Ituah Ighodalo, senior pastor, Trinity House and the chairman, Ibidunni Ighodalo Foundation (IIF) recently spoke with SEYI JOHN SALAU, on the foundation’s 2021 edition of Parent-in-Waiting Conference, which is aimed at creating awareness on the rising cases of infertility and the place of faith in the entire fertility management value chain. Excerpts:
Earlier in your speech you made mention of ‘we will pray for them’ about four times: So, where is the place of faith in all of this?
Faith is very important because at the end of the day it is only God that makes sure all these things happen. We can try our best, we can do all the medical things needed; sometimes doctors will tell you we don’t even know why there is infertility in the first place because all the parameters look ok. Others will say we’ve done all that we can and we don’t know what else to do. Sometimes people get pregnant and the pregnancy doesn’t stay for one thing or the other. So, that is where the hand of God really is, and comes in.
And then, sometimes, the state of mind of people also affects the way their body receives or carry things. Those who have faith; those who have hope; those who are expectant, those who think that God is going to do something usually do very well. I was reading somewhere recently about a doctor who was looking after some cancer patients and then he said that most of the time when he talks to his cancer patients he knows the one that will go into remission and the one that will not. He says the one that goes into remission are the ones who usually say – when he ask them the question, would you like to live for another 100 years and they say yes; we want to live another 100 years: then he gets the rough idea that those ones who likely go remission.
Why? Their body, their mind, their spirit is hopeful that God will see them through. But, those who have given up and say this is going to destroy me; easily end up like that. So, we believe in prayers: prayer to calm the state of the mind down. Prayer to uplift the spirit; prayer to move the hands of God to ensure that He does what He needs to do in this particular situation. So, faith is very important.
For those who believe in prayer but are against all of these other options; what is your massage to them?
I think that it is not a loss of faith if you use medical means to help yourself because in the first place one of the things that God ask is: for wisdom; for knowledge, and it is God that provides that wisdom and knowledge. A lot of these people who have come up with all these things; they themselves don’t know how they came about the information; what they know is that they got inspiration – let us try this, let us try that. 50 years ago, there was no such thing as a test tube baby. It was thought impossible, how? But somebody said let me try – bring the egg; bring the sperm; mix them together in a tube.
Let them conceive, let us watch the conception – what would have happened naturally inside the body, happened outside the body so you can best manage it and make sure that the sperm meets the egg and not leave it to chance. And, thereafter you replace it back into the mother’s stomach – its wisdom from above given by God; the revelation to men. So, it doesn’t mean that you do not have faith in God. Medicine is knowledge by God, and so we have to balance faith in our teaching so that we do not overshadow faith with wisdom or allow wisdom to take the place of faith in the things we do.
What is the success rate recorded so far with this other procedure?
But, indeed we have quite a few testimonials and as I said, some we’re gonna show you. One of our mothers had a set of twins; the delivery was very difficult – but unfortunately we lost the mother and became a pain for us; but they are happy that at least they have this beautiful set of twins. Also, one of the parents – although we take it as our success, by the time they got back home from doing their test, they discovered they are pregnant, so they didn’t have to go through the process. I think we have about four or six real successes. The success rate is usually about 25% and I think we got about 10 pregnancies and one or two of the pregnancies were lost – they came down mid-term.
I think we got between six and eight pregnancies, about four deliveries and another three still being awaited – say maybe, we got about 20 percent, which is ok. But, we are hoping that this circle will record will be better results, and that is the statistics of these things. But, more than anything else, what gives us joy is that we give opportunity for various people, and people have been able to contact us from outside Nigeria – non-Nigerians have been able to contact us; so, we are happy that we have been able to offer this care. Aside from just the process, there is also a lot of counselling that will help with these couples. A lot of marriages have been improved, reignited, house filled with peace and joy even from associating with us; because sometimes when you are going through this stress, people begin to blame one another; family begin to fight and query instead of saying we are in this together and we discover that the problem is going. There is also spirit support – we pray for them and encourage them, and will also be praying for them on regular basis.
What are the other plans the Foundation has in line with the founder’s passion?
We are hoping to start a mother and child centre. Not just one; but one in different locations in Nigeria. With that we want to partner with the federal government – they give us the land, we provide funding for the building and equipment and will also support the management where necessary so that we can help reduce the rate of infant mortality and a better care for children because that was the passion of our founder. Also, we will be working a lot with women. Women who are disadvantaged, women who are challenged, women who have difficulties – I remembered my wife standing up at 2am, 1am; carry her bus and going round Nigeria picking up women standing on the streets, and she comes back with a bus filled of women and begin to look after them and counsel them and care for them. A lot of them left their trade and got other skills – that was her passion.
What do we expect from the Foundation going forward?
We were working very hard – I mean Dayo, Dami, Oj. So, all Grace is going to do as the executive secretary is to continue from there and really bring to bear some of the projects that we have – really o steady and sustain the 40at40, so that year-on-year we can do this projects and that also involves raising money.
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