The Storytela

Two of my friends Nkiru and Omar, in faraway Atlanta and Dallas, had just had babies. They had both had twins.

Excited for them I whipped out my card and bought gifts online to be delivered to the babies. Nothing lavish, just toys I knew would make the babies happy before they dissembled/chewed up the parts days later 

Later that month also, after I ran it by my husband, I took my pay check and dropped on the altar at the church I worshipped. I didn’t speak with any other person about this; I didn’t need anyone to know what I was sowing for. As I dropped it, I worshiped. I told God ‘this isn’t even half as much as what the doctor’s bill is for a procedure I’m not sure will put my babies on my lap so I’m giving it to you. This is my connection… You give millions of women babies for free, so I’m not going to be an exception. I trust you I won’t have to pay for mine and so I connect with my own babies with this seed’

I knew that an IVF or any other medical procedure to assist conception was a gift; Medical science was there to help us, the doctors weren’t evil, they were simply doing their job. I also knew that the formation of a baby in a woman’s womb is a big miracle and to be honest if I had sensed for one minute that an IVF was the way my babies were to come, I’d have gone ahead with the procedure. But I didn’t, because I knew God wanted me to just calm down and let Him do His thing. I knew that the only thing I was to do at this point was be calm and wait for His next instruction.

‘Be still…’

So I sowed my seed and prayed. I had to still my spirit. It wasn’t an easy process but thank God for the Word. I started eating it like bread. At work I’d keep my headsets plugged in as I went about my business, the 10 minutes’ drive to work were like 10 precious hours; I’d worship, I’d speak the word, I’d speak in tongues as I drove. My husband drew up specific confessions from the Word of God concerning fruitfulness, I declared them, and we declared them together. We didn’t let up. Every morning after we prayed, we’d speak those words over my body, over our home. We would thank God for our heritage of children.

I dropped the seed in May 2011; June went by. But on 11th July 2011, I realised I had missed my period! Wow! I was too excited! The day I found out I could hardly keep my feet on the floor. Beyond the Home Pregnancy Test (HPT) I wanted to get my blood tested. I went to the hospital and there via a blood test, the doctors confirmed again that I was pregnant! Yay!

I had to make a long distance two week trip for work and after the doctor cleared me to go, I went.  He asked me to come back after my trip by which time the baby would be big enough to be seen at a scan.

2 weeks later at the scan the radiographer told me words no expecting mother (especially one who’s waited so long) wants to hear; “my baby had stopped growing”. Before I even set out for the trip, at 6 weeks the baby, my first baby ever, had stopped growing!

He advised us to wait and see if it was temporary. He said he had seen things like that before and weeks later the baby turned out to be growing proper. About a month later we went back. There had been no improvement. I wasn’t pleased but I giggled like a little child as the doctor told me he was going to have to carry out a D & C on me to evacuate the products of conception.

My husband and I smiled at each other, the doctor was puzzled. He was used to seeing inconsolable mums but there I was, smiling. I smiled, my husband smiled. We were happy; God had proved to us that we could actually have babies naturally. So we figured that if it could happen once, oh then it was definitely going to happen again!

On September 12^th, 2011 at 12.21pm, as I lay in bed and waited for the pill the doctor had inserted to “dissolve”/detach from my uterine wall the precious baby I had waited so long for, I made this entry in my secret diary on my iPhone:

“Lord, you know I’d rather not be going through this but from the depths of my heart I worship you because ALL things are working together for my good Lord, even this! Thank you for the great plans you have oh Lord, thank you…”

(Tears fill my eyes right now as I reminisce… But then I digress…)

In the evening, I went in for the procedure. I felt so embarrassed at the theater. Back and forth the doctor and the matron “scolded” me albeit playfully. They wondered why I fidgeted so much. Hadn’t I had a D&C carried out on me before? They made it sound like a D&C for a young woman was a normal occurrence like menstruating! They actually expected that I had done it several times before. Ha!

Anyway after the procedure, I healed fast. Then I patiently waited for my period to come since the doctor had told us we could go ahead and try for another baby soon as I saw my period.  

About a month later on a Friday evening I started spotting. I was elated, my period was starting. Another baby was in sight. By the following Sunday morning as we prepared for church I felt like an open tap. Blood was literally gushing out of me. If I as much as cleared my throat, I’d feel the blood gushing out (TMI sorry J ) and then there were the grape like clots. I kept soaking up and changing sanitary towels.

This wasn’t normal. Somehow I still made it to church. By evening the flow had reduced to spots.

Two days later I went to the hospital. The doctor insisted that I couldn’t be pregnant. It must be my period. But he ran a pregnancy test, and it was positive! I wasn’t sure what to think. I had gone alone to the hospital thinking it was just a routine visit. But when he started to say that based on the grape-like clots I told them I had seen, he suspected a molar pregnancy, I telephoned my husband to please meet me at the hospital.

The doctor told us that he wanted to admit me immediately and perform another D&C. This time one more thorough than the last where I would be under general anaesthesia for the duration of the procedure. He wanted to carry out the procedure the next morning and send the specimen for histology. He said a confirmed molar pregnancy meant two things; if it was benign, we would wait for at least 6 months before we could as much as start trying for another baby but if it was malignant, we would have to wait about a year till my system was confirmed clean of the ‘tumours’.

I was in a blur. This time I wasn’t smiling. But I wasn’t prepared for the admission just yet. I had only driven out for lunch from work and he wanted to admit me, just like that. I asked for the night to prepare myself psychologically, emotionally and then spiritually. He tried to insist I come in immediately but I wasn’t having it. It was a Tuesday and I hoped to go in for communion service, draw strength from God, and make sense of it all before putting myself under any doctor’s scalpel.

That evening in church, I wept. It seemed too much for me. One whole year? Before we could even try? This was October 2011, so I was going to have to wait till October 2012 before I could even think of trying for my own babies! I cried before God. My husband who was seated beside me tried to reach out to me but I was inconsolable. This seemed too much.

The next morning I had a couple of visitors. One of them was Uche again. We talked generally and she teased me lightly, ‘Hmmm after keeping yourself as a single lady like a joke you are going to have two abortions?’

We mused about it, but I knew it wasn’t funny. What she said was true.

After she left, I was finally alone in the house, alone with my thoughts, alone with God. I slotted in an old Panam Percy Paul CD I had heard my husband’s driver play some weeks before. It had brought back high school memories and I had bought it off him while he played it in the car. I left it playing in the background as I tried to find refreshing in the secret place. I prayed in the spirit, trying to get to that place in my spirit where I was calm, calm enough to understand why, calm enough to get the specific Rhema for my specific situation.

Suddenly I started weeping. As I groaned and prayed, I heard myself saying, “Lord I am so sorry…” I didn’t get it but I trusted the Holy Spirit praying through me… Finally the words came out of my mouth, “Lord, I am so sorry for losing what you gave me…”

As those words came out, I knew. I wept even more; I just knew in my spirit that it wasn’t right! The challenge wasn’t with God, He had done ALL he needed to do for me to live a victorious life years ago, He had given me all I needed; what business did I have losing my baby(ies). Not just once, but twice?! I remembered a message I had listened to and I asked myself, “Why in the world did Jesus come?” If He came that I would still be going through these messes in my life then He hadn’t done a complete job. But I knew His job was complete; when He said “it is finished,” it was indeed finished.

 I got down on my knees, in that instant I knew I was not going to let this happen ever again. I made up my mind that whatever areas of ignorance I had walked in that allowed me lose my babies; I was going to deal with them. I was going to get the knowledge I needed from the Word of God and fight my good fight of faith. No, I wasn’t going to base my life on anyone’s experiences. Experiences are fickle. But God’s Word was the one true standard, unchanging over time. His Word was the guideline for my life. I was going to war with it and ensure that my experiences lined up with His Word. It was going to cost me something but it was going to be well worth it.

By this time, it was almost time for me to go to the hospital. I packed my bag quickly and waited for my husband to get home. When he got home, he joked that the wife he met was definitely more cheerful than the one he left in the morning. If he only knew where I had been; I had been somewhere, a place no man could reach me however hard they tried, I had spent time in the secret place, the place where the Father speaks and His words bring healing and refreshing.

Hanging over our heads still was the prognosis of a molar pregnancy. We sat in our sitting room to pray before we set out for the hospital. While we prayed, I heard my husband declare that God perfected all about my body. He declared I was healed and they would find no traces of a molar pregnancy in my body. I said Amen. I didn’t know how but I knew everything was alright, things weren’t going to be alright; they were alright already.

The next morning, when the nurses came for me, I smiled bravely at everyone in my room. But as I was wheeled to the basement in the wheelchair, I started crying softly. My husband knowing how the whole procedure would make me feel was waiting in the recovery room by the time we got downstairs, he had used the stairs. He held my hands and insisted we speak in tongues. Truly, “he that speaks in tongues emboldens himself” (1 Corinthians 14:4) I got bolder, and went in for the procedure. The last thing I remember was the mask they placed over my nose as I drifted off.

After the whole procedure, the doctors confirmed that after their extensive checking up, they found N.O.T.H.I.N.G. They sent the little specimen they could find for histology and it showed I was totally healthy, only healthy ‘products of conception’ were found. No molar pregnancy, nothing. To say we were grateful to God is an understatement.

After that incident, my husband and I insisted we were going to wait it out till my body healed properly. I started feeding my spirit for the next time I would be pregnant. All this happened in October 2011.

November passed, December 2011 ended. But I was thankful. I thanked God for his mercies, if I hadn’t got pregnant that year, I may have felt tense. I may have felt the need to panic, I may have started calculating and questioning. But He had allowed it happen to let me know that all was well, it was possible. That was the mind-set I chose to have. Regardless of how I felt, I maintained that mind-set.

**********

January 2012 came. I was determined this was the year my husband and I would carry our babies, we were both determined. At the annual 12 days of Glory praying and fasting programme in my church, on day 6 – 7th January 2012 precisely – the guest minister, Pastor Korede Komaya, declared there was going to be an “overflow” of twins. He announced prophetically, ‘watch out for October, It’s not just going to be a month of babies alone, but twins’.

Then he asked all women desiring the fruit of the womb or those standing in for friends/family desiring same to come forward. I hesitated in my seat. Seated to my right was my husband and to my left, my friend Elizabeth. Elizabeth elbowed me. “What are you waiting for?” I hesitated still. Then she insisted, “Ok, I am going to go out with you!” All three of us went out, her in front, me in the middle and my dear husband behind me.

All I could notice when I went forward was how silky Pastor Korede’s blazer was. He was holding it out and asked us to make contact with it since he wasn’t going to be able to minister to everyone who came forward personally. I chided myself, there I was, out to receive a miracle and I was thinking such “carnal” thoughts about a blazer! J J  

I went back to my seat. I honestly didn’t feel anything, no goose bumps, nothing  No warmth in my abdomen, nothing.

But I started counting, and calculating. “Okay, if it’s October, I have to get pregnant this month (January)” etc. On the 24th of January, my period came!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wasn’t pleased; I kept asking “dear Lord wasn’t that word for me?” The Holy Spirit calmed me down, he kept insisting, “Ulu, keep the Word in your mouth. Don’t be moved by what you see.”

I remembered that cliché about doing something you’ve never done to get something you’ve never got. I tried to think of what I could do that I had never done before. I remembered I had given my full salary twice in a row, I thought maybe I could do it thrice in a row.

After consulting with the head of my home J I sowed my December 2011 and January 2012 salaries – my January salary already wasn’t mine anyway, it was my firstfruit offering. I also planned to sow my February 2012 salary when it came. All of it.

In addition to my seed, I wasn’t playing with my words. I knew that as Reverend Chris Oyakhilome had preached several times, “the Word of God on my lips was God talking” I was continually speaking. My husband was speaking. We didn’t wait for our prayer times, even in our jokes, we talked about our babies ‘Oj and Aj’ like they were a part of our family already.

Also, after my period came on the 24th of January, the two weeks after, before I ovulated I started using the Christ Embassy Abuja Rose of Sharon confessions booklet to talk to my body, I spoke to my eggs, I spoke to my husband’s seed which I would shortly receive. I specifically said what those seed would do in me. I spoke to everything I could think of.

The two weeks after I ovulated, I switched to the pregnancy part of the confession booklet (for women who were actually pregnant). Then I kept laying hands on my body during our morning devotion. I saw myself pregnant so I spoke to the baby. I called the baby healthy, well-formed etc.

On February 18th, I noticed my BBT (Basal Body Temperature) was still high. My period was meant to come that day, and for the BBT gurus you know your temp shouldn’t stay high the day of your period. It’s meant to drop. I tried to stay calm. By afternoon I couldn’t hold back, I went into the bathroom to test. I almost screamed when I saw the faint double line!!!!

My husband was watching a match in the sitting room, I went to him and giggled; “Apple we are pregnant!”

He looked at me like I was from Mars, “Yes now, that’s what we expected” then he laid hands on my abdomen and blessed me and the baby in there.

Ah, I so monitored the baby, I would talk to him/her each morning; I would declare s/he grew well. All things worked for his/her good, my food, my dressing everything.

When I was 6 weeks pregnant, I went for a scan.

It was at a women’s health centre and the doctor referred me to a bigger hospital where they had a more advanced scanner. I went there not knowing why. As I lay on the bed, the radiographer called his assistant and said, “this is the type I was telling you about; twins in two different sacs” He wasn’t even talking to me, as in!!!!!!!!!!! He then went on to comment that the position of the fibroids was critical. If he had seen them before conception he would have advised me to take them out.

“Yayyyyyyyyy” I couldn’t even scream, I just put my hands over my mouth and gasped.

“Me? Carrying twins!!!”

You can’t even start to imagine how I felt!!!!

As I shakily (from excitement this time) walked back to my car in the hospital parking lot, I called my husband. ‘Apple we are having twins!!!!’

This time he acted like I was from Jupiter, “Yes now, that’s what we’ve been expecting.”

I just giggled. “E pele o man of God, man of faith I hear you…” 

The 9 months were simply wonderful. Everyone warned me, ‘symptoms are usually aggravated with twins’ etc. BUT I refused to observe lying vanities. I spoke what I wanted to see, and what I spoke, I saw; no vomiting, no spitting, no big nose (well, the last month I didn’t care anymore, I just wanted the babies out so I guess my nose did its thing   ) a precious/portable sized tummy (I never liked bulging long tummies  ) Better still was the fact that the fibroids kept shifting, my strong daughter who was on top of her brother kept pushing them away and making space for her unhindered growth.  Once I commented to the doctor that she was surely going to push them round to my back because they kept moving away to the side!

A couple of times in my first trimester when I spotted, God just led me to the right doctors. Everything ran smoothly. The Word kept me!

*******

 Finally, the day of delivery came!

As they pulled the babies out of me, I felt my chest tightening. I couldn’t breathe properly. I called out to my husband who was excitedly telling me as they pulled my son out, “He is out” and I said, “Please lay your hands on my head and speak” then I put my headset back in and turned on my “Christ consciousness” podcast blocking out every other voice as I opened my mouth to declare the Word while I clamped the oxygen mask firmly over my nose ‘I am alive to God, I live I don’t die…’

‘What’s the point?’ I heard this voice say, ‘Close your eyes and sleep’.

I just laughed because I knew what the ‘sleep’ meant and spoke all the more intensely, ‘Greater is the life in me than all the death in the world. I am alive to God… Thank you Jesus’

When the doctor asked me, ‘how are you feeling madam,’ I said, ‘I still am not breathing well’

The more I said that, the worse I felt. Suddenly, I realised that too was a confession, my words at that time were God speaking! Hmmm I had to speak right, I quickly changed what I was saying, ‘Doctor, it is getting better but it can still be better…’ They kept monitoring me, I am not sure at what point I drifted off but when I woke up I was back in my room with my babies beside me! Yayyyy!

And so it was, on October 5th 2012, a year after I made that journal entry in my diary, a year after the doctors had told me I would have to wait before trying to conceive, our twin babies, our son and our daughter Osborne-Joshua Oluwadumininu Chizitere and Amanda-Jessica Oluwatumininu Abumnkechi were born.!

Each day I look at those beautiful children I see the fulfillment of prophecy. I look at them and see verity in that statement, “if you stick to the Word, you will come back with a testimony!!!!’ They are MY testimony I came back with.

I look at them and realise that no matter what we face, whatever the challenge – financial, emotional, whatever, the Word of God is all we need. All things we need are REALLY wrapped in the Word.

There is NO hopeless situation for the child of God, none.

Is it a physical ailment? The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, He will give life to what the doctors called dead. Choose to agree with the Word not that medical report.

Is it in your finances? There is a way out! No matter how messy the financial situation is, His Word has all the answers you need. Don’t agree with those calling you broke and messed up. The Word is able…

I remember a word I had heard that stuck firmly in my spirit while I waited, “God gets glory when you use the name of Jesus to get results” DON’T GIVE UP! It doesn’t really count how long you have waited or how long you’ve been in the situation, it also doesn’t matter how hopeless and unexplainable men may have called your case, the Name of Jesus works, the Word of God works. ALWAYS.
Remember the man at the pool of Bethesda, he had been in the situation 38 years (John 5:1-9) His friends and family must have concluded that was how things were going to end for him. They must have written his situation off as a lost case. They must have told him that was ‘God’s will’ for him and advised him to live with it.
But one encounter with Jesus, one encounter with the Word ended decades of frustration. There’s a specific Rhema for you. It doesn’t have to be my way, there is a specific word from God for you concerning your specific situation; stop running all over the place, stop fretting, calmly sit before Him and let Him tell you YOUR specific way out. Then stick with it, regardless of the pressure… regardless…

I am so excited, God didn’t leave us helpless in this world. Sure, things may look chaotic around us, the media may flood us with endless tales of woe and disaster but God is still doing great things! The Word still works, and it will SURELY work for you too, wipe your eyes… He did it for me; He will do it for you too!

“…Now I’m turning you over to God, our marvellous God whose gracious Word can make you into what he wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need…”

 (Acts 20:32 The Message Translation)

Culled from spiceymorsels.wordpress.com