Jeff Koinange leads a fairly private life- that because we rarely see photo of his wife or his son. The award winning journalist has tried as much as possible not to put his family in the limelight. Maybe it is because he knows how strenuous that can be, having been in the public limelight for a very long time.
Jeff is married to Shaila Koinange, a Kenyan lady of Asian origin and together they have a young adorable son Jamal Mbiu Koinange.
Jamal was born in South Africa, and has met iconic African leaders like Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. But the journey to having baby Jamal was not rosy, and that could be the reason why Jeff is overprotective over his son. In his book ‘Through My African Eyes’ Jeff explains how they had given up on having a baby. Here are some excerpts from the book.
Jamal arrived after Nine Years of Marriage
Jeff and Shaila had tried for nine years to have a baby but their efforts had been futile.
Shaila and I have been married for nine years and like most childless couples, have been through countless methods trying to conceive. We had practically given up until Jimmy Monclus Maleketa, a half-Spanish, half Congolese friend we met in Lagos often mistaken for our son suggested we try invitro-fertilization at a renowned fertility clinic in Barcelona, Spain. Shaila and I had been through several unsuccessful IVF treatments from Johannesburg to Lagos, and had practically given up on the idea of ever having children.
We were in our forties and even though modern medicine enabled women in their fifties and sixties to conceive, we felt that the fertility god’s had ‘passed-us’ over. Jimmy persisted and we agreed to go to Barcelona if anything just to get him off our backs. Deep down we felt it would lead to another dead-end and those who have gone through IVF can relate. It involves weeks of mixed emotions and unreasonable hope and if unsuccessful, can lead to depression and anger at everything from the doctors to the ‘gods’.
But something amazing happened in Barcelona. Two weeks after inserting Shaila’s fertilized eggs back into her womb, the pregnancy test results came back positive. Shaila was pregnant. The next nine months were the most challenging in our lives but the culmination was this morning, in this theatre room, with doctors and nurses surrounding my wife and about to usher in the miracle of miracles.
The Koinange Family Was robbed at Gunpoint when Shaila was Four months Pregnant
Every pregnant woman, knows how fatal trauma can be. Most women miscarry. And that is exactly what happened to Shaila when she was four months pregnant. Jeff, reveals how the family was robbed at gunpoint.
The first bit of bad luck happened five months earlier in February when I landed back in Johannesburg after an overnight ten-hour flight from London. As customary, Shaila picked me up from the airport and I had some television equipment that I wanted to drop off at the office before heading home. We drove down the R24 and onto the M1 North, which was the usual route I would take from the airport to the office. I turned off the ‘Empire Road’ exit and headed the two blocks towards Owl Street. It was a Saturday and traffic was light, a good sign, I thought, because this meant I would quickly go into the office, deposit the equipment and head straight home for some much-needed rest.
As I turned into the street and parked the car in front of the building housing the Bureau suddenly from the rear-view I noticed a car had pulled-up right behind blocking me in. I did not think much of it and told Shaila to stay in the car while I ran inside. As I opened the driver’s-side door, I felt something cold and metallic on my temple. I knew this sensation from before in war-torn countries where child soldiers enjoyed intimidating foreign journalists by pointing guns to their heads. This time it was happening in ‘civilized’ Johannesburg and in broad daylight.
“This is an armed robbery. Give us everything you’ve got and no one will be hurt,” said a young man who looked like he was barely in his early twenties. I noticed that another young man had made his way to Shaila’s side of the car and had a gun pointed at her belly. I was enraged; she was four months pregnant at the time and quite fragile.
Shaila tried to scream but the gunman with the cold steel cocked the gun to her head told her not to even dare utter a sound. Three other youth in their twenties came out of the car and started unloading all the luggage and ‘transferring’ it to their car. My pockets were turned inside out and everything taken — passport, wallet, cell phones, office keys, house keys, everything they could take. Shaila’s cell phone was also taken as well as her handbag with all her documents.
Baby Jamal Almost Died at Still Birth
In his book, Jeff reveals how the supply of oxygen to the bay was cut for eight minutes during birth.
Apparently when I was being ‘scrubbed-down’ Shaila had received her spinal tap or anesthesia, which temporarily paralyzed her from the chest down. But she had reacted to the anesthesia and her blood level had dropped putting the baby’s life at risk.
For eight excruciating minutes, oxygen flow to the baby had been cut off. By the time the gynecologist had pulled baby Jamal Mbiyu Koinange out, he was blue. I of course kept filming, not knowing what was going on but wondering why the little guy was not screaming and yelling like babies are supposed to do at birth. We named him Jamal after his mother’s heritage and Mbiyu after my father.