It was like a dream holding my baby, 24 years after marriage —Revd Olarinde

“It was like a dream to me that Monday, when I held my baby, until my wife came out of the labour room and the reality dawned on me that I was actually holding my baby.”

This was the testimony of Reverend Joshua Olarinde of Thanksgiving Bible Church, Akesan, Lagos, who had waited for 24 years, before God blessed his family with a baby boy through In Vitro fertilization (IVF).

The pastor and his wife, Christianah Adebola Olarinde, got married in 1993 but all efforts to have children proved futile. Mrs Olarinde’s uncle, Chief Isaac Akinkunmi, who resides in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, after 15 years of fruitless efforts, advised the couple to adopt a baby, which also failed.

Chief Akinkunmi who narrated his experience during testimony time, at his residence, adjacent BERNADA office in Makurdi, said, “When all efforts at having children failed, I advised the couple to adopt a baby. I took her to an orphanage home in Makurdi, but someone kicked against it, saying, ‘A Yoruba couple wants to adopt baby here and take the baby to Yorubaland.’ So, they sent us away.

“Working with the assumption that there was sentiment involved, we proceeded to Ogbomoso, to adopt a baby, but it was also difficult, so we left it at that,”  Akinkunmi said.

While the couple seemed to have lost hope, Akinkunmi introduced them to an IVF hospital in Makurdi, where they started treatment.

Few weeks later, Mrs Olarinde went for a pregnancy test and it was confirmed positive. However, while the couple rejoiced at the news, something devastating happened.

Mrs Olarinde, who spoke with TribuneChurch, amidst tears of joy said: “The incident of November 2016 nearly sent me to an early grave, because I completely lost hope when I had a miscarriage after the IVF treatment and confirmation that I was pregnant.

“I had gone back to Lagos to join my husband, when that fateful day, I discovered I had lost the baby. I thought of ending it like that, but my husband and my uncle in Makurdi consoled and encouraged me.”

Her husband added: “That was another phase in our lives. I tried to console her, when she had the miscarriage, but she was inconsolable. I had to call Chief Akinkunmi, who talked to her.”

Not discouraged by the ugly development, the couple embarked on another treatment in the same hospital in Makurdi, and the result this time was successful, until few months afterwards, when there was another miscarriage.

“We had to return to the hospital once again to try our luck and it was successful but, I had strong faith that this time, the devil would not have its way. While basking in the euphoria of a successful treatment, the devil struck again.

“We went back to the hospital, where we were told that it was a set of twins, but I had lost one. We intensified prayers and God answered us. On Monday, October 16, 2017, my wife was delivered of a baby boy.

“They brought the baby to me. It was like a dream that Monday, when I held my baby until my wife came out of the labour room and the reality dawned on me that I was actually holding my baby,” Olarinde stated.

Narrating their ordeal in the past 24 years of waiting, he described it as, “a long time of sorrow, pain and anguish, as the joy we had been expecting since 1993 just refused to come. The case is more pathetic and devastating when you are a cleric, because some pastors used the situation to spite me and some even asked me to abandon my church and join them.”

Speaking on the pregnancy, he said: “I had been having vision that we would soon be blessed with the fruit of the womb, but each time I had this vision, it seems nothing happened. So, the last one I had, I was on the pulpit playing a musical instrument, when suddenly, I saw a baby running to my side. However, I could not share the vision with my wife, because the previous ones I had, there was nothing to show for it.”

During the christening of the baby in Makurdi, family members and friends were elated to celebrate the baby.

Reverend (Dr) Ajetumobi Omotola of First Baptist Church, Makurdi, who spoke on the theme, An Heritage of God, charged the couple to train the baby in the way of the Lord, adding that, with the coming of the baby named: Israel, Oluwaseun, Oluwaremilekun, Oluwadara, Boladale, Olayinka, Oladipupo, Miracle Olarinde, “God has brought end to barrenness in your life.”