Wedding Bells!

SO!!! My older sister Juliet got engaged this past weekend and I am MORE than excited!!! I am also VERY excited about the wedding planning which is of course what comes next! Unfortunately, I am going to miss out on a lot of the fun stuff since I won't be here. However, there will definitely be a lot of emailing, picture messaging, FaceTiming, and talking on the phone going on. Hubby already thinks I spend my days talking to Juliet on the phone, now he's really gonna know I spend my days talking to Juliet on the phone. Lol! Thankfully, I am here for a couple more weeks so I get to go for at least one trip of dress shopping with her! Yay!!! 

Juliet and her fiance Bank. They were in Jekyll island for a fishing trip. He took her horseback riding and planned a picnic afterwards where he proposed. Good stuff!

Also notable, my older sister Collette and her hubby celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary on August 30th. How time flies! Wishing you guys many, many more fulfilled years together!

Collette and Nosa at dinner on the night of their anniversary.

Have a great weekend!

Goodies from Brazil

My older sister Harriet recently spent some time in Brazil visiting her friend, and in true Harriet Atsegbua (my maiden name) fashion, she came back bearing gifts! 

Flip flops for me!

Flip flops for Mo!

A Harriet gift is not complete without it being packaged with Love!

Bottle of beer for Hubs!

While RiRi was in Brazil, she put up a picture on her IG with this bag on the beach. I thought it was pretty and asked if she got it in Brazil. She responded that it belonged to her friend Olga. I didn't think nothing else about it and carried on about my day. When I got the flip flops, I also got the bag! Cool thing is that Olga got this bag as a gift from a friends travel to Madagascar. Couldn't believe she let me have it without me even asking. Thanks again Olga!

When Harriet came to stay with us right before Demi arrived she came with nicely packaged boxes for MoMo and Demi that contained the cutest outfits ever from "Janie and Jack". She's the best!

Harriet in Brazil!

Keep em coming boo boo :) 

Behind The Names

When our family members and friends found out about Demilade's middle name being King-David, some laughed, some absolutely loved it, and some thought we were joking. As a matter of fact, till this day, whenever people find out his middle name is King David, they have a look of amazement on their face, which is usually followed by "Did y'all really name him that?" or "Wait, that's his name foreal?". Lol. YES! It is his name! With both of our kids, nobody knew their names until the day they were born. That's the way hubby wanted it and I respected his decision. After MoMo, I think my family caught on and no one even bothered to ask me what we would name our son. They figured they'd find out when he arrived. Lol. 

Naming your child, I believe is one of the biggest task when you find out you will be a parent. Not only is it a name that they get stuck with for the rest of their lives (well if they decide not to get a name change), but what you call someone is so critical because I believe it sometimes shapes their destiny. In the Bible, I can think of three examples where God changed the names of three men in order to use them. They had to take on a new identity for what he was getting ready to do in their lives. Abram became Abraham, Jacob became Israel, and Saul became Paul. Hubby and I both understood the importance and committed naming our children into God's hands. I always wondered, well how will I know? I later came to find out that there was peace and an agreement between hubby and I, and that was our confirmation. Hubby is Yoruba(an ethnic group in Nigeria), so we decided to give our children Yoruba names as their first names and what they would go by. Regardless of how tongue twisting a name is, I am a firm believer that what God has for you, will be for you, and people will just have to learn the name. I mean, hubby does not even have an English name and look how he turned out. LOL!

When I became pregnant with MoMo, I wanted her name to have something to do with "Joy", because her coming brought joy into my life. Since I don't know much about Yoruba names and the translations, hubby would always give me several names with translations that had joy in the meaning. We went through several until he told me one day that he had one that he knew I would fall in love with. As soon as he said "Morayooluwa" which means "I have seen the joy of God", I just knew that was it! That explained everything I was feeling and he knew too! Our name search stopped right there. Now for her middle name... One Sunday we were at church and during worship, the worship leader sang "Heaven" by Israel Houghton. At the end of the song, he sang the chorus over and over again, "Your presence is heaven to me". Hubby right then whispered in my ears and said, "I think we should name her Heaven. I looked at him like Huh? Lol! But he was so serious. After church we talked more about it. I had a lot of reservations. Why would we do that? Who does he know named Heaven? In the following days, I searched on Facebook to see if there were any Heavens. Lol. I mean, it sounded very pretty as a name, and the meaning was powerful too. Her being with us was God's presence to us, but I just couldn't understand why we would name her that. Two Sundays later, we got out of church and hubby wanted to go to the bookstore. At this point, I was getting heavy and I was tired so I decided to just sit out in the foyer and wait for him. While I was sitting, a little girl and her mom came and sat next to me. I started talking to the little girl and then I asked her what her name was and she pointed up. I looked up confused and asked again, and she did it again. Her mom then told me, "She loves doing that. Her name is heaven". I was shocked!!! What are the freaking odds?! All my days, I had never met anyone with that name and then now?! As soon as hubby walked back I told him what had just happened. He couldn't believe it either. We eventually named her Sophie-Annette which means wise and gracious, and my my is she WISE! I need to put a 15 months post on her. I'm blown away by all she does at this age! The gracious part, we're still working on. My baby is a feisty little lioness. Lol! I always wonder though if meeting that little girl was my confirmation and when I think about it, I call her Heaven that whole day and resume regular programming the next. LOL!

After finding out I was pregnant the second time, I was looking through Yoruba names on Google and I came across "Oluwaseyi" which means "God has done this". Considering the pregnancy story, I immediately fell in love with the name. It was just perfect. I never mentioned it to hubby though. Hubby wanted to name our son after him and I was absolutely fine with it. I love the meaning of his name - Oluwatosin which means "God is worthy to be praised". And in all that had happened in our lives, I felt it was fitting. However, getting closer to the delivery, he changed his mind. I knew this was serious because I know he really wanted his son to be a junior. About two days later, we were in the car and he brought up the name discussion again. He said he had been thinking about two names and one was Oluwaseyi. I didn't even wait for him to say the second one. I yelled out "Are you serious? Me too!" Lol. Still though we didn't come to a conclusion. It wasn't a feeling like we had with MoMo. A few days before our son arrived, hubby's dad sent him the names they wanted to give him just like they did with MoMo and hubby was too excited to tell me about a particular one- "Oluwademilade" which means "God had crowned me". He came home talking about how it was just perfect and even more perfect for the middle name we already had! When he told me I fell in love with it but believe it or not, we concluded on it the morning Demi arrived! Now for his middle name- we were sitting in our church here in Bentonville, and the pastor that day preached a very spowerful message on the life of King David. During the message hubby wrote KD on a paper and passed it to me. I know right? What's it with church, hubby, and middle names? Lol. Anyways I looked at the paper like... what's this? He then wrote out King David and then said that's our son's middle name. I asked him "you and who?" Lol. The David part, I loved. I always knew even ever before meeting hubby that I would want to name one of my son's David. There were a few Bible names I loved and all the sons I was going to have each had one. Lol. After church I told him I loved David but why did we have to add the King? Well, that conversation ended well because that is our son's middle name King-David. 

All Images. Source - Google Images

I think after my minor hiatus this long post makes up for it! No?

Our Son

Master Oluwademilade King-David Odesanya

Oluwademilade - God has crowned me

King

David - Beloved

Prior to Demi being born, I was so worried that he wouldn't have a newborn photo session like MoMo did. You can check out some of MoMo's newborn pictures in this post. A friend of mine who was expecting her first child and like me was fairly new to Bentonville, searched for a photographer and had a really hard time finding one. This bothered me a lot! Probably more than it should have, and I spent a lot of time out of my day searching for one too. I was jobless at this point, so I had some time on my hands. Lol! It got to a point where my mind went as far as thinking to fly in the lady that took MoMo's pictures. I tried to think of several ways to justify that thought too, but that's all it was and remained - a thought. If I ever brought that up to hubby, he would have thought I had lost my mind. Lol!

Thankfully, after getting my job, I noticed some really lovely photos my boss had at her desk. I asked her about it and she gave me the photographer's information. You can't imagine how elated I felt! I called the lady and we scheduled a session right away! I think she did a great job! Check out her blog here.

Are We There Yet?! (Conclusion)

About three weeks leading up to my due date, I began throwing things into my hospital bag and marking them off a print out checklist I had. This was a second time process for me, but you never can be too sure. The last thing I wanted was getting to the hospital and being in need of something I couldn't get right away. That would drive me crazy. Besides toiletries and make-up which I was going to use in the morning, my suitcase was ready. Oh yeah! This was not going to be a MoMo repeat, my eyebrows would be camera ready boi! Lol..

On the evening of the 3rd, Hubby, MoMo, and I went to dinner at Ghenghis Grill. It was a really fun time savoring our last hours as a family of three. Later that night, my sister Harriet drove from Dallas to be with us. She got in pretty late, so she only had a few minutes to spend with her god-daughter MoMo. Hubby and I made plans to drop MoMo off with our pastor's family since Harriet was going to be in the delivery room with us. 

MoMo at dinner.

The next morning, I got up with a very familiar feeling. I was going to hold my baby boy today in just a few hours and I couldn't wait! We left Harriet at home to get some rest, she was going to join us in a few hours. We got to the hospital a little late at about 6:30am and as soon as we got there, our nurse was ready for us. Almost seemed  like we kept her waiting. Lol. We were taken to our room, and my nurses started moving around getting things ready. Before changing into the hospital gown, I asked hubby to take a picture of me that showed my front, side, and back view. I wanted to be able to look back on what I looked like pregnant right before the baby. You can view that picture a few posts down. After he took the picture, I went into the bathroom to change. When I got out, I got in bed and got ready for what was coming next. My nurses were ready to draw some blood and start my IV. I shed some tears of course because it was painful and that's just the truth. I wasn't trying to be a drama queen, it hurt! It wasn't too bad compared to when I got it with MoMo, now that hurt like hell. Meanwhile, hubby sat there with his talkative self just chatting away with the nurses. He did hold me through the process though. 

In Part 1 of this post, I mentioned that Demilade's delivery was very similar to Morayo's. That's because my IV for both got started around the same time and I got my epidural around the exact same time(9.00am) for both too. Oh yeah! I got the epidural again! Lol. This time around though I was very calm, in fact too calm. I got in the sitting position with hubby in front of me holding my hands, and before I knew it, it was over. After that, their delivery stories get different, hence the post title "Are We There Yet?!"

Before going in to get induced with MoMo, I was 0cm dilated and 0% effaced. However, after the overnight Cervidil induction and starting Pitocin in the morning, I dilated with speed and before we knew it, MoMo made her appearance at 2:14pm. With Demilade, I was already 2.5cm dilated as of my last check-up. It was my second baby and like they say, "the second baby comes faster" right? So I just knew that once we started with the Pitocin, my baby was going to make his appearance before noon. Wham bam, latest by Monday at noon, I would be checking out! Boi was I in dream land! 

After the epidural, my doctor came in to check me at 11:00am, I was 4cm dilated. I was kind of disappointed because I thought I would have been further along but I said to myself "no worries", I figured in a couple of hours I'd be pushing. I fell in and out of sleep, listened and joined in with conversations between hubby and Harriet, spoke to my mom what seemed like every other second until my doctor walked in again at 1:30. When he checked he told me I was at 5. I said "really!" out loud, I couldn't believe it! Only 5? At this point, I figured I just chill and go with the flow. He broke my water and the waiting continued. He came back to check me at 5:00pm and YES! I was at 10cm and was going to start pushing soon. I think there was a conspiracy though, because I waited yet again for about an hour and 30 minutes before my doctor came back. Lol! 

I don't remember how long I pushed for but I'd estimate about 15minutes. This time around though I felt my contraction pains. With Morayo, I had to be told when to push because the epidural was still strong. So the nurse would look at the monitor and let me know when to push based on when it spiked which meant I was contracting. However, considering my little man took his time, the epidural was already wearing off. I knew when I was contracting and I knew when to push! It wasn't a terrible pain though just REALLY intense! For the end result, I'd do it over and over again but no thanks! Lol. I had hubby and Harriet in the room with me. Btw... my mom got to watch the delivery! I think Harriet had her on FaceTime. Oh the power of Technology! 

My baby boy said hello to the world at 6:55pm. He came in weighing 8lbs 3oz and was 19.5inches. 

Demilade and I

Daddy and Demilade

Aunty Harriet and Demilade

Mo meeting her brother for the first time. Love that face. Lol...

Getting weighed!

My boy!

My heart felt thanks to my wonderful doctor and all the lovely nurses that took really good care of me. Grateful! Also all our wonderful friends that came by to see me and even cooked for me! I truly appreciate it! God BLESS you!

I have had two awesome pregnancies from finding out through delivery and I am SO thankful to God. I used to be fearful of childbirth and after having my babies, I'm not sure why! I am one BLESSED girl!

My Babies!

I celebrate my babies today. 4 is a great number!

DEMILADE IS 1 MONTH OLD!!!

MORAYO IS 15 MONTHS OLD!!

Time is going by SOOO fast!!! I can't believe I had Demi a month ago and MoMo is so grown now!!! I can't wait to give you all an update on her!

They got me! SO IN LOVE!!!

In other news...

Check me out... This is my 100th post!!! WHOOP WHOOP!!! It has not been easy, but I'm proud of my dedication!

Source - Google Images

Besos!