Omar SE Azan

Marketing & Public Relations Manager, Bashco Trading Company Limited

On Fatherhood:

Fatherhood became everything to me. My daily goal is to be a better example for my kids. Asher, the name of my first-born means happy and blessed, and my goal is to maintain that daily, in anything and everything I can do. I want to grow him and show him the best person he can be, not just for himself, but how he can be the best person in the space that he’s in.”

Father to: Asher and Thea Azan

Ages: 3 years old and 3 months respectively

What’s the story behind your child’s name?

Asher means happy and blessed.

When my wife and I were looking for names, we went through two different books of boys’ names. In the first book, we passed ‘Asher’ in the first chapter, and liked it, but decided to move on.

In the end, the idea of my son being happy and blessed all the days of his life won out over every other name.

What were your immediate thoughts at the birth of your child?

My first reaction is a funny story:

While waiting on my son to come out from the delivery/operating room, I sat with all the usual emotions: fear, excitement, etc. Then the door opened and a nurse pushed out a baby in a trolley and I stood up and immediately began to cry, seeing this beautiful child for the first time… Then I glanced up at the nurse who had a perplexed look on her face. “No Mr Azan, this isn’t your son,” she said. I dried my tears and sat down, so by the time Asher finally came out, I was all cried out!

When I saw him, though, I just stood in awe looking at him.

Shortly after, he was fussing and I sat beside him and sang a lullaby I wrote for him that I would sing to him while he was still in the womb, and he stopped fussing and went off to sleep.