Each time she learns of a new pregnancy in her entourage, Véronique* has a heart that sinks. The prospect of never having children torments this executive of a large Dakar bank who is approaching forty. Like all the women who agreed to testify – their husbands refused to speak – she requested anonymity. “For others, I am an empty stomach, an incomplete woman,” she breathes, seated in a posh bar in the Senegalese capital.
However, the doctors are categorical: neither she nor her husband have any pathology. The couple’s infertility remains unexplained. Followed by a PMA specialist in Senegal, Véronique tried for the first time, in 2017, to go through in vitro fertilization (IVF). “I did ovarian hyperstimulation. My lower abdomen hurt a lot and I had hot flashes. A nightmare,” she recalls. Three viable embryos were obtained and a first transfer carried out in fifteen minutes at the clinic. Without success. Same failure for the second attempt.
Launched into a journey as grueling as it is expensive, the executive, still married, has already paid more than 7,620 euros in medical procedures. In Senegal, as in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, medically assisted procreation (PMA) is not covered by the state or by insurance. It is therefore a financial sacrifice that many women inflict on themselves who play their respectability by becoming a mother.
“No place for this listening”
This child who does not arrive, Fatimata has been waiting for him for seven years. The PMA attempted in 2022 ended in failure and plunged her into a depression. For nearly a month, the 30-year-old, whose fallopian tubes (channels that connect the ovaries to the uterus) are blocked, had adhered to a strict protocol. Injections every evening at 8 p.m. for twenty to twenty-four days that she practiced herself and heavy drug treatment. Then egg retrieval, embryo transfer to the uterus, follow-up ultrasounds… “My husband wouldn’t talk about it. In my in-laws where I live, I was ashamed to say that they were helping me to have a child. There is no room for this listening, “regrets this secretary who says she is ready to try her luck again.
Long perceived as a technique accessible only outside the continent, assisted reproduction now has its African practitioners. They show results equivalent to those of their colleagues, around 30% of live births, according to the clinics that practice it. Trained in France, they are a handful to practice in Dakar, like Rokhaya Ba Thiam, one of the pioneers in Senegal. After studying in France, she opened her gynecology practice in 2003 in a residential area of the capital.
Djibril, the first baby she helped deliver through IVF, was born in 2006. “He doesn’t know the conditions of his conception. His parents hide them from him to protect him. PMA still raises a lot of questions here, ”explains the doctor with gray locks. “One day, after delivering a baby born by assisted reproduction, the grandmother in the waiting room asked me if her grandson had been born with both arms and both legs. She was worried that he wasn’t normal. »
Ndèye Fatou also made the choice to keep the PMA secret which made her a mother. This accountant became pregnant at the age of 36, despite having blocked fallopian tubes, the result of an untreated vaginal infection and multiple uterine polyps. “Our society is not ready to accept these children conceived with the help of science. To be silent is also to protect my daughter from the gaze of society, ”she justifies, her 3-month-old baby on her knees.
“Betrayal and Relief”
Medical innovation sometimes clashes with the most traditional Senegalese. Véronique, a devout Catholic, consulted her priest before deciding. He strongly dissuaded her from going into the business. “He told me not to because the Church disapproves. He urged me to rely on God to have a child the natural way. His opinion affected me a lot, but I took the plunge anyway,” she says.
This finance graduate, who lives in an upscale neighborhood, then learns that her husband has conceived a child with another woman, justifying himself by the pressure that his family has exerted on him. Véronique cashes in, the couple holds on. “I experienced this as both a betrayal and a relief,” she said. He finally had the child he was expecting. But me, I was then alone in this fight. »
In the meantime, the 30-year-old places her last hope in the last frozen embryo she has left. She does not consider any other possibility than to give birth one day. “They talk to me about the adoption, but I refuse. I will have my own child. Neither my husband nor I suffer from any specific pathology. God is in control, science can’t do everything. »