African King and Queen : February 2018

It's fair and hones to say that we were clueless initially when we decided to create a baby registry. In excitement, and eager the have a registry, for the sake of the people who asked, we created registries at pottery barn kids, target, baby's r us, and the list goes on. We chose bibs, colorful socks, lots of blue items, and lots of yellow items too.

Honestly, most of the items we had listed on our registry we chose out of excitement of becoming parents, and what we assumed we would need. We totally went overboard initially, and narrowed down gradually as sheepishly came to our senses. However, before we narrowed down, we did what we had always done best, to consult with our friends who had been through parenting, and their suggestions compared to ours, was night, and day. We later learned differences in the simple items such as glass bottle and plastic bottle, why diapers would be our best-possessed item.

Read Also: Our Love

So, we settled for target and babies "r" us because of the quality of their products, affordability, and convenience in close proximity to where we live. Also, we centered more on the later as they offered price matching, 1 year returns, mobile access, 15% discount, free shipping, and expert consultation (free) as needed. Furthermore, we resulted to a lot of product reviews from various website platforms, but the most handy advice came from new parents, in the same age group as us, and of African decent. We don't want to sound too ethnocentric, but culture is everything.

To date, we are so grateful for everyone who chipped in to support us, either in buying the simple items or the highly priced items, because every effort counts. Our parents and the Godparents to our babies bared the costs for the highly priced items and we are forever grateful. Doing the math now, money cannot replace the generosity, encouragement, and motivation as we planned to become new parents.

We're getting somewhere with all of these posts, hang in there, let's talk about the Baby Shower next.

Love,

Dennis & Lilian

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Our wedding location was awesome, and the mere thought of it brings lots and lots of goose bumps. The sweet memories of vows, family, smiles, music, dancing mixed with and all the preparations that took place, make those memories so much worthwhile. Never mind almost lost track here. This is the post we talk about the planning for our first baby shower.

Focus here.

We often wonder, if there would be anymore baby shower(s) in the future! Well, we live to see! In planning our shower, our thought processes geared to finding an ideal location with an unforgettable ambiance; as we always want people to have that "wow factor", and be moderately exuberant. We wanted a place with good food, good lightening, and great customer service, parking, and spacious enough for our guests.

Luckily, we found a very nice place closer to us, and the price was decent to include food and drinks. The tricky part was setting the date, as we didn't want it to be to late in our pregnancy, and too early as well. We agreed on March 6th 2016, as the date exemplified Ghana's independence, and our planned delivery date was June 2016. Also, we thought that people would remember the date, as most of the invitees were Ghanaians.

Read : This is Lifetime

Our culture dictates that we send out invitations to all guests, so we did. We bared additional costs in printing the cards, as things would have it, our invitation cards had to breath our excitement of becoming parents, and we needed enough to mail out to all our guests. Some actually didn't show up because they were invited verbally, and, or did not get the actual card in the mail. Any-who, that’s a different future post.

Mind you, we rented out a hall for about 100-120 people, in doing the math; we had to pay per head. Let's not do the math, no, no, no; let's not do the math. We couldn't leave people out, especially, those who had always supported us.

The main emphasis for this post is that our co-worker's, and family were outstanding with helping us in all aspects of our shower. They were helping in helping us with decorations, making the cake, and sorting out souvenirs. Every step of our journey has been possible because of God's grace, our family and friends. This is the fundamental message well scripted in most of our blog posts, and we pray this inspires you.

The shower was awesome!

We'll tell you about it in the next post.

Feels free to share this post.

Dennis & Lilian

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Our due date is nearing by; soon, reality will begin to set in. We begin to realize that we need more room for all of us, not to mention, more space for all the things we would need! Also, our new lives we require getting two of everything. It's really happening, we would often say to each other. Still don't know why we were so shocked that things were moving as we prayed for, maybe we were overjoyed and drooled in the joys of parenthood.

God is always on our side.
We seem to do well in tougher situations, and God always sees us through. We are the ideal couple to talk to if you don't believe in God, because our life story exemplifies God's grace. What are the odds that our next door neighbor who had a bigger place decides to move at the same time we begin to look for a bigger place? Not just that, everyone who hears that we are looking for a bigger place joins in to ready our new place, with new closet, new floors, new tub and on, and on, and on. The best part, we did not have to move far, and the transition was painless to the point that, everything would eventually go as planned.

Read Also : Reflecting On Our First Pregnancy

With a few good family members and friends we would move into our new spacious place, by God's grace. Although, once agin, it looks like we might need a bigger place, as our babies are growing and seem to have overtaken all the so called "space" we once had.

I would soon realize that a new responsibility as a hubby and a prerequisite for fatherhood; baby-shower planning. My way of expressing the joys of life, and the blessings in our lives is to celebrate. Its okay to say, I could sometime go overboard with planning events, but, life is precious, and I'm all about the unforgettable moments that are cherished a lifetime. With that said, the baby-shows had to speak for itself. Our first baby-shower, it had to be grand, it had to be classy, and most importantly, bring happiness and joy to my Queen.

Catch you on the next post!
Let's talk more about Our First Baby-shower.

Dennis &Lilian

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Looking back, and glancing through all the beautiful photos we took during our gestation, we unravel all sorts of emotions within us, and it awakens a deep sense of relief, and high sense of accomplishment. This, to write and share with you, gives us closure. We hope our blog inspires you. We wish we had kept blogging throughout journey, nonetheless, time constrains did not allow that. Still not to late to reflect and share with you all.

As we mention in the last post, seeing them grow during each medical visit was so inspiring. Each time we would come home with a different ultrasonic photograph and keep at them from all angels. In fact, we keenly anticipated each visit because of this. For me it was magical and surreal. I'm forever amazed, and forever astonished by God's work in our lives.

Read : Becoming A Father

Let talk more about being afraid. Yep! It was scary to be pregnant. Really it was, and we say this not scare anyone, but because we knew and had seen so many complications of twin pregnancies, we remained a little edgy on our seats, and that made us afraid at times. At times we would sway out of optimism and be afraid of the unknown, and a way that we got our minds of that was to believe in God for a positive outcome, keep praying and keep working.

By being a little afraid, we remained more vigilant to any uncertain concerns. If we felt something was wrong we sought medical care promptly. We did our best to isolate our anxieties from medical necessities only. If we had not gone through this pregnancy, we would have remained naive on what pregnancy entailed.

At the beginning of the second trimester, this was sometime in late Winter 2015, out of the blue, icepack and pressure on the top bony prominence of my Queen's nose was our only resort, as we experienced epistaxis. A fancy word for nose-bleed. This lasted for approximately 15- 30 minutes, lingered on, and slowly eased of after a week or two.

Catch you on the next post!

Dennis & Lilian!

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I've always enjoyed the sweet childhood memories with my brothers, and specifically with my parents; either it was going to the village on a weekend to see our grandparents or getting Christmas presents. So, I had always been keen to experience parenthood. I wondered what kind of father I would be. Also, I have always wanted to create awesome memories with my family, and fantasized about having lots of laughter, as I saw this as an opportunity to intentionally be silly all over again.

When we found out that we would have twins, we were ecstatic. If I were good at backflips, I would have back flipped all day in euphoria. But, the whole screaming and losing your voice kind of ecstatic mad up for my excitement. Man! This went on for a while, maybe, it still goes on...it does, and it feels great. We had been married for 2-3 years, and our families and friends alike wondered when we would conceive. No pressure at all. .... Yeah! No pressure.

So when we were blessed to with two, we knew our prayers had been answered. Blessings on blessings on blessings! We remained humbled, and later surprised our families with the great news. In the midst of our euphoric state, we understood the complexities of a twin pregnancy, furthermore, considering how active we both were with our jobs, and being newly married, working full-time to make ends meet financially, we remained optimistic and prayed for the best outcome. In layman terms, it was also stressful.

Pregnancies are delicate. More elusive when you know so much about its delicacy, and go through it for the first time, it can be stressful. The dynamics of our relationship changed. We prioritized differently, and compromised as we began to plan for our new future. Wow! I'm becoming a father? I would often daydream. Deep down it felt so good. Deep down, I felt so clueless on what to expect. So prayed, and prayed for the best.

As my queen's body began to change, so did our gems inside her. I changed also, I waked shoulder high, became more concerned and curious about our new transformation. Everything was new, but my excitement of becoming a father overshadowed any uncertain fears. I laughed at how wobbly she walked, and boasted " Yep! I did that"!

As the morning sickness kicked in earlier, but did not last, I empathized with her, and Graham's crackers and spicy foods came in handy. I had heard how needy some women became during pregnancy, which mostly is attributed to hormonal changes, but my queen was easy on me, and the abundance of family support smoothens this phase of pregnancy.

It was always exciting to go for the obstetrician visits, because we came home with the cool ultrasound photos, indicating the length of the gems, how their organs were developing, and what positions/locations they were in. Our princess had a different pose every time, and our prince barely let go of his thumb as he mostly assumed a yoga position in utero.

We would often spend countless times imaging how they would look, how they would behave, and what traits they would have. And when it came to names, we had countless, from Mawuena & Mawoko, and the list goes on. Giving the African names was very important to us; we always want to keep our unique lineage and heritage. In line of lineage and heritage, we often imaging taking them to Ghana, and anticipating all the questions they would have, and how much we would share with them, as we toured our parents and forefather’s ancestry.

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The last two years have been the most challenging in our seven, going on eight years together. We've always had a keen interest in becoming parents, but we did not take into consideration the expansive responsibilities, mixed with anxiety, and the less time we would spend with each other. Whew! When was our last vacation? When was our last date night? Movie night? Our lives, changed forever, but, it has with so much excitement, although we occasionally feel like we are walking on eggshells as new parents.

Our lovely babies have been the best blessing in our lives, and we cannot have enough of their silliness as they age. Most importantly, the challenges we've faced and still face raising them, even with healthcare backgrounds, have not been a walk in the park. In actuality, our backgrounds in healthcare serve as a double-edged sword in keeping us grounded, and keeping us on the edge.

We wholeheartedly did not take into consideration how much our lives would change when we became parents. In the midst of seeing mothers taking their children to the park, soccer practice, karate, swimming and other activities; we always saw that as "cute", and we would often say " can't wait to do this one day". We are gradually becoming experts in sleeping less, and thinking less for our selves. Our lives evolve and revolve around these cute gems. And, the joys they bring keep us going.

In defining challenges, what do we mean? Now "us" has changed from two to four, that means it takes more time to get ready to leave home, and it takes more planning in doing the simplest things. Spending time together is cherished more, as most of our time is spent either at work or with our babies. As they meet their milestones, feeding them becomes an ordeal, as the mince play with eating, and are picky with their taste buds. Some mornings feeding them for breakfast is a walk in the park, the next morning, the same meal is foreign to them. We must stay; we have finally understood what real patience means.

As we curtail our new beautifully challenging life we get multiple "eureka" moments which make us understand the processes that bring a family collage to harmony. The most significant lesson learned as new parents is the appreciation for our parents; we get the whole picture now. In our next post, we will take you through our emotions and we welcomed our babies, and how overwhelmed we were....and how essential a shared responsibility in raising our babies.

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