Few days ago, a top-notch webinar session was held via zoom in Lagos. The programme was organised courtesy Nordica Fertility Centre, Lagos to encourage and educate couples waiting on the lord for the fruit of the womb on how they can stay together while waiting. The organisers invited highly resourceful hands in Mr. Prince Arheghan with his darling wife, Mrs. Carol Arheghan while a renowned relationship marriage Therapist, Mr. Olayiwola Abiola was also on ground to complement them. The highly insightful webinar was anchored by Fertility Counselor and sex therapist, Mrs. Tola Ajayi is centred on ‘how to enjoy intimacy while waiting’. During the programme, the Arheghans took time to share their experience on how they coped and maintained their intimacy while they waited for 9 years before conceiving. Below are the excerpts!
What is your definition of the word ‘Intimacy’?
Mr. Arheghan:
Intimacy is not different from definitions that have been given. But it’s just how you apply it to different areas of a relationship. In any relationship, the four cardinals of intimacy also apply to married individuals. It’s a role that we play at different points in time. it’s about how you relate with each other when it comes to the things you are dealing with at those levels. This goes a long way into strengthening and creating confidence for both parties. Even when your partner comes up with superior information on how best to get something done, you don’t see it as somebody trying to overshadow you. But you see it as complimenting others without whatever information you are sharing at that level because it is for the betterment of the relationship.
In your 11 years relationship before you got your son, how did you cope with intimacy?
Mrs. Arheghan:
Intimacy is what we practice on a daily basis. From when we started courting and got married, we saw ourselves as best of friends. I have friends before I got married but by the time we were married I got to know that this is now my best friend. So, we became best of friends. We do everything together. We bathe together, eat together, and go out together. Whatever he wants to do, I’m there to support him. whatever I want to do, he is there to support me. It is not about acting it out for people to see. It is who we are. We have always seen ourselves as best pals. We are naked before ourselves and we are not ashamed of who we are to ourselves. There is no secrecy between us. There is transparency. It got so bad that people in my area were seriously arguing if we were friends or we were brother and sister. One day we were walking on the street and somebody just approached me and said please don’t be offended. There has been an argument on this street and we want to be sure if you are married couples or brother and sister. I told them that excuse me, he is my husband. We are husband and wife. So, it was that bad. Even when we want to take a stroll we are always together. We hold our hands and walk on the street. That has helped us to form our bonding together. Then we entered our marriage with the mentality that we are going to make our marriage work; with child or no child. when the child was not forth-coming, it was an issue as this is what needs to be solved. But it wasn’t a problem to way us down or cause us issues in our marriage. We went through it together. We told ourselves, whatever that has happened, it’s our issue and we are going to deal with it. and we held on to that and we were just living our lives as best of friends.
Mr. Arheghan:
Getting into marriage, one of the things I told myself was that whomever I’m going to get married to, I do not have any expectations. So whatever I find is what I’m going to celebrate. It’s what I’m going to live with. Sometimes she asks me what are you expecting from me and I say nothing. Because when you don’t have expectations for something, when you see something, you don’t get disappointed. So I have never been disappointed in my home. There’s nothing I’m looking forward to from her like what she would do to please me. In fact, I was telling myself that I should be the one working towards meeting her expectations. So when things that we never expected happen, I don’t take it to heart as it were. Even if it were a problem, I don’t let it get into my spirit. I just tell myself; this is one of the things we are facing on this journey and we will deal with it as we journey along. One of the things that helped us is that we ask ourselves lots of questions. What is the purpose of our relationship? We also look back and ask ourselves what’s the purpose of marriage? When the issue of child bearing became a problem, we asked ourselves; is child the purpose of why God instituted marriage? And we looked at the bible, it is not but it is the by-products of love. Children are the by-products of a marriage. If it doesn’t happen, that does not mean that marriage cannot work. There are lots of things we can enjoy as couples without having children. We start as 2 individuals; we would also end as 2 individuals. And so the children will come and they will go. I’m not living with my parents right now. So they are on their own. My mum comes in and goes. So the same thing will happen. So we can live our lives in such a way that we people that individuals can look up to. So marriage for us is to make an impact, to cause changes in whatever ways God can make us to make an impact. So we started developing ourselves in different ways. We enrolled in courses, we did programmes together, we moved around together, we studied the bible together, we started ministry together, we started business together and so we were just enjoying ourselves. Whether the child was there or not, we were just enjoying ourselves because we knew that the child was going to come.
How did you cope with pressure from your families?
Mrs. Arheghan:
There was pressure and it was a genuine one. They were genuine concerns and we understood their concerns. But the only thing we kept telling them was that please; we understand that you were genuinely concerned about us. All you owe us is just be praying for us. Everything will be taken care of and in due time our kids will show up. So just be praying for us. We didn’t allow the pressure to get into us. We maintained a positive spirit. There is more to live than just having children. The only reason why you feel depressed or somebody made you feel unfulfilled is when your life is wasting. But when you are occupied with other responsibilities that God has placed in your hands, you will realise that… there was a day somebody came to me with a pregnant woman. She was telling me; Madam, you see this woman is pregnant and this is the drug she took. Come and join this club. When you take this drug, you will get pregnant. All this while you are just making money, you don’t have children, who will take those things/ I wanted to feel bad but I just understand that she was just being genuinely concerned. So I just said, ma, don’t worry. Thank you so much and I would get back to you. And she left. I didn’t feel bad because I know she was just being concern. What I will tell every couple right now is that have a life. Don’t allow the pressure to get to you. When I t5urned 40, the pressure became very high to a point where my mum even told me don’t let anybody know that you already 40 because you don’t have a child. I now told her that is it a crime that I’m now 40 and because I don’t have a child that I shouldn’t announce to the world that God has kept me alive for 40 years? I said; no mum, I’m going to celebrate it. I did my 40 years birthday and I was happy with my life because I know that God has told me in His word that none shall be barren in land. So I have held on to that word and I’m just living my life; my husband and I. we know that in due time the children will come. There are instances where friends that I trusted so much have birthday for their kids and they didn’t invite me because I don’t have a child. when I challenged them that why didn’t you invite me? They said don’t be angry, it is because we only invited those that have children. I felt bad but at some point, I said God, if anybody want to mock me, it’s you that they are going to mock. But I know you cannot be mocked. And then today, the reverse is the case. What I want to say is that people have a way of stigmatising you that you don’t have a child. but when your life becomes a life of impact, a life of glory, they will be the one to want to be identified with you despite what you are going through. Those periods we were waiting, we had baby showers for couples who were pregnant. There were cases where we had to buy baby things for couples who had their children. There is one today, each time that child is celebrating her birthday, her father brings her to us because we were the one that took care of her baby items when she was born. Meanwhile, we were waiting at that period but we didn’t feel bad about it. we were sowing seeds into the lives of other children and we were happy with our lives. Just have a life and when you are living the life that God has called you to live, I guarantee you that in no distant time, you will just see that it becomes a thing of the past.
Mr. Arheghan:
Our traditional mentality has done more harm than good. The truth of the matter is that many of the things we use to hold on to in the past no longer holds because life has changed. More knowledge, more information has emerged to disprove those things. So, as we begin to get more enlightened, it is important that we start informing and educating our people. A lot of pastors still put their people under bondage. There are people who have come secretly to talk to us about IVF and they said we shouldn’t let the pastors know that they came to ask us about IVF. Some pastors are so ignorant that they make their members believe that it is not godly. Somebody said IVF is not of God and I told them and I said; how did Jesus come into this world? I said because we didn’t have a name for it then but we have a name for it now. God has prepared me with lots of his scriptures to defend why God gave people the wisdom to develop IVF. God is now using us to help a lot of couples. Life is too short, while waste it. enjoy yourselves. If the baby comes, good! If it doesn’t come, move ahead.
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