African King and Queen

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 

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. 

We anticipated our due date in the later part of Spring this year, so we counted every second with eagerness, happiness, and a high sense of calm and accomplishment as we anticipated our seeds to take their first earthly breath. It felt good to think about hearing their first cry, touch and smell them, to see who they looked like : feel them within our soul and in the sole of our palms.

We barely had any names picked as we centered our curiosity more on their perceived personalities. We talked often about what traits they would embody, and prayed they engulfed our positive traits only. Thinking back, it really feels good to be writing about this. Not a single moment did we focus on something going wrong, there's really a uniqueness about positive thinking.

This is exciting to write about.
It feels good to write about our growth and challenges, and how we overcome and remain positive. It's exciting to know that what we write here will be read by you and our growing family. Lilian and I have so much to be grateful for, and we promise that our unintentional  absence from our blog is excusable.

It hasn't been our intent to  keep our blessings to ourselves, however on a night like this,  when it is half past midnight, and when we've tried all the tricks in the books to calm our two beautiful babies have been unsuccessful, insomnia niched in excitement gradually sets writing about our novice parenthood experiences the only alternative.

It all started during the last quarter of 2015,  when we found out that our prayers were answered, so we prayed more and kept praying towards our due date. The emotions were beyond euphoric, we had prayed for so long and talked so much about how eager we were at becoming parents. At times, we had been slightly discouraged, but deep down, we knew we served a Living God who wouldn't fail us. In an awkward wait felt good to be able to limit others from continually asking, "When are you having children"?  Honestly, it was one of the toughest questions we've had to deal with. 

I was at home when Lilian called from work and told me the good news,  I was ecstatic, so much so that I sent her a video of my silliness at home; dancing, screaming and goofing of as usual. What a feeling!!!  Our lives changed from that very moment, our thoughts, our perceptions on life and family took an interesting turn. We smiled more, walked shoulder high, with more swagger than the usual, became closer, because deep down in our heart, it felt so good knowing we would soon be parents.

I enjoyed the transformation in Lilian so much, she touched her belly often, and I caught her in-front of the mirror more, and more as she loved her body transformation; also she meticulously watched every matter she digested. As her body transformed, her skin glowed and her teeth whitened and she gained a new silly giggle and silliness; however, she gradually got tired more, and attempted to eat more in the midst of nausea and constipation, which was tough to deal with. Most impressively, she kept on, worked 5 days or so every week, and I often wondered how she got through her days at work with such a workload.

I haven't taken that many pictures and videos as much as I did during this process, I took pictures and videos, daily as I anticipated each day with more poise than before. We tracked each second with What to Expect App  and wrote down some remarkable memories. We found the app very helpful, as  we got daily and weekly notifications of growth, expectations and and recorded our appointments with our OB/GYN team meticulously. In the midst of our excitement and enthusiasm, it was clear to us that becoming parents would be challenging, transformational as demanding, so we leaned more to positive thinking and knew that our family would be supportive as well, most importantly we believed God would be on our side.

A month passed, and two and three, and we finally decided to let the cat out of the of the bag, we couldn't hide Lilian's bump any longer. For three months we both avoided social gatherings as much as possible and enjoyed the high suspiciousness that lingered in the hearts of our parents. At times we got close to being caught, but we used denial as a successful tool.

On thanksgiving 2015, we shared the great news with our family, and the joy, happiness and thrill is still pulsatile in our thoughts. We sang and danced and cheered, shed some tears of joy, hugged and prayed to God for an answered prayer, and most importantly, prayed for our "seed" and the love we share to grow endlessly.

We took a trip to California, and spent some time with our friends and hid our secret well, but suspiciously. In December, 2015, we came to accept that it was impossible to hide, so sent postcards to our close friends and family to share our joy with them. We kept another secret though. Secret we shared with our family on Christmas- "we're expecting twins !"