Miracle Baby: How a trip to Thailand turned blessing for couple that was childless for 28 years

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), infertility is a global health issue that affects roughly 15% of the population

It is perhaps the loneliest place to be for a couple desiring children, yet often the most loaded with stigma.

In Kenya for instance, a married woman is often identified as the mother of so and so. But what would you do if the womb remains silent for nearly 30 years?

Samuel Ogege and Roselyn Ogege got married in 1989 and did not have a child until 2017 when miracle baby - Mich was born after 28 years in marriage.

Their childless state did not put them asunder. 7 years into their traditional marriage, Samuel stamped his commitment to Roselyn in a church wedding. The duo’s move plunged them into a pool of pressure.

“It’s been a painful journey I am the first born in my family. My brothers whom I took to school got married and had babies, I even saw their children through school, but we remained without,” Samuel told Citizen TV’s Ray Polo.  

Samuel says he got a lot of pressure, with some people asking if he was “man enough.”

“Some even wrote to me very bad letters, some abusing me. There was an election they said people who do not have children cannot lead us. But I stepped aside a bit and they realised that although I don’t have children, I have qualities of a leader and then they bring you back into leadership,” Roselyn recalls.

Desperate to nurture her own baby, Roselyn underwent some painful medical procedures that almost turned tragic.

“First they said that my tubes were blocked…imagine going through a surgery and then when you go to check the tubes again the second doctor tells you that ‘the first doctor just opened your belly but did nothing. I want to operate on you again’. My husband refused and vowed to stay with me as I was, child or no child.”

She says that after the trying different medical solutions and failing, she asked her husband to marry another woman who will give him a child.  

“Very interesting experience made me be patient was that of a friend of mine who was also childless married 3 wives, but he still did not get children… so I concluded that it is god who gives children,” Samuel shares.

The desperation made Roselyn turn into a prayer warrior, and would pray loudly until everyone knew whenever she was in church.  

As they battled bareness, another misfortune struck. Samuel, who is an engineer, suffered an accident at work that almost caused him to lose his right leg. He had a stubborn fracture whose treatment exposed his bod to rust.

“The leg wasn’t improving.  I couldn’t put any weight on it. I had to seek a second opinion.” 

His leg condition made them embark on a 7,000 kilometre trip to Bangkok, Thailand.

While Samuel fought for his life in that foreign hospital, Roselyn engaged a Thai doctor in a conversation on her fertility issues.  

“The doctor asked me, as old as you are you are still thinking about children? I told her that in Africa, we don’t give up until we go to the grave,” she recalls.

That was the beginning of the end of their childless state. Roselyn tried Thai medicine by chance, and it worked!

A year later, when Samuel sought his medical review in Bangkok, they received news that they were going to be biological parents, for the first time, after nearly 3 decades.

“When the doctor told me that I am one month pregnant, I broke into tears cried, he cried, we called friends in Kenya they also began to cry on the phone and there was no one to comfort Us,” she told Polo.

“Then you don’t sleep again you start asking is it true or these people are fooling me.”

 The Ogeges returned to Kenya with the good news and Roselyn began her antenatal clinics.

“The doctors would call me Madhe. I could see the young girls come in looking feeble like they were going to collapse, but me I used to march in like a soldier to the clinic (chuckles). Anybody seeing me would give way,” she recalls.

However conflicting opinions between her Kenyan and Thai doctors pushed her back to Thailand where baby Mich would be born on 12th September, 2017 at around  11 am Bangkok time. 

“They came for me and asked me to dress up and march to the delivery room. My husband held my hand to give me confidence and after some time, I heard the baby cry and I laughed. They lifted the baby and put him on my lap and yelled daddy this is your baby.”

Roselyn’s mother says the baby was named Mich - which means a gift, something you don’t deserve. 

Even paperwork for baby Mich’s registration was an uphill task in a foreign land.

“The birth certificate had been written in Thai, so we had to get it translated into English. We had to get baby Mich a passport and had to take 30 photos before we could get him to open his eye,” Samuel said.

He adds that not everyone believes they are the biological parents of Mich.

“We cleared the hurdles in Thailand and came to Kenya. Arrived in Nairobi to more trouble.  Is this really your child? Why was she born in Thailand?”

“At some point my wife was getting worked up and asked them to order a DNA test. Later she was advised to always be carrying the baby’s birth certificate whenever she is traveling alone with the baby,” Samuel said.

Roselyn confesses that nursing a little child when she is already in her fifties, has been a daily challenge.

“The baby used to cry a lot… later grown now he has begun school and you must wake him up and prepare him. Sometimes he asks me why my hair is why and it’s not falling like his teacher’s hair. Sometimes he comes from school and asks - where is my brother? I want my sister…”

Although they had their first born almost three decades into their marriage, the Ogege’s are proud to have spent their youthful years serving other needy children. 

“Our house has always been like an orphanage. We have educated 36 children from all tribes, even Tanzania.”