Multiple award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has spoken about her decision to pursue surrogacy in welcoming her twin boys.
Adichie, who bared it all in an interview with Chude Jideonwo, expressed concerns over how people have received her decision regarding surrogacy, making it a topic of national interest and a yardstick for other women suffering from infertility issues.
The renowned author detailed that she opted for transparency in disclosing to all and sundry that her twin boys were the product of surrogacy, in order to save women from the trauma of the pressure that comes with birthing a child past certain ages.
Her words:
“I I want to protect my children. โIโm OK with having them mentioned, but I donโt want the piece to become about them.
โNigerians areโฆ they want to know about your personal life. Because of that, I am resistant. I very rarely talk about it.
“Why did I say that I had my twins via a surrogate? Well, because itโs true. There are certain things that you cannot hide, and you cannot hide the existence of two perfect beings.
“I felt there are many women who would then be pressured by people and be told “look, she’s 47 and she had twins, what about you?”
“A viewer said to me that I looked so fantastic for someone who just had babies, and I’m not gonna say, ‘oh, thank you’ because that’s a lie, so I said ‘well, they were born by a surrogate’ and apparently, I hear that there was a bit of noise about that.
“My boys are so precious to me and I, and I hated that anything about them will become politicised- so, on the one hand, I wished I hadn’t talked about it, but on the other hand, there’s no way I am going to lie and claim that I have babies that I didn’t birth myself.”
“Women are ashamed when they have fibroids, women are ashamed when they have trouble getting pregnant, and I don’t believe in that sort of shame.
“They think that you cannot rent a woman’s body, they argue that it’s dehumanizing. I think it can be, but I think it matters how it’s done. It can be done ethically.
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