, we were led to each other through prayer. And having been put in a courtship that traversed my church scrutiny, her church scrutiny and her mother’s church scrutiny, we related six unblemished years before going down the aisle. What is our fault? Where did we go wrong? Asake mi was becoming an emotional wreck and she often took it out on those who came to live with us from time to time.

“Medically, we tried. My sister recommended a gynaecologist in the township where she lived. That is a hundred kilometre from us. We had no option. Many sessions followed and I was brought into the picture. My semen analysis needed to be done. And that seemed to be it.

“It was suboptimal and subsequent results showed it was even depreciating the more. I was placed on a drug to boost it while we were placed on sex timetable that would create enough space between each session and that would cumulatively come up in her most productive period of the month. I never appreciated the permutation and combination I did in my secondary school maths until then. Some times we were not feeling like it, but we must force it because we were now trying to make baby, not love. Observance followed observance but it all went flat just like the machete will always land on its flat side even if you throw it up a thousand times. After a while, our patronage waned till it grinded to a halt.

“But people around us would not let us be. My wife’s boss got so much concerned and coughed out a hundred thousand naira for us to visit one of the best fertility specialists in Lagos. The money ‘entered’ my eyes but how can somebody love you and you can’t even manage to feign that you love yourself. We played along and went to the infertility clinic in one of the highbrow areas of Lagos. All the money was the consultation fee.

“N100,000 just like that, in 2011! It is well o.

“They ran some tests on us and after that it was face-to-face with the medical director. He analytically broke the good news of our results to us. My sperm count was so low and male hormones in my wife so high that if we ever hoped to have children in our life, it must be through IVF.

“IVF is in-vitro fertilisation. Let me explain using my elementary knowledge of college biology. When the male sperm fertilises the female egg inside the body of the woman, that is in-vivo fertilisation. And that is the normal course of nature for humans being a mammal. Since, we have been declared incapable of achieving that, they will have to take my wife’s egg and my sperm outside our body and fertilise them in the laboratory. And when the tiny baby has started growing, they will send it back to Asake mi’s womb to complete the process therein. See medical wonder.

“Stories over, now let’s get down to business. How much?

“N500,000 only.

“So, I have only heard ‘kesekese’ of N100,000 and I was ranting and raving. Now see ‘kasakasa’, ‘kesekese’s bullying father. Hold on! More is still to come. Indeed what is behind six is more than seven.

” N500,000 is only for one shot. You will need two shots to boost your chance of success.

“N500,000 × 2 = N1,000,000. Jesus of Nazareth!

“This is a million-naira baby! Not when my N35,000 monthly salary in my private employment has been fixed in formalin for the last five years. Wait! It seemed the lips of the doctor was still moving:

“The success rate is 50/50.”

“What! After a million naira. “Ile-ya, odun Imale,” (It’s time to go home) I told my wife, like Abraham would have told Isaac when Moriah show was over.

“We got home and the atmosphere changed. All emotional agitation of Asake mi stopped. My spiritual undulation around God’s firm promise of a baby boy to me stopped. We jettisoned all medical permutation and medication. We even ignored the mounting messages and calls from the fertility centre’s marketer attached to us reminding us to come and do the IVF like plague.

“We chose to hit the restore-to-default button of our spiritual settings and it worked like magic. Asake mi and I began living and loving like the companions God has made us to be. We were enjoying our lives – strong communion with God and with each other. Two more years passed. The two halves are now equal. Six years before marriage we courted and six years after marriage we waited.

“Then it happened.

“One fateful day in September, it dawned on us that Asake mi had been about eight days up. No single drop of blood in her pants. I was a medical laboratory scientist. I brought the test strip home the following day. I collected her blood and allowed it to settle in the sample bottle. I didn’t have the luxury of time to wait for detection through early morning urine. I dipped the strip in the supernatant plasma. And we waited with bated breath. This was not our first time. Menstrual delays had varied between five to even ten days in the past only for our tests to end in one line and the menses to turbulently come many days after. Will this be another one line? All our attention was on it.

“Oh my God, two lines for the first time in history!

“Asake mi is pregnant. No sperm-boosting drug, no IVF. Asake is pregnant.

“I have a Father that will never never fail me
I have a Father that will never never fail me
Jesus is my Father, he will never never fail me
Rock of ages never never fail

“We couldn’t contain our joy as we hugged, sang, laughed, danced and thanked God. It was a night to remember. And God is good. He kept the pregnancy till it came to full term and at exactly 10 months, a bouncing baby boy was born unto us.

“And what other name could we give him. We named him IniOluwanimi – God’s property!

“THOUGH IT TARRY, WAIT FOR IT; FOR IT WILL SURELY COME. AT THE END, IT SHALL SPEAK!”

Gospel Film News also wish Inioluwanimi a happy birthday and prayed he will grow in spirit, wisdom and stature.