Monday, June 29, 2009

how heartbreaks work

This must be another stage I'm not aware of.
Do you know how normal heartbreaks are?
It starts out with denial. You're thinking it can't possibly happen to you even after it did.
Then you wish that he would come back to you and everything will be normal again. You waste tears remembering what happened, what could have happened and all the other what ifs but nothing ever changes.
You try to live your life the way it was before you even got together or even before your heart got broken. Everyone's treading lightly by you because they don't want to trigger a crying fit or they keep asking how you are and you're response is always a polite "I'm OK".
Always.
The worse part is, now you're scared of ever letting this happen to you again. You realize you don't always get what you want and your heart is so fragile it can get broken all over again.
Deep down inside though, you're still waiting and hoping for someone to love.
I almost forgot one question. When can you start trying again?
That's where I am right now.

Apo Iro

Apo Iro or Apung Iro is what people in Apalit, Pampanga call St Peter. He is their patron saint and last Sunday, June 28, they celebrated their fiesta. The fiesta's main event is a parade on the river. Dozens of small boats float beside the one carrying St Peter. We went there last Sunday to celebrate mass and to visit the cathedral.
It's special for my family because there are a lot of memories there. My parents eloped and got married in Pampanga. They also asked for me, their first child, when the Fiesta was celebrated way back in 1980. If you count the months... I was literally created after they got home.
I've been there several times before. I remember being able to eat in someone's house, surrounded by relatives I didn't know at all. I remember going there in a bus where I threw up most of the way to Pampanga and we had to go home after we visited the church because I wasn't feeling well.
So when my parents invited me to go their during fiesta, I agreed. I wanted to ask for my baby/babies there as well.
The trip was uneventful at first. I brought Rei (my Fiat Uno car) since Neal's car was in the shop getting fixed. It was a good thing too. The road towards the church itself was a huge trial for us. Shops lined both sides and lots of people were walking on the street. The traffic was worse than EDSA traffic since we had to watch out for pedestrians, cars, tricycles in a one way street. We had to stop using the air conditioning too because we got there around 11am and the sun was too hot. The air was sticky and Neal's shirt was already wet.
I didn't bring my camera because I knew the church was not very pretty. Not to me anyway. It had painted murals and the dome was surrounded by paintings of the 4 gospel writers. Personally, I still like Sto. Domingo's dome better.
We were just in time for mass and we listened vainly to the priest who we can barely hear because of the bad sound system.
I couldn't really ask for a baby/babies. I asked for twin boys like my dad and my uncle. I always wanted one pair of twin boys. Every time I tried asking though, I would cry and I had to stop.
After the mass, we went to a relative's house again. A place I've been in before. It was one of my dad's cousins. We had a nice lunch and we waited till the parade went by. It was the first time I watched a parade on a river and it was nice. A lot of people were there to celebrate the fiesta.
I hope my wish comes true.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Dangers

My doctor started me on Diane 35 again. I was taking it for a couple of months before I got pregnant with Nathan and I started to read on the dangers again because she's making me take it again.
There's this small idea gnawing in my mind that there may be a connection between Diane 35 and Nathan's congenital defects.
My chest hurts. I don't want it to be true. I really believe I can't live with the knowledge that I could have done something to prevent what happened.
What if I had not taken Diane 35 and gotten pregnant earlier? What if I had gotten pregnant months after that instead of one month after I stopped?
Then I realize if I did, Nathan would not be Nathan. I may not even have the same baby. I may not even get a boy.
I promised myself I would NEVER regret anything that is related to Nathan and this is one of those things.

Nathan's possible characteristics

I saw this in Facebook. You just enter the date of your birth. It was pretty accurate for me. I'd like to think this is what he would have been. It's a very sweet description:

You were born on 18th day of April 2009, Saturday.

Your Life : At first glance, people think you are quiet type of person. Actually you are cheerful, but conditionally. You will show your joyful character only in good mood. One the other hand, when you are moody, no one would dare to be around. Because of your emotion fluctuation and frank character, some find you hard to be around.

Your Love : You hardly show your feeling towards opposite sex no matter how much you like him/her. Your partner also has similar character so your love affairs often take quite a while to flourish. Time tells it all. Your sincerity makes you very attractive.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

too nice

I sometimes wish I wasn't inertly good.

I wouldn't feel guilty if I did anything bad.

I wouldn't mind getting what I want just because I wanted it.

I wouldn't care about other people's feelings.

I would not need to lie.

And when people ask me how I am... I can finally tell them the truth.

Note to self

Never ever arrange the chat folder in your Outlook to list according to who the letters came From.
I just read a friend's email to me by accident and I shed a few tears and I still can't stop.
Damn.

Wishes

My wishes for this year:

1. To be able to go to Japan
2. To have twin boys
3. To have fraternal twins (boy and girl)
4. To successfully build our dream house

a day well spent

Neal and I spent the day together since we were both working at home. It was fun because I was never alone. Instead of sleeping early though, we ended up singing songs late at night. Mostly, we sang Filipino songs from our high school to college years. It was fun and I really enjoy being alone with him now, being able to sing anytime, going out when we want to. I just wish we could have shared the experience with Nathan though. He would have liked listening to his father make a fool of himself singing.
It was unfair of me to actually say this year is bad. It isn't really all that bad. It's just that you notice the bad times more when you're happy.
I'm very happy right now despite of everything. I was very happy when I was pregnant too.
I was also very happy when Nathan was born. Even if two days after that was the worst.
Sometimes living one day at a time is the best way to go through life.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Father's Day

I've been feeling better the last couple of days. It has a lot to do with Neal and not being alone. Work has at least made most of my days noisy. I don't get lonely as often as before.
We also had good news last week. The engineer called to say that the foundation for the house has been started. That's one good thing. One step closer to living our own life and one step closer to being able to try having children again.
My hope levels are rising like crazy. I'm actually studying japanese again and looking forward to trips.
I still miss what I don't have. I guess "miss" is the wrong term. Since I never experienced most of it, how can you miss something you never had?
Father's Day was better than Mother's Day for me. We celebrated it and I didn't cry. In two weeks we will be visiting baby Nathan again. I can't wait. I wonder what I'll leave him this time.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

vulnerability

I find that spending too much time commuting alone is also bad for my health. Or maybe just bad because I listen to songs and when I hear songs that remind me of Nathan I'm always in danger of breaking down. I've shed tears twice in a bus now. I don't feel sad all the time... It's just that there are times when it suddenly hits you like a speeding car and you're left flat on your back. I still have my small bouts of jealousy. I guess I just don't want to be alone.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

praying for twins

I really want twins. I have so many relatives who are twins, both from my mother and father side and I wish I'd have one pair as well. I always thought that it would be the reason why I would have 4 kids was because I would have twins.
Now more than ever I want one. Maybe because I'll be catching up that way. I'd have two kids like everyone else who gave birth this year.
It's so selfish. These days I let myself be selfish. It's wrong but I get a strange kind of comfort.
How do you learn to hope without getting disappointed?

life just makes you think you have choices and when it sweeps the rug from your feet, you realize there's no floor

Let's face it. Life is unfair. We don't live in the movies where we stay to watch the end because we know deep down the good guys will win and the bad guys will suffer the consequences of their actions. The saddest people in the world are those who think they never get what they need. It would be nice to think that for every tragedy in your life, there's something better for you after it. The truth is there isn't. Life doesn't work that way. Sometimes the only reason why the future doesn't look so bleak is because you've reached rock bottom and nothing worse can happen to you.
Sometimes I wish I was like Job. The devil made bad things happen to him but God was there watching out, ready to step in when it got too bad. Of course what we think is bad may be a lot different from what God thinks.
When I was a child I made a deal with God. My parents were in an accident and they were in the hospital then. I asked him to never take my parents before me. That I would rather die before them than suffer because of their deaths.
I was so sure that even when my dad got lung cancer, I wasn't scared because I knew God will keep his promise.
I should have looked into the future and extended my condition to my children as well.
What happened to us was beyond our control, beyond everything we could do and that hurts more. Had I been given a choice, me or the baby, or something like spending more to have a better chance at success, everything would have been different.
If I could go back in time, I'd be a doctor instead of an engineer. I'd make sure that this never happens to anyone else.

running away

That's usually the thing I do best when I have problems. Right now, I'm running away from my sadness by going to work, exercising like there's no tomorrow and planning trips I can't afford. I know that this year should get better because I pretty much hit rock bottom. I'm just climbing my way out. It's just that everything I have to look forward to is at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. My house, the trip I can't afford and hopefully, a new baby. All the months between then and now are scaring me. It's only June! The days are crawling by and I have to wait 6 months, 6 months for everything to happen. I can't.
I'm planning a trip to Japan just so I have something to look forward to. I really don't think I can afford it. We spent so much on everything that happened. I don't know if we have enough time to recover from that and the car and the house.
I wish I could. I can try but I know that the reason I haven't budgeted the trip yet is because I don't want to face the fact that I can't go. If I can't go I won't have a concrete reason why I shouldn't be pregnant yet and I'll just be depressed... The cycle goes on.
I'm running away very unsuccessfully.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Knowing is half the battle

Sometimes I wonder if I'd like to know the real reason behind baby Nathan's congenital defects. A part of me wants to know so that I can make sure that it doesn't happen again on my next pregnancy. Somehow, the doctor's assurance that my next baby will be normal is not so assuring. Considering she can't give an exact reason as to why everything happened.
Another part of me is scared to know what happened. If I did know the real reason, if there is a real definite reason for everything, can I ever forgive myself? The reason will most probably be related to me. It could be something I drank, my sickness during my first trimester or even if it is just pollutants in the air or what I ate, I will still be blaming myself. I would still be stuck in the past regretting what I had done, what I could have done... all those What Ifs...
It'll probably drive me crazy...
So far I have been living without regret even after everything that has happened. I don't want to change that. I'm already hung up on my future.. I want to fast forward to next year so I can try again, I don't want to be hung up in my past as well. I won't have any more time for the present.

Back to work

I'm finally back to work. Grief has one simple solution: go back to normal. You can't spend time figuring out why things happen or what will happen next. The best thing is to get back to work and normal things as soon as possible. This is something I wish I can do. However since I didn't exactly spread the news about what happened to baby Nathan and a lot of people knew I was pregnant, I am now faced with the awkwardness of explaining. I lie a lot. If I can pass off that I was pregnant and no one asks about my baby, I'd rather they assume that my baby is healthy and alive. People usually assume the best anyway. Unfortunately I have to be able to tell people what happened if it gets to that.
Last APE I had, I told them I gave birth but I didn't tell the doctor any details. I got away with it.
Last Saturday I met my ninong Jun (godfather at my wedding) and he asked about baby Nathan. I was shocked to know that he didn't hear the news from Dawn so I explained it to him. I was close to tears but I couldn't break down since I was in a hospital corridor full of people I didn't know. I had my check up and the doctor was asking specific questions regarding my pregnancy and if I was still breastfeeding. We pretty much answered all of them without any hint that something was wrong until the doctor asked me how much my baby weighed now. Then we had to go through the awkward explanation again. I hate that. I really do. I don't like telling people about what happened, getting the generic responses of: "It'll be alright", "God has a plan", "You now have an angel in heaven" or "You're still young, you'll still have more kids..."
Neal says people will approach you and just suddenly pout or show a sad face and it never really helps.
Today, I talked to one of my officemates and I realized that since she wasn't in my team, she knows nothing. She just asked me what gender my baby was and she was happy to find out it was a boy. I couldn't tell her. I didn't want to cry.
How do you deal with that? Especially the higher ups? This is just so awkward. I don't know what to do anymore. I'll just have to face it one day at a time and hope that the people I don't tell the news to don't feel bad for not knowing.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

faith

I've been wondering why I haven't lost faith in God. When people get affected by tragedy I believe they can go in one of two ways: your faith in God is strengthened or you lose it completely. I was never a very devout Catholic. If I can stop going to Church I will. Before I got pregnant I don't even remember when I last prayed at night so constantly. I believed in God as in the Catholic Church but I'm not ignorant of how man can easily manipulate religion. When I was in High School I actually wanted to switch to Buddhism, and I even became a kind of atheist for a time until I found out that I had too much faith in me to be a true atheist. Plus, I couldn't live with the uncertainty.
Faith is a person's lifeline. The one thing that gives you hope. Hope that everything will eventually be better, hope that all your dreams will come true and most especially, hope that when you die, it's not the end.
Now I know why I didn't lose my faith. Why I don't blame God for anything. I don't understand what happened but I didn't lose faith.
Every time I go to church or pray, I cry. Especially when there are songs and lines that tell you God can do anything and He can give you what you need. I can't handle it. I don't understand the effect it has on me. Whether it's good or not. If I feel sad because for me God has failed me or because it's giving me hope that God will give me what I need.
All I know right now is that I believe in God and Heaven and everything because if I don't then I have to believe that I will never see my son again. That he spent one day here with me and I will never see him again. I can't accept that. I believe in God because that gives me hope that one day... someday... I will be able to go to heaven and I can be with my son again. Right now, that's all I'm clinging on.
It's been almost two months and I still cry. I still can't let go.
I only wish I'm not going insane yet.

dreams and prophecies

There was a time in my life when I could predict death. I could predict someone's death within days. I just didn't know exactly who will die but there were different signs. If I cried in my sleep, someone in my father's side will die. If I heard a whistle blown beside my ear, someone in my mother's side will die. If I felt strangely frightened at night that I couldn't sleep with the lights off, a friend or someone I knew will die. For three or four years that was my life.
When I got pregnant though I stopped seeing things, stopped feeling invisible things and I thought it was the pregnancy. During my first trimester, around my third month, I had a horrible dream. I dreamt that my baby had been born incomplete, he was born too early and I was panicking but I couldn't do anything. All I wanted to do was to get him back inside me and I couldn't do anything. I never knew that I should have listened to that dream. Maybe I could have prepared myself more. Neal says the timing could be perfect since it was during my third month and Nathan's problems most probably occurred during that time. If I can trust my dreams, which I dare not to, I also dreamt of three kids. Two boys and one girl in three separate dreams. The boys were around 6 years old and the girl was around 3. I knew none of the boys were Nathan and I should have trusted that as well.
Do I dare hope? I guess I do. I wish I have twins, twin boys preferably. Sometimes I find myself counting months. Months before I can actually conceive again and I'm so scared. I'm hoping it stops when I start working. I can only hope.

somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

-- ee cummings

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

sadness and a lot of other emotions

Emotions have different movements. I realized it today when I woke up and I felt sadness and grief hovering less than 3 feet from my bed. I was all alone because everyone had gone to work and that scares me, being alone in a dark and silent house allows sadness to creep up to you without notice. This is why I spend my days in front of the computer waiting for people to talk to me. Why I sit in front of a blazing tv even when there's nothing good to watch. Sadness can only creep up to you when it's silent. I feel it hovering around me and I make myself busy. I'm really looking forward to going back to work because work keeps you from thinking about the past and worrying about the future. Plus the fact that you're surrounded by active humans all the time.
Sadness creeps, Joy comes and goes without warning, Anger traps you and Pain just grabs you. Jealousy, an emotion I've become very familiar with over the last couple of months usually stabs you in the heart and despair twist that knife around.
I'm being melodramatic now...
I went to the doctor yesterday. She wants me to continue my pills for four to six months. So that's half a year where I can't be pregnant. It depresses me but I refused to think about it yesterday.
Neal and I got a text from our interior designer who we are meeting this Saturday. In the middle of planning for a house we always think about how we are going to extend the Master's bedroom to the nursery. There are times I don't want to. Have you ever heard of "not counting your chicks before they hatch"? I am a firm believer in that. When I got pregnant, even when I didn't know anything was wrong, even when I thought everything was normal, I didn't buy anything baby related till I was 6 months pregnant. Even though I was sooo excited the moment I found out and I planned for everything I wanted to buy during the first trimester, I still didn't buy anything and everything still happened. I still don't have my baby. I'm scared that building the nursery will be too optimistic. I'm still scared about the future. I'm still scared that I might not conceive anymore or something else will happen. It's illogical to be scared over nothing. Even my doctor believes I can conceive easily that she's decided to put me on birth control pills so that I don't get pregnant before my body fully recovers.
I'm currently reading the Dune series and Frank Herbert describes Fear perfectly. "Fear is the mind killer"