I wept at work that day

Ify’s Kitchen, a Nigerian food content artist, has documented her personal story through nine years of infertility, stressing the emotional hardships and societal expectations she faced along the way.

In a recent interview with the Terms and Conditions podcast, she discussed the psychological distress connected with the long wait for a child.

She remarked, “It wasn’t the best at all and one thing that really messes with you during the waiting period is you have no idea. It’s a different thing if someone comes to you to tell you that you’d give birth after seven or eight years but you have no clue.”

Initially, Ify and her husband intended to enjoy their first year of marriage without the immediate pressure of starting a family. However, by the second year, they began to question their situation. “My husband and I planned to just chill for the first year and not try for kids but by the second year we were like, ‘Wait a minute, isn’t it supposed to be very easy?” she added.

She recounted how their anxiety grew over time, and the prolonged wait adversely affected her mental and emotional well-being, leading her to feel as though God had forsaken her.

“It was very difficult, second-year people were like it’d happen but by the third year, I didn’t know what was happening. It was really really hard and then you’d see people talking about women giving birth after 20 years,” said Ify.

She concluded, “I remember seeing a comment somewhere that read, ‘Those of you who give birth easily don’t know what God has done for you, God loves you.’ I was like, ‘God really hates me,’ and it wasn’t directed at me, I wept at work that day and asked God what I had done and why he doesn’t love me.”