 Okay, let me turn off the fan, hopefully it doesn't tear. Okay, bear with us as we get sweaty. Yes, it will get very warm in here, but we're happy to be back. It's getting hot in here. Okay, so I guess you can see some things have been changed. It's good to be back. Welcome to another video. My name is Kwame and this is... Hi, I'm Elaine. And this is me bless you with us. We haven't done a video in a long time. And it's because a lot of things have been happening in our lives. The first one being that I was in the funk. That's the first one. Creative funk. I was in the creative funk. I didn't feel like doing so much with YouTube. But I was doing other things on the side. For example, I joined the AU Media Fellowship. I mentioned in my previous video. I made a short film, Jolt, which is about a father and son relationship. And in relation to Jolt, something else happened. You guys remember our previous video where we said we're expanding our family, right? And then we showed you Nala, who was the expansion to the family. Yes. But what we didn't know was... Something else was also expanding. Something else was also expanding. So even though people were commenting that we thought you were pregnant and everything, we... We laughed. We were like, no way. No way. We're not pregnant. It's not even close there. We started with the dog. We started with the dog. A furry baby first. Furry baby first. However, what we didn't know was... There was more abundance coming our way. More than just a furry friend. Just a few weeks. Around the same time. Yeah. If we calculate back. To when we found out that, yes, we are expecting a child. That is around the same time Nala came into our lives. Yeah. I think it's cute. Oh, happy. Look where you say that. I just can't stop. I don't know. I don't know. I am happy. Yeah. It's nice. Yeah. I'm happy. I'm also happy. But you were very visible. It's a good thing. But in this video, in our coming back, we just wanted to... Come back. Yeah. It is. Yeah. But we just wanted to talk about how we got here. How we got to... The decision. The decision to start or start a family this way. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, I mean, I love it when people announce their achievements and also when people announce like, oh, we're expecting. Yeah. I think it's really nice. But people often don't talk about why did you decide to want to or be open for a child. Yeah. And even with my friends, they said, if I asked that question, they said, like, I didn't get that question a lot. It's like, I'm sure it's also private, but it can also help other people to learn or, I mean, think some things through before starting. Because they often portray wanting to start a family as something that is just there. It's just you get to that stage and that's it. But for example, for me, I mean, yes, I got to the stage, but it wasn't as maybe as how you think all women want it so badly. Yeah. And that's why we are now here. Yeah. Because between the two of us, I was the one who was ready, ready. And I think in some of our videos, it did come up at some point. But I've always been the one who's been ready, ready. But my motivation for wanting to have a child was based on two things that, I mean, the social construct of having your own tribe with the person you love is there's that. But also in the second reason is that to do it with somebody who you knew in your heart of hearts that it would be easier to work with having such a responsibility. Yeah. So if I knew that my partner wasn't ready or the kind of person that I wanted to read a child with, I don't think my enthusiasm would have been the same as when I am with her and I know that if we do start a family, I know that somebody who is on the same wavelength of commitment, on the same wavelength of wanting to do things right with somebody and sharing that responsibility. So that's my motivation. Yeah. And I think Grandma has always been a bit more ready. Like he was, but that's always been the case in our relationship. Yeah. I mean, he proposed that he is always a bit ahead of at least my schedule. But we, so we did have a lot of conversation about it. And I, for me, one of the main things I was not sure of is, I mean, for him, it's easy to decide, right? Like, oh, I want a child because honestly, you're not carrying it. But for me. That's not why I want a child. No. But I mean, it's easier for you to take a decision because you're the man. So for me, I literally have to carry the child like inside of me. And you have all these side effects hormones, your body changes, you're tired all the time. And that one, I wasn't sure if I would be ready for ready for it. And also hormones can be very difficult to deal with. And what if it would change me like, like a lot? And then what? Like, you still have to function, you have to go to work, you have to do this, you have to do that. So that for me was a bit of a question mark. Like, how do you handle that? So you needed to reconcile all these questions with yourself? Yeah, it's good to understand like where what you're getting into. And of course, so for me, I found out that my motivation to have a child is because I want to do it with Kwame. And not because I've always wanted to be a mom. I like kids a lot. I get along with them very well. They bring a lot of joy. But it's not like if I was by myself that I would then go ahead and be single mom just because for the sake of wanting to be a mom. You get what I mean? Yeah. So for me, the motivation is in doing this together. And I think honestly, like what starting a family or wanting a child or being open to it is not a logical decision. Because if you look at the logistics, the logistics of the money, a child costs, the other things you have to take care of. And even the biological aspect as well and all the possibilities of what to go wrong and all that. You can have severe complications. There are more reasons to not do it than to do it. Yeah. And also look at the state of the world we are in. I mean, there's a lot of crisis going on. Look at the economy in Ghana. It's not going to be easy adding another person to feed. Which for me brings me to the aspect of our social interaction with people that you should not give anybody that, you know, culturally we have that when you, I don't know if it's cultural or social, it's a social thing. But when somebody, like people want to go through the phases of what life is supposed to be. Get married, have kids, have your home and what not. So when somebody is not in a relationship, when are you going to get a relationship? When are you going to get married? When you get married, when are you going to have kids? Yeah. It cements people who are deciding that they don't want to have kids and it makes you understand that it's okay for somebody to decide that because ideally if you look at it in a rational way more people not wanting to have kids with where the economy is at the moment mentally being available to do it or not and financially and everything. Please give people space. Yeah. It's a very personal decision and I think there are more like negatives than positives to it. If you're being really rational so it's not a logical decision to say yes. So that's also something we found out like you can make lists and lists of pro and cons but in the end it is your feeling that says like okay we want to do this or not. Yeah. And with a partner that you feel safe enough to do it with. Yeah, that's also very important. It's not a choice that comes just cause. You have to give it a lot of thought and I'm really grateful that even though my senses or my general senses were like you know I'm ready I want to do this but I like the fact that I appreciate the fact that on the other side my partner is thinking much more on the other bits more so there's a balance of these decisions. But even like the psychological side of it like I mean I think we are quite mature and like we grow together we communicate we try but I mean we're not perfect people right? Yeah. And you will bring that along in raising a child so you will make mistakes and you will put some things that you maybe have not processed onto a child and you have to also be ready for that that I'm gonna mess up. Yeah. And then we have to deal with that. Yeah. And be open about it like we didn't know any better and I'm sorry you know. So that was also a big question for me like how do you know that you're ready and I think at some point I realize that I don't think I'm gonna be ever more ready than now because I think I will always be a mom who is a mom but also other things like I would want to always have... Be your person. Be my own person yes. Outside of being... A parent. A parent. Just like how I'm your spouse but I'm also... Your person who likes your things you like and do other things for you. I'm also a friend I'm also a sister I'm a daughter like I like this. And you want to exist for all those things that you know. Yeah and of course I mean it will shift when you get a child issue because it's a big part, it's a part of you but I would still want also to show our future child like you can be a lot of things at the same time. Yeah. And still be a whole person. Yeah. So for me that like how sometimes women are portrayed and I'm sure there are a lot of women who have that super intense urge to be a mom but for me I realize that that's not there but it doesn't mean I don't want it. I want it in my own way. It doesn't mean that you are a bad person for not wanting it in the same way that society expects you to want it. Yeah like as badly. As yeah. Whoa this is... I will not like how you say it's not my... I don't think it will be my holy grail. Like whoa now I'm finished like I can... My life isn't done. I have succeeded. I can just chill the rest of my life. No I don't think that that's how it works for me but I do think I'm excited for what it can bring and what it will add to my life and what's like the exchange of... because people always say I want to teach my child this, this, this but the child will teach you a lot and the other way around. Yeah we're learning that from having Nala in our life as well. So I guess what we are trying to say essentially is one, it's good to be back two, we're expecting a child and three, this is how we got to deciding... The decision of trying. One more thing, I think what we did is we decided like we want to try but I think also people forget that it's still, it's not in our hands whether it will work out or not so we literally said we want to try but we're not going to focus on it we're just going to live our lives and see what happens That happened pretty fast but people also like how people ask like when are you going to have children it's like you have certain control you don't have that like it's up to whatever you believe in but like it's... So it's on the biology side of things as well and it maybe could have taken us much longer and then you're still happily like open to the idea but it's not up to... Not to put that much pressure on yourself Yeah so I think that's also important to yes you can have the wish to want to have a child but the we said we're going to try that's kind of was our mindset instead of this is what we want so like we're open to it if it comes to us Yeah so we're going to wrap up our first video back here in our subsequent videos we're going to share with you a few stories of how we've been Yeah but we're not only going to do pregnancy stories because that's a bit boring I know do other things with our lives Yes other things with our lives but there will be I'm just letting them know there will be a pregnancy series of conversations Yeah There will be other things will happen in our lives but if you are receiving a lot of pregnancy series stuff it's what we're going through Did we agree on the name? For the baby? No of the series No they should help us decide I want the baby boom because for us it became it came quite sudden So should I name this baby boom EP1? If he wants Why we decided to start a family Yeah Okay So that's it for this video We'll catch you in the next one Hopefully soon Yes yes hopefully soon I'm serious I'm serious Hopefully soon My name is Kwame and I'm Elaine And this me plus you is Us And we're happy to be back We'll catch you in the next video Bye Bye