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The exact time and date will forever be etched in his memory: 6.04pm on 12 August 2022 – the moment he became a father and could finally put the heartache of the past decade behind him.
His son, Manoah Jayden, is the greatest gift he’s ever received, Vusidiva Nxumalo says, gazing down at his tiny son. And his existence wouldn’t have been possible without the selfless sacrifice of his sister, Tsakani (32).
She had always vowed she wouldn’t carry another child. When she was pregnant with her son, Jayden (8), she was horribly ill and didn’t ever want to put her body through that again.
But seeing her brother with her child helped her change her mind. “Vusi was such a wonderful uncle to my son and he had a burning desire to become a father."
Tsakani stepped in as a gestational surrogate for Vusi (41) after he’d been through years of surrogacy experiences that had all ended in failure and disappointment.
Her gift is a beautiful little boy with curious eyes and a cry that ensures he’s always the centre of attention.
“Smile for the uncle,” Vusi says when his son starts to moan during our visit at his home in Northriding, Johannesburg. “Show him how cute you are! Never mind, you’re always cute, even when you cry.”
He’ll forever be grateful to his sister, Vusi tells us.
Tsakani selflessly put her body on the line again – and although this pregnancy was even harder than her first and she was plagued by nausea and exhaustion, the result was well worth it, she says.
Her brother’s struggle to become a dad had moved her, she adds. “I could see he was mourning. He was depressed and avoiding his loved ones. When I asked him about it one day, I realised that even those closest to him could only see the tip of the iceberg of his troubles.
“We knew he had started surrogacy proceedings but we didn’t know about all the drama he’d been through or how many times he’d tried.”
Three pregnancy attempts with different surrogates between 2015 and 2019 had come to nothing. Vusi, who’s married but wants to keep this side of his story private, used some of his pension fund to cover the legal and other costs, and when the money ran out he thought that was it.
Yes, the topic of adoption came up in conversations with his partner and friends, but his heart’s desire was to have a child of his own.
After the failed surrogacy attempts he was devastated.
Gestational surrogacy is a scientific way of creating a pregnancy. Tsakani isn’t Manoah’s biological mother – she simply carried an embryo created by fusing Vusi’s sperm with a donor egg.
Vusi, a businessman who runs a marketing agency, doesn’t want to rehash the difficulties he faced with previous surrogates.
“These aren’t positive stories but I will say this: I’ve been to hell and back with an opportunist; I’ve been lied to by someone I trusted; and another time by the surrogate, who, at the last minute after all the paperwork was almost done in court, pulled out. It was a dark time.”
When plans with the third potential surrogate mother didn’t work out, Vusi asked the fertility clinic he was working with to keep the extra embryos safe – even though he didn’t think fatherhood was on the cards for him anytime soon.
“And then came the pandemic. It was the darkest chapter of my life because I was at an emotional low point and my agency wasn’t making any money either.”
Vusi admits he’d thought about asking his sister to be his surrogate but he didn’t want to put her on the spot. If she was going to do it, he thought, she would have to be the one offering to do so.
And Tsakani was dead set against being pregnant again. “It was never really about my brother, but rather about my own fears,” she says.
“I was terribly ill during my pregnancy with Jayden – so ill that for the last few months I was put on bed rest.”
But she eventually came around to the idea. If she could put a smile back on her beloved brother’s face and lift the heavy cloud around him, it would be worth it.
Preparing for in-vitro fertilisation for the surrogate pregnancy was a gruelling process, Tsakani admits. “There’s medication, injections, examinations . . . Throughout the whole process, I kept saying to myself, ‘I’m going through this for my brother’.”
When the first two implants failed, Vusi and Tsakani mourned as if they’d lost a child.
“One is heartbroken,” Vusi says. “Everything has to start over, and it also feels like you’ve suffered an enormous loss. And there was also the guilt about the trauma I put my sister through.”
Vusi was in London in November last year when Tsakani called him with good news – she was pregnant.
He collapsed in the middle of the road and started crying tears of joy.
“People must have thought I was crazy!” he says with a chuckle. “But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the child we were going to welcome into our lives.”
“It was the best call I’ve ever had to make,” Tsakani adds. “It was wonderful knowing I was playing a part in making my brother’s dream come true.”
Their family were thrilled too, especially their mom, Josephine, who supported the idea throughout. She and Tsakani live with Vusi and help care for his son.
Vusi is unable to contain his emotions. “After the second failure I said, ‘It’s over now’. It felt like I was robbing my sister of precious time with her child. But she insisted we try one last time and nine months later I finally became a father. It still feels like a dream.”
Although Tsakani didn’t have an easy pregnancy she has no regrets about helping her brother.
“When I see how much joy Manoah brings to Vusi and what a wonderful father he is, it’s all been worth it. Just as long as he doesn’t ask me again!”
But will he, we ask?
“Let me put it this way,” says Vusi, smiling at his boy who is now sleeping peacefully, “everything I ever wanted I have right here – and that’s enough for me.”
- South African law requires an attorney to draft a contract between the surrogate and the commissioning parent or parents, which must be approved by the high court.
Once the court confirms the contract, the surrogate has no legal rights to the child.
- A surrogate may not be paid, other than being reimbursed for expenses such as medical bills and compensation for loss of income due to pregnancy and recovery after the birth.
