Raising a family, child birthing and beyond

My first baby came in 1991 when I was ready and prepared emotionally and physically at age 29. (You see, I thought I would be single for life, and I was prepared for it!) Oh, what a joy this bubbly handsome boy we named Mark Anthony has brought us! We had given him all the attention he could probably ask for even when we, his parents, were working full time.

Preparing for the new member of the family and childbirth was a breeze, and so I thought. I asked veterans moms, including my mother, their experiences and helpful tips. I consulted medical books… and so I thought I was prepared for everything. But I was wrong…I had to undergo ceasarian operation after 13 hours of labor. At the first sign of childbirth, which was droplets of blood in my undies, I went home from work to consult my gynecologist who said I have wait for my contractions. My husband and I already secured a hospital room when the doctor told us to go and rest at home. Once at home the contractions become regular until such time that I had bleeding. That was the only time we went back to the hospital. Finding no opening in my cervix, my doctor decided to have it x ray-ed and found out it would be risky for me to go for a normal delivery -- the cervix is small and the baby isn't coming down naturally. Exhausted from the labor pains for almost 13 hours and the effects of drugs and antibiotics due to operation I felt so weak caring for my newborn... Nevertheless, Mark turned out to be easy to handle and he was the apple of our eyes for five years until his baby sister came in 1996. No longer a neophyte to the CS operation, we were more prepared emotionally and even financially for the second baby. Life was good when Melissa Ann came to our life. We were enjoying a career high, money was easy. We bought our major appliances that same year and decided on renting a bigger place for the growing family. Like Mark, we wanted to give Melissa enough time and attention for her growing up years. I said, “Two is enough.” Melissa also turned out to be an easy kid to handle though I needed extra hand to help us with two kids in the family.

On Melissa’s second birthday, I felt something wrong with my body. I felt sick! My body was aching. It seemed I was afflicted with flu. I felt down and lazy. On realization that I must be pregnant again, I busied myself and did the general cleaning of the dirty kitchen thinking that if I get tired, my monthly visitor will come. Missing my period for six weeks, I decided to buy a pregnancy kit and tested myself at home. When the kit showed me positive for pregnancy, I cried a river! I asked myself, “Why are you crying?” I consoled myself, “You’re blessed with another child! Some of your friends are incapable of becoming biological mothers and here you are. You must be a good mother. You’re going to take care of a new baby again. You wanted four, don’t you?” No amount of consolation can make me happy that time. I felt I was not prepared for a new pregnancy physically and emotionally. And the thought of undergoing under the knife again frightened me. The thought of caring for another baby made me feel sick and tired. My mind was saying, “Ayaw ko na! Pagod na ko! Then, I had career plans that went down the drains… I was sad the whole duration of my pregnancy. Worst, I could hardly walk long and I couldn’t straighten my left leg during the last trimester of my pregnancy. I had to work at home – to edit my magazine. I tried hard thinking of happy, beautiful things for the sake of this creature growing in my tummy. I gave birth to Michelle Anne on December 18, 1998, exactly one week before Christmas.

What made my delivery more painful is the fact that the doctors had to cut my appendix which they found out to have hardened and brownish in color. I was injected Demerol at 9am and woke up at around 2pm at the operating room. I thought I had given birth already. One hospital staff approached me and said that the operating room was full and I was scheduled later for the operation. I was all alone and lying helpless at the operating room for hours I had not known… I had not seen baby Michelle during the duration of my stay at the hospital. The nursery was under repair. She was not allowed to stay with me as I was groggy and weak of the operation. And I was not eager to see her which was expected of a new mom. But my heart jumped with joy when I saw her and held her for the first time on our way home. Michelle showed physical beauty and intelligence at a very tender age. We went home at 8:00 o’clock in the evening and she stayed awake the whole night through our first night to be together as mother and daughter.

I’ve been telling my friends that Michelle would be my last baby even though my doctor refused to have me ligated. “Three operations will be too much for you. We can do tubaligation later or you can use contraceptives for you not to be pregnant again,” she explained. I decided to use the Billings method of family planning which is counting the days I am fertile and infertile, and therefore, abstained from sex on fertile days. The method goes like this, a woman is fertile when she is wet, and infertile when she is dry. Being wet is when she has white discharge which range from watery, slippery and sticky. Slippery and sticky discharges signal that a woman is fertile. Being dry is having no discharge. The method worked for me with the cooperation of my husband, of course.

Michelle was two years old when we decided to transfer residence from Sta. Mesa to Novaliches. My husband Tony was unceremoniously terminated from his job of 10 years and we wouldn’t be able to pay the amortization of the apartment we’re renting. On top of this, I decided to resign from my job and go freelance as writer and publicist. Thank God, I didn’t run out of assignments and we had our own house. Nevertheless, my income wasn’t enough for my family’s everyday expenses. And worst, my husband didn’t just lose his job, he also lost self-confidence and interest in finding a new job. He resorted to barkada and drinking sprees.

After two years of shattered dreams and a marriage on the brink of separation, I found myself pregnant for the fourth time. It was neither intentional nor accidental. I had mixed feelings for this pregnancy. A part of me was happy because the baby could be God-sent, an angel, for us husband and wife to save our marriage and mend our lives. But a part of my consciousness wanted to abort the fetus inside me. I said a prayer and believed that God will make a way out to surpass this situation. True enough, a series of events took place and had made dear hubby realized he should clean his act for good. Then he got his new job as auditor of a Japanese restaurant on the third month of my pregnancy.

My friends whom I dealt with during my pregnancy attested that they too had become lucky one way or another; and they helped me settle my hospital bill. My husband and I decided that Marie Angeline, Angel for short, would be the last baby of the family. We sought medical help and asked for a package cost of ceasarian operation and tubaligation. The good doctor said I really should undergo bilateral tubaligation (BTL) since I had already undergone four CS and my placenta could be thin already. Angel was born on December 23, 2002. I decided to be full-time mom to Angel for one year, to personally take good care of her because she seemed to be fragile at four pounds, the smallest baby I ever had. Twenty-four years of marriage and four beautiful kids later, now at ages 24, 17, 14 and 10, we still have a long, long way to go... Child birthing has stopped but caring and parenting continue couple with the challenge of raising a family of God-fearing, loving and disciplined individuals.

The kids are a joy to be with even as they seem to grow fast as the years and days go by. Definitely, there would still be trials along the way but the important thing is, we had successfully hurdled the most painful ones and we are somehow prepared for the rest. Our children serve as our inspiration and we had learned to trust God. We may not know where God is leading us, but His mercy and love assure us that He will never forsake us nor give up on us.