05/05/2025
"I Am Enough": Nse Ikpe-Etimโs Journey Through Marriage, Infertility & Finding Wholeness.
Some things in life, you never plan for.
You grow up dreaming โ career, marriage, children, laughter filling your home. You think itโs natural. Until life rewrites the script.
I met Clifford when we were young. Life took us different ways, but fate brought us back. We fell in love โ deeply โ the kind that stays when everything else shakes.
We married on Valentineโs Day, 2013. It was simple, beautiful, and full of hope. I looked at him and thought, โThis is home.โ
Then came the challenge of merging our worlds โ me, an actress in Nigeria; him, a lecturer in the UK. It wasnโt easy, but love found a rhythm.
Then life tested me.
I was diagnosed with adenomyosis โ where the uterine lining grows into the muscle wall. Years of pain finally had a name.
The doctors said:
"Weโll have to take out your womb."
I froze.
"What do you meanโฆ no children?"
I called Clifford, sobbing:
"Iโm so sorry. I canโt have children."
Silence. Then, his words:
"Nse, you are enough. You are all I need."
That moment stitched something in me. Itโs hard to explain the kind of healing that comes from being seen. From being loved without conditions.
It didnโt erase the pain immediately.
I still grieved โ I grieved the children I would never carry. The tiny faces I would never kiss. Days I avoided baby showers, childrenโs birthday parties, anything that would remind me of what I had lost.
But with time, I realized: I lost a womb, not my essence.
I am still Nse. I am still whole.
The world often defines womanhood by motherhood. Itโs unfair and Itโs heavy and itโs wrong.
There are women whose hearts are bigger than nations, whose arms have cradled friends, entire community.
Motherhood is beautiful โ but itโs not the only measure of a womanโs worth.
To every woman hurting, feeling broken, unseen: You are enough. You are whole. You are deeply loved.
Women Are BeautifulBlack Woman's dreamsUN Women Nigeria
