Yemaya Olaleye

The whispers started long before I even understood their weight. At the marketplace, women would glance at me, their voices hushed but sharp enough to pierce. At family gatherings, the unspoken questions hung heavier than the aroma of jollof rice. In Chachi, Nigeria, where the streets are filled with children’s laughter and mothers sling babies on their backs with effortless grace, I became the silence in a chorus.

It was the third year of our marriage when the whispers turned into accusations. My husband, Idris, and I had done everything right—or so we thought. We prayed, fasted, visited doctors in Minna. Still, our home remained quiet, devoid of the cries and giggles expected of us. I was only 24 when the reality of infertility settled in, though it felt like I had aged decades overnight.

In Chachi, a woman without children is like a tree without fruit—questioned, avoided, pitied. The older women would offer unsolicited remedies: bitter teas, charms wrapped in cloth, even a visit to the herbalist who lived on the outskirts of town. My mother-in-law didn’t bother with subtlety. “Idris,” she said one evening, “you are a strong man. You can marry again. A second wife will give you what you need.” Her eyes avoided mine, her tone final.

Idris refused. He stood by me in ways I didn’t expect, even when his friends laughed, calling him "half a man" for not taking another wife. Yet the pressure weighed on both of us. There were nights I cried myself to sleep, ashamed of what I couldn’t give him—or myself.

At 31, I’ve made peace with it. It wasn’t a sudden transformation, but a slow acceptance, like the Harmattan winds that come gradually, then all at once. Idris and I have built our lives differently. We adopted a young boy from my sister’s extended family, a shy eight-year-old named Usman. He calls me Mama now, and every time I hear it, it feels like a small victory.

The whispers haven’t stopped entirely. Some say Usman isn’t really ours. Others claim we must’ve angered the spirits to be barren in the first place. But I’ve learned not to care. Chachi may see me as incomplete, but in my heart, I am whole.