Still A Mum-Sheila Ajok Lubangakene

Mark and Akeyo are soul mates who struggle through a childless marriage for 15 years. Their marriage is filled with love, passion and prayer. Her patience and resilience keep her hopeful for a child and their life as Akeyo sees it is perfect, until something shocking happens. She will soon learn just how her trust has been badly broken.The hardest thing about writing is crafting the first sentence. I read a post last week phrased, “Tears are words the heart can’t speak.” What has prompted this story? You may be wondering. The reviews and feedback I’ve been receiving since I launched Still A Mum in January, 2020 are worth crafting another book.
The book which focuses on fertility and its challenges in marriage has attracted attention from readers of every gender within Uganda and outside. While writing this book, I did extensive research, interviewed friends who had walked this journey and most responses came from women while the men were a bit guarded in their responses.
My goal was to express the emotional, spiritual and physical aspects couples go to the ends of the world in search for babies and how it affects or strengthens their relationships. Some of the feedback I’ve received is deeply personal and for readers to reveal their vulnerability has humbled me but opened my eyes to deeply based traumaand tough coping mechanisms the human race has to deal with, with barely enough support systems.
The world is a jungle. We are in situations where we have no one to talk to. Couples are dealing with raw and vulnerable emotional issues but cover it up so tactfully thereby leading to emotional outbursts or even depression.
I have learnt more about this topic after releasing this book and have been awe struck by male readers opening up to me about the emotional trauma they experience with the pressure of searching for children, the financial burden of expensive Assisted Reproduction and the toll it takes on their relationships. It remains a mystery that they fail to have these conversations with their close friends for fear of being branded infertile or not man enough.
At the time I wrote this book, friends in my inner circle were going through trying times and I remember speaking to one of them at length about the process before she successfully conceived, how it shaped her thinking, who her most trusted confidant was, whether she got spousal support and what made her make the decision she made including resigning from her job. I pay tribute to her because her responses formed a big part of this book.
Over the years, I’d observed the lengths couples went through to have children, I’ve had to comfort friends who went through repeat miscarriages and child loss, the self esteem of having to keep their heads high and try again even with consistent prayer. I felt it was about time I wrote about this especially the inner details rarely talked about.
One thing I struggled with while writing was how to tell the story in the most vulnerable way to make readers walk a mile in Akeyo and Mark’s shoes (the characters in the book). How readers would perceive the tone, was I being too blunt in some areas? The story had to be told the way it was and there are parts that garnered shock value (my editors word). Some readers have asked me whether I created the story from my head and I am beginning to think we need to have a live Facebook Watch party or Zoom meet for me to respond to all these questions.