After 17 years of trying - Woman wants help to have baby

The fear of never being called mommy is the only thing pestering 38-year-old Renae Richards.

"I contacted the adoption board in Jamaica but they said it's a long waiting list and they give preference to those in Jamaica. Overseas they said it would be best to do foster care first but because of COVID they can't do the natural home assessment to see if I'm capable and I don't know when COVID will be over," she said. "The way how me feel right now, I would want somebody from anywhere to be a surrogate and I will pay whatever their price is or even somebody who pregnant and is willing to give up their baby."

Richards, who hails from Molynes Road, St Andrew, got pregnant when she was 21 but her grandfather's death impacted her greatly and the stress caused her to miscarriage.

Didn't have a block tube

"My grandfather was dear to me because my mom was a single mother and he was always there for us," she told THE STAR. Richards, who now lives in the US, said all attempts to have a child since have failed.

"Me go doctor and did a hysterosalpingography and the doctor at the time told me that I didn't have a block tube or anything. Still trying and nothing nuh happen, so I went to UHWI (University Hospital of the West Indies) fertility clinic and me do a million test and nothing still,' she said.

Since settling in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2014, Richards has done various procedures in an attempt to get pregnant.

"Two years ago, I did intrauterine insemination meaning they use a syringe and insert the sperm into the egg; that still didn't work," she said. "I did in vitro fertilisation couple months after at two different times and nothing happened. The first one was with my husband's sperm and then we went to a sperm bank because we were thinking maybe something was wrong with my husband and it still never work."

Richards' husband of five years already has a 15-year-old child and based on semen samples, he is still fertile.

"I feel a way because I just want a child for me and my husband to add some joy to our family," said Richards. "Me cry every day, me depressed, sometimes me all dream that I have a baby not even one day pass and I don't think it."

For Richards, it is rather heartbreaking to see mothers abandoning their children.

"Even the baby they found in the market few days ago brought tears to my eyes because I'm here wanting a baby and they just throw leave a baby on the road like that," she said

But the distraught woman is hopeful that her void will one day be filled.

"Most time me not even like to pass the parks because them packed with kids and when I hear them playing and stuff it just reminds me of how empty I am," she said. "I know God has a child out there for me because I have love to give him or her."