In the gynecological clinic of Mulago Hospital in Uganda, Africa, on October 16, 2019, doctor Charles Kigundo was warning a woman: "You have given birth to 44 children, you can't have any more." If you are regenerated, we will consider removing your uterus. ”
The woman sitting opposite is named Mariam, an African Ugandan, 39 years old.
She thought the doctor was trying to scare him, but after a test, the doctor actually removed her uterus.
Growing up in Africa, Mariam has been giving birth since she was 13 years old.
But what she couldn't accept was why the doctors had to remove her uterus without her permission.
"If you don't cut it, you'll die."
Subsequently, the doctor confessed to Maryam about her condition and the harsh reality.
Poverty swallows up most possibilities. For women, once they put on the shackles of poverty, it means that the greatest value of their lives is estimated to be having children, starting from being able to give birth to not being able to give birth to not being able to give birth.
During this period, he will also suffer from endless insults and beatings from his husband.
The poorer the place, the more so. According to the World Bank, women in Uganda, Africa, have an average of 5.6 children in their lifetime.
Living in poverty, they also have hope in their hearts.
Maryam was sold by her father to her current husband at the age of 12, and Maryam became pregnant the following year of her marriage.
With her young age and her husband savage, Mariam did not have a good life.
The first was a pair of twins. The 13-year-old child took care of two children, and you can imagine how difficult Maryam's life was at that time.
Just as Maryam was about to raise the two children and give them superior educational resources to stop them from following her own path, she unexpectedly became pregnant again in the third year.
As if she had won the twin lottery, this time she still gave birth to twins.
Tearless, Mariam had to raise her four children with exhaustion.
Mary was ignorant, but this ignorance was not her fault, born in a backward and barren place, sold by her father at the age of 12, and has been reduced to a tool for fertility ever since.
To her husband, Maryam was nothing more than a walking womb, and her meaning was only procreation.
Maryam's husband firmly believed that there were many children and many blessings, and even if the family was so stretched, he never gave up on childbearing.
In the final analysis, ignorance is the source of human cruelty.
Because of the ignorance of society, the pursuit of many children and many blessings will naturally bring many problems.
Damage to one's own physical health is one, and in addition, excessive childbearing will also cause certain pressures on society.
To address this situation, various contraceptive methods have emerged.
Anyway, Maryam was gifted. Although she consulted her doctor about reasonable contraception, these methods did not work.
The poorer and poorer he became, the poorer he became, and became the whole of Maryam's life after that.
Over the next 20 years, Mariam gave birth to 5 pairs of quadruplets, 4 pairs of twins and 5 pairs of twins.
In 2016, by the time she was 36, Mariam had 44 children.
During this period, due to difficult conditions, 6 children died one after another, and 38 children are still alive.
Unsatisfactory is the norm in life, and Mariam, who raises 38 children, also feels overwhelmed.
Three years ago, after the doctor said that he would remove her uterus, her husband also had a big fight with her, and the next morning he ran away from home, taking all the family's belongings, leaving them 39 orphans and widows.
Poverty is a fact, but life always has to go on, 38 children, a meal to eat nearly 50 pounds of grain, Maryam had to do everything.
Haircuts, winemaking, garbage picking up, in order to make ends meet, Mariam has no choice, as long as there is a chance to make money, she can not let go.
There were only three simple shelves in the house, and the bed slats were covered with some thin mattresses and old sheets. Younger children sleep in beds, and older children can only make bunks on the floor.
Saying that it is a bunk, it is actually just a broken mattress on the ground, as thin as paper, and there is no difference between sleeping directly on the ground.
Some children don't even have mattresses, and usually they are squeezed out of the mattress when they fall asleep.
These children can only stay on the cold ground for a night, until dawn. And so on.
In order to take care of the younger children, Maryam would sleep on the outermost side of the bed, and a child would toss her two or three times a day in the middle of the night.
One moment this one is thirsty, the next that one is going to the bathroom. So tossed, it was not uncommon for Mariam to rest badly.
Life has always been unfair, and children living in such families naturally have no choice but to provide what their mothers provide and what they accept.
Because of the poor family conditions, going to school and other things, these children are even more afraid to think.
If they don't enter the school, these children, who are supposed to study in the classroom, can only play around in the dilapidated house surrounded by disciples.
When they grow up, they will also enter the factory as an assembly worker without choice, repeating their previous fate from generation to generation.
Even in this dilemma, Mariam insisted on providing for all her children to go to school, although she was not educated, but she knew that such a person with nothing could only change his fate with knowledge.
Because of the pressure of fertility, Mariam went to the hospital to consult a doctor.
"The ovaries are much larger than the average person," was the first test the doctor told Maryam.
Doctors then slowly revealed the root cause of her 44 children.
"The probability is still a matter of genes. Mariam is prone to superovulation. Superovulation means that, compared to most women, Maria is more prone to releasing multiple eggs at the same time in a cycle, which greatly increases her chances of multiple pregnancies. Dr. Charles explained.
"Personal physical problems cannot be avoided, and it is not her fault that Mariam has this gene in her body."
After many births, Maria also consulted a doctor, hoping to stop fertility through oral contraceptives, but Mariam was born with antibodies to these drugs, and all kinds of contraceptives failed to work.
Maryam's womb has been pregnant with 44 children, and all aspects of her functions are deteriorating.
Because of the care of the children, she could not sleep at night, and she had to worry about work during the day, and her body was already overwhelmed.
But the husband insisted on continuing to have children, and if Maryam had another child, she was likely to bleed heavily during pregnancy or childbirth, and if something happened to her, what would happen to her 38 children.
Considering that there was no effective contraceptive method for Maryam, in order to save her life, the doctor had to perform a hysterectomy for Maryam.
After the husband learned that the doctor had performed a hysterectomy on Maryam, he strongly objected.
The two had a quarrel as a result, and her husband beat her up as usual, and Maryam could only beg for forgiveness.
Unexpectedly, the next morning, After Maryam got up, she did not see her husband's figure, and was about to cook, when she found that even the pot was missing, and it turned out that her husband ran away with all the valuable things in the house.
Maryam's marriage was not happy, she was supposed to be the age of elementary school at the age of 12, but because she was born in the poorest part of Africa without an education, she married a woman hastily.
The people of that place always used their daughters as a tool to sell money, and it is said that Maryam was booked before she was born.
After getting married, her husband drank heavily all day, scolded her, and not only contracted all the housework, but also had children year after year.
She did not want such a life to be staged in her children, insisted on letting every child go to school, and in order not to starve the family, she only cooked one meal a day for the child, and only occasionally received relief from neighbors, she could eat a second meal.
Some said she had so many children that since she couldn't afford it, she could give them to someone else to raise. In this way, she and the child can live a better life.
"I think the company of my family may be more important than the superior material conditions." Mentioning why she never gave away any of her children, Mariam said.
Just as poverty can swallow up all a person's possibilities, so poverty can swallow up all one's conscience.
Maryam's original family was equally poor, but it continued to have children.
Maryam's mother could not bear it any longer, and abandoned her family three days after giving birth to her, leaving Maryam, who was only three days old, and her five siblings.
Not long after Maryam's mother ran away from home, her father remarried.
It was a great shame for the father that his wife ran away from home, so Maryam's father married another wife within a few days, as if to prove to everyone that he was not short of women.
In such a poor environment, the goodness of human nature is gradually disappeared, and the evil in human nature is growing freely.
When the stepmother has her own child, the "drag bottle" left by the ex is annoying.
"I never thought people would be so bad!" The stepmother subverted Maryam's perception of people with her inhuman behavior.
When Maryam was seven years old, her stepmother forced several children to eat glass slag, and Maryam's brother died, which was very painful before his death.
Mariam survived, but she will never forget that scene, and Mariam still hates her father and stepmother.
After marrying, Mariam also fantasized that she could live a good life out of that terrible place, but she did not expect to be a new cage.
The year after the marriage, the 13-year-old Maryam began to have children, but Mariam, who was in the middle school grade, began to take care of the housework and children.
Maryam did not resist the injustice of fate, or never thought of resisting, and on that barren road, a series of such absurd things happened, which seemed perfectly normal to them.
Fathers sell their children and marry and have children at the age of 12, even if they can't open the pot and give birth to children without restraint, it is common in Uganda.
Maryam was awake in such a day-to-day torment, she could not see who had killed her, but she saw the only way out.
"You have to go to school to have a chance to choose!" Maryam finally realized that knowledge was the only way to change her destiny.
The 38 children could exhaust her just by opening their mouths, and with the tuition fees, Rao was powerless when Mariam had three heads and six arms.
Maryam certainly thought about giving some of her 38 children away so they could live a better life.
As long as this thought crossed her mind, she would remember the horrific experience of her childhood.
Rather than a good material life, Mariam hopes that the children will be healthy and safe.
She also does not pick jobs, as long as she can make money, she can do anything, but it is still difficult to support this family of nearly 40 people.
Mariam, who is alone, not only has to go out to earn money, but also has to take care of the family's food, clothing, and housing.
One very ordinary afternoon, When Maryam was cooking in the kitchen of the house.
Suddenly, Ivan Kibka, the eldest son who was supposed to be in class, came home.
"I didn't have the money to pay the tuition, so I applied to the school to drop out." The eldest son, Ivan, explained to Maryam.
Maryam wanted all children to be educated, but reality told her it was simply not possible.
Maryam wanted to say something, but only felt bitter in her mouth, just comforting her eldest son to put down his bag first.
Maryam wanted to rebel against fate, but she had no capital at all.
After dropping out of school, Ivan was bored, and during the day he would help Maryam wash clothes, cook, and take care of his younger siblings.
In the evening, when Mariam was off work, he would help Maryam pinch her shoulders, beat her back, tell interesting things about today's events, make her mother happy, and relieve her fatigue.
Life is uneven, unfairness is the norm in life, he has long been used to.
At school, he was ostracized everywhere, and when he returned home, he was in a mess.
Where is his way out after that, he does not know at the moment, he can only take one step at a time.
With the help of the children, Mariam's burden was slightly lighter.
"I hope my children can all be happy and happy!" Don't be like me. ”
Many people advised her to sell her daughter, which not only reduced the burden on the family, but also took an extra piece of money.
In such a poor place, many families treat their daughters as if they were commodities circulating in the market.
Maryam jumped furious when she heard this, and grabbed what she had at hand and was about to hit it.
She is a victim of this decadent folklore and is reluctant to let her daughter repeat her fate.
After learning about Maryam's situation, the school authorities expressed their willingness to reduce tuition fees to help the poor mother.
One by one, the children became adults and began to share the burden on Maryam's shoulders.
Doctors are also worried about Mariam, whose daughter is likely to inherit her "super multiple" fertility.
In order to avoid the recurrence of the same situation, the hospital will consider regularly visiting Mariam's house to popularize related knowledge.
With the joint efforts of the Maryam family, they will eventually usher in a new life!
-Ends-
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Tongzhou Daily: "A ugandan woman 36 years old has given birth to 44 children"