When Regina Yeboah Asuamah looks at her babies, sitting in her immaculate Alexandria apartment and rocking one of them, she smiles.
She seems always cheerful through the exhaustion, the blur of sleepless nights and the constant demands for diaper changes, feedings, holding, and rocking. She takes care of her four little ones and there is nowhere else she’d rather be because she has waited so long for this moment. During a recent visit, four cribs, three blue and one pink, were lined up against the dining room wall. Three of them held sleeping babies while Yeboah Asuamah was feeding a fourth.
She said that before she even met her husband in Ghana, she bought a set of clothes for triplets, two boys and a girl, thinking she’d save them for later. It turns out she was only off by one.
Today she is the mother of three boys and a girl, born premature Oct. 18 at 31-weeks gestation. A U.S. citizen originally from Ghana, she is a single mother for now as she has been waiting for her husband, Kennedy Akwasi Yeboah, a journalist, to join her since 2019. They were married in December 2018 in Ghana. She hired an immigration lawyer shortly after returning to the U.S. to help process her Ghanaian husband’s immigration paperwork. His application is progressing through the normal channels, with no apparent problems besides immigration red tape. In the meantime, she has visited him regularly in Ghana but he is not able to come here because of his immigration status. He calls almost every day, she said.
The babies, Aseda, Adom, Nhyira, and Akyedie, all born weighing approximately 3 pounds, stayed at the hospital for several weeks after their birth. They came home, one after the other to be reunited finally by mid-December. That’s when Yeboah Asuamah’s family friend contacted Pierrette Ntambwe, a parishioner of St. Louis Church in Alexandria. Ntambwe in turn connected the new mom with Theresa Talavera, the founder and head of the parish Mothers’ Group. And the group became the new mother’s small village, pitching in to help. Talavera set up a SignUpGenius identifying specific needs: Some families signed up to bring diapers and formula, others washed and dried loads of laundry, and a few stopped by and brought meals or held babies. Every little bit helps, said a grateful Yeboah Asuamah. A lab technician, she exhausted her medical and family leave time after the babies’ birth and had to leave her job.
“We have a wonderfully diverse parish,” said Father Keith O’Hare, pastor of St. Louis. There’s unity in that diversity, he added, which is how she found support at the parish.
Yeboah Asuamah’s mother and aunt were able to spend several weeks with her to help care for the newborns. Her aunt lives in Italy, and was going to be the godmother to the three boys. When her paperwork could not be processed in time, Yeboah Asuamah asked Talavera and her husband, Alex, to be the boys’ godparents. The quadruplets were baptized at St. Louis Feb. 22, surrounded by a small crowd of old and new friends. The more personal the love, the more personal the service, said Father O’Hare, noting the important role personal relationships played in bringing people together to help Yeboah Asuamah.
After the quadruplets’ birth, Jessica McGovern, a neonatologist with MedStar Georgetown Hospital, wrote a letter stating the urgency of the situation to advance the father’s immigration paperwork.
“The birth of quadruplets is an infrequent and high-risk event, compounded by the significant needs of premature infants,” she wrote. That fact coupled with the cesarean section means that the father’s presence “is critical not only for his wife and children’s well-being but also to ensure the smooth coordination” of their care, and the ongoing management of their needs, in the hospital and at home.
Yeboah Asuamah’s lawyer sent the letter to the U.S. State Department’s National Visa Center Oct. 30 to request expedited processing from the U.S. Embassy. Joyce Williams, an immigration lawyer who was involved with Kennedy Akwasi Yeboah’s petition, said the embassy did not respond to the request, and is known informally to approve expedited processing solely for “life or death situations.” The U.S. Embassy in Accra declined to fast-track his interview appointment when contacted by the office of Congressman Don Beyer, D-Va., in March.
Ghanaian immigrants and their children account for 0.3 percent of the total foreign-born population in the United States. Their wait time for green card approval can be as long as 10 years, according to Williams. She said the length varies by countries, Ghana and Mexico being some of the countries with the longest wait. About 70 percent of her clients come from Latin America, while 20 percent are African.
“The consular process takes a very long time,” she said. “It’s a very frustrating process with the consulate. Families are waiting for years and years,” she added. The paperwork was approved at the end of 2023, and the family has since been waiting for an appointment with the U.S. Embassy in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
Yeboah Asuamah’s mother and aunt both have returned to their homes, her aunt to Italy and her mother to Milwaukee. Her mother was last to leave, April 1. Her father lives in New York City and she has an uncle, her mother’s brother, who is a Catholic priest in Texas.
The babies are thriving, they have gained weight and all are doing well. Her daily life is more difficult now that her mother and aunt have left. Her car cannot accommodate all four of the car seats, so she cannot leave her home with the babies. But despite all the struggles, she remains upbeat and optimistic.
“One day we’ll hear good news. I’m always positive about it,” she said. “If I worry about it, I worry for nothing. God will do his best, he makes everything perfect.”
Chapman is a freelancer in Alexandria.
