Bes Hannah, Plateau’s miracle baby came at 10:15 on a Monday morning of 8th May weighing 1.8kg. Though two weeks earlier than her expected due date, Hannah arrived through cesarean section, healthy but low weight and has had to undergo intravenous fluid for the first 24 hours while her 63-year-old mother’s breast milk was monitored to ensure it is OK.
Bes Hanny, as her mother now
calls her, still looks fragile, but she is indeed the apple of every eye that
visits the Gynaeville Specialist Hospital along Old Airport Road in Jos. She
has continued to attract numerous well-wishers, all eager to get a glimpse of a
child whose arrival caused a retired civil servant to shed tears of joy. Her
mother, Margaret Davou, who turned 63 on the 25th of February cannot stop
laughing even as she struggles to breastfeed her baby.
“I am fine, baby is fine, the
Lord has done it,” she told Daily Trust. Margaret, from Zawan in Jos South
local government area of Plateau State, has worked as an administrative staff
with the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) in Kano, Makurdi and eventually
retired in 2012, two years after she was posted to the NTA Jos Network Centre.
Before her delivery on Monday, Margaret had been wary about talking to the
press. However, a day after her baby arrived, she had been all smiles, thanking
God and became more accommodating.
Her husband, 67-year-old Francis
Davou had also retired from the Nigerian Air Force in 2008 and says his joy is
tenfold that of his wife. “It is because I am a man and so I have to control my
emotions, but my joy is more than her own,” he said.
The Davous waited 38 long years
to be called parents. Within those years, they had tried fertility treatments
in other centres which had failed; they had also used their resources to train
children of relatives in the hope that someday, they will be blessed with their
own offspring. “I trained four of my brother’s children and they are all grown
and married now,” said Francis. His eldest brother, Choji Davou, 78, who
Francis introduced to Daily Trust on phone said his younger brother had also
trained two of his children adding that, “We’re so happy that the Lord has
answered our prayers and blessem them with their own child.”
Despite their age, the Davous
never gave up on their dream to have a child and when a relative of theirs who
is a nurse told them about a new fertility centre established in Jos, the
coupled prayed and took a chance. “We put our money together. We are both
retired so we don’t have much but the doctors helped us. We came to the
hospital with my husband and they gave me some treatment, and thank God it
worked,” said Margaret.
When asked if she ever attempted
to go spiritual in the past, her denial was firm. “My husband is a
pastor; we have always depended on God. There are some people that have been
saying I went to one place in Lagos to conceive but I don’t mind because I know
I only depended on God and they will hear the testimony,” she said two days
before she delivered.
But in their 60s, many have
questioned the rationale behind having a child at so late an age even with the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), report on Nigeria’s life
expectancy rate put at 53.1 as at 2015. But the couple is not bothered with
what people think. “It is only God that knows who will die, when and where,”
said Francis.
Dr. Kenneth Egwuda, IVF
specialist and CEO of Gynaeville said Margaret had undergone hormone
replacement therapy to enable her uterus conceive. Through in vitro
fertilization (IVF), Margaret’s fourth attempt and first in the hands of the
Gynaeville staff became successful.
With 12 years of experience in
the field of assisted reproductive health, Dr. Kenneth had pioneered IVF in
Plateau, Kano and is about to pioneer a centre in Niger State. Therefore, from
the beginning, the Davous knew they were in good hands and after proper
evaluation, the doctors realised Margaret was in good health, aged but with no
metabolic illnesses or other prominent ageing disease apart from
hypertension.
“I have done a lot of IVFs, but
this is a unique one because the age of the woman makes it so. She appears to
be the oldest in Africa to have conceived by this means,” said Dr. Kenneth.
Right now, Bes Hannah is in good
health. Doctors have had to put her on oxygen shortly after she was delivered
because she came early. Dr. Kenneth explained that, “it was not really a
challenge because she was already matured, she had a good cry at delivery, she
established breathing and respiration fast enough.”
Margaret can’t wait to take her
miracle baby home as soon as the paediatrician certifies her OK to leave. “The
mother is fine now,” said Dr. Kenneth. “If not for anything, the mother would
have been allowed to go home but the baby is a little bit fragile and so the
paediatrician has to be satisfied before we can discharge them,” he said.
Dr. Jibrin Suleiman, Consultant
Gynaecologist and IVF specialist who assisted in the caesarean section also
said, it is important for the baby to stay a little while in the hospital
adding that, “the fact that since this is something to be celebrated, if she
goes home too early, the stress will be too much and everyone at home will be
eager to carry the baby.”
But the joy of having a child is
not only an accomplishment for the Davous alone, it has given hope to women
above 50 in Africa who intend to have children that indeed, it is not too
late.
In all this, perhaps the most
profound moment, according to Dr. Kenneth, was when Francis came out to the
corridor after Margaret’s successful delivery, stared at him and said: “So I
can actually be called the father of a baby?”
To remind her parents of the
miracle her birth was to them, Francis and Margaret, after careful thought,
chose the two names Bes and Hannah. Bes is a Berom word for Miracle and Hannah
according to Francis was Biblically a “Believing woman, a prayerful woman. She
prayed to God and He gave her Samuel.” With a grin, the 67-year-old said: “You
can now call me Baba Miracle, Baba Bes.”
