I only have 4 more days to spend in my current job, and then I will have a 9-day break before I start working for my new employer. After that short break, I will have no sick leaves or vacation leaves again for the next 6 months.
Which is why I want to make that 9-day off count.
My options are: first, stay at home and finish my wedding scrapbook. This would of course mean that our electricity bill will soar again due to prolonged aircon use. This also means that I would be able to exhaust food delivery choices, as I still can’t cook for myself and Moks because my food aversions change almost from meal to meal.
My second option is to take a short trip with Moks someplace local. But this is not very feasible right now, as Moks is uber busy with his job, and might not be able to take even a weekend off to go away. Darn el nino.
My last, and my favorite, option is to go visit my nephews in Singapore. I so want to hug and kiss Luis and Enzo again in person, and I want to play and talk with Enzo about volcanoes and water falls and the outer space until I’m about to go crazy. But of course, given my current condition, there are some things holding me back from just packing up and going:
1. The cost. Yes, it will only cost me the price of a round-trip plane ticket since I will be staying at my sister’s anyway, but considering that I have no salary for the month of April, and we have to save up for the delivery in 7 months, an unplanned trip might not be a very wise idea at this time.
2. I’m still in my first trimester in this pregnancy. And so far, my googling efforts on the safety and advisability of air travel at this stage have showed rather conflicting results. Pregnancy.about.com says air travel is generally safe, unless you’re having a high risk pregnancy, or already on your last trimester. Babycenter.com has a forum on this topic, and while majority of the members said it’s ok, there are some who said they were advised not to fly during the first trimester as there are risks of miscarriage.
Add to this conflict my concern about my still ongoing battle with morning sickness. Will it intensify while I’m flying? If it strikes while I’m in the plane, can I barf in the toilet? And then when I get to Singapore, what will I do there? I barely have the energy to walk around Megamall here, will I be able to keep up with my hyper-active nephews there?
Sigh. There are so many things to consider, but all the cons seem to fade in the background when I look at Luis and Enzo's pictures. I miss my nephews! How I wish I can go there when Miguel is there too, and how I wish Pei can join us as well, but Miguel will be visiting by end-May, and by that time, I will not have any more offs.
So, I have checked the Tiger Airways website to wait for promos, and lucky me, seems like I can get a promo fare for the flight home. But Tiger's policy requires pregnant women to submit a medical certificate before a booking can be made, so that's another hurdle. I have texted my OB already, and am now awaiting her sweet affirmative reply. After which, I will make the final decision on whether to go or not.
Update:
My OB said it's ok to travel, so I went ahead to Singapore. I was able to walk around malls and Universal Studios with no untoward incident - I just made sure to rest whenever I felt tired or weird. I'm now back, and hopefully my beanie's still ok. I haven't gone back to the OB yet, as my schedule was moved to May 22, so I'm not 100% sure my trip did not have any ill effects on my pregnancy (I hope not!).
In the meantime, I'm worrying about a tightness I feel in my tummy area - kind of like the pain you get on your side when you run immediately after a heavy meal. But mine is moving around - yesterday it was on the right side of my lower abdomen, just above my appendectomy scar. Today, it's at the top of my stomach, about an inch below my ribs. Sigh, I really really wish these are innocuous pains, and that these are just muscle aches brought on by the "expansion" of my tummy. In any case, I don't want to bother the OB about these pains yet, but when I get sufficiently praning about them, I will.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
It's less than magical
Please allow me to just post this short rant about the discomforts this pregnancy is giving me. Yes, I am only 8 weeks along, but I have already declared (although maybe I don’t really really mean it) that I don’t want to do this again. Well, some say the first trimester is the hardest – excluding the labor and delivery, of course. So here’s a list of the things I hate about this period:
1. Morning sickness. Which is so incorrectly named because it doesn’t only happen in the mornings, it strikes at any time of the day or night! Argh! Believe me, there is absolutely nothing fun about a constantly queasy stomach, or that heavy feeling that something’s lodged in your chest, waiting to explode out of your throat. I have knelt in front of the toilet at home, in the office, and even in Moks’s office, with all my facial muscles shaking, my eyes crying, and my whole upper body convulsing as I hurl my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I really really wish that the morning sickness would stop when I reach the second trimester.
2. Nasal stuffiness. I’ve lost count of the many afternoons when I’m comfortably seated in my office, with the temperature neither too hot nor too cold, I’m rested and relaxed, and then suddenly it would be difficult to breathe. It feels like the insides of my nose is completely covered in snot, and I would go to the bathroom to check and find that there is nothing there. It’s clean. But somehow it’s hard to breathe, as if the lining of my nasal cavity thickened motu proprio. Pregnancy books and websites say this is normal, but that does not make it less uncomfortable. Annoying.
3. I’m getting uglier by the day! Waaaah! I noticed I’m starting to have that line in the center of my abdomen, and I’m worried that it’s only a matter of time before my neck, armpits – even my singit! – gets darker.
4. I’m being paranoid about everything! I’m really wondering if ignorance is bliss in pregnancy. Because so far, all my research about everything that can go wrong in this pregnancy is just making me worry. From the most mundane concerns like, my hair will become very dry, I might have chloasma, my feet will swell and I won’t be able to fit in my shoes, to the serious possibilities like Down’s syndrome, cleft lip and palate, gestational diabetes, sickle cell disease, etc. – the more I learn about these things the more I get freaked out. But I can’t stop researching and reading up! I need to always remind myself of my friend Charis’s advice – to just raise everything up in prayer, because there’s not much else I can do anyway.
So there, these are the main reasons why this period is not all magical for me. I’m sure Moks can add a couple more to this list (e.g. how he has to do all the housework now, or how he has to get me whatever I want from downstairs when I’m already in bed, or how I have soooooo little patience now for Delamar’s whining) but I think I’ll just wait for him to post about that.
1. Morning sickness. Which is so incorrectly named because it doesn’t only happen in the mornings, it strikes at any time of the day or night! Argh! Believe me, there is absolutely nothing fun about a constantly queasy stomach, or that heavy feeling that something’s lodged in your chest, waiting to explode out of your throat. I have knelt in front of the toilet at home, in the office, and even in Moks’s office, with all my facial muscles shaking, my eyes crying, and my whole upper body convulsing as I hurl my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I really really wish that the morning sickness would stop when I reach the second trimester.
2. Nasal stuffiness. I’ve lost count of the many afternoons when I’m comfortably seated in my office, with the temperature neither too hot nor too cold, I’m rested and relaxed, and then suddenly it would be difficult to breathe. It feels like the insides of my nose is completely covered in snot, and I would go to the bathroom to check and find that there is nothing there. It’s clean. But somehow it’s hard to breathe, as if the lining of my nasal cavity thickened motu proprio. Pregnancy books and websites say this is normal, but that does not make it less uncomfortable. Annoying.
3. I’m getting uglier by the day! Waaaah! I noticed I’m starting to have that line in the center of my abdomen, and I’m worried that it’s only a matter of time before my neck, armpits – even my singit! – gets darker.
4. I’m being paranoid about everything! I’m really wondering if ignorance is bliss in pregnancy. Because so far, all my research about everything that can go wrong in this pregnancy is just making me worry. From the most mundane concerns like, my hair will become very dry, I might have chloasma, my feet will swell and I won’t be able to fit in my shoes, to the serious possibilities like Down’s syndrome, cleft lip and palate, gestational diabetes, sickle cell disease, etc. – the more I learn about these things the more I get freaked out. But I can’t stop researching and reading up! I need to always remind myself of my friend Charis’s advice – to just raise everything up in prayer, because there’s not much else I can do anyway.
So there, these are the main reasons why this period is not all magical for me. I’m sure Moks can add a couple more to this list (e.g. how he has to do all the housework now, or how he has to get me whatever I want from downstairs when I’m already in bed, or how I have soooooo little patience now for Delamar’s whining) but I think I’ll just wait for him to post about that.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Quite a ride
Due to circumstance (all her pamangkins of recent years are boys) and the fact that she's excited to dress up the child in all sorts of ribbons and laces, Leah is dead-set on praying for a little baby girl. She addresses the baby as a girl, talks about it as if she were sure, and has even successfully campaigned for the name if it turns out to be a girl (we haven't picked a name yet if it turns out to be a boy).
Except for some faint, archaic notion that the eldest should be a son, I have no preference on the matter. I know the little bugger will grab my heart at the earliest opportunity and run away laughing with it while I look on -- bewildered that such a small creature with the smallest hands can sway my heart this way and that.
If it turns out to be a girl, I imagine sweet kisses and bedtime tickles. We will sing with her teddies and pick out names for her pets. I imagine my walls, notebooks, tables, and every other surface with her squiggly, girly penmanship, and nighttime jaunts to look at the stars. I can see her spilling her milk on the table, because she would insist she can do it, and answering endless questions of which i like better (puppies or kittens? blue or green? her lola's cooking or her mommy's) just so she'll know which she should like more. We'll have our special time on Saturday mornings because her mom refuses to wake early, so we'll go out and buy pandesal and eat them on the street, waiting for more hawkers who offer their wares. I hope she tells me everything, most especially the annoying little boys in her school because her tatay is her best friend in the whole wide world.
if it's a boy, then I'm on more familiar ground. It's all about adventure, and what's the next new thing he can do. We'll find spiders for fighting and dig for little crabs on the beach. Scraped knees due to bike accidents and torn t-shirts from climbing trees. We'll build paper boats and fly kites, watch community basketball tournaments and eat isaw on the streets. I will show him when to be patient (while waiting for the fish to bite the lure) and when to be decisive (whenever someone needs help). And I will tell him to never ever bet money against his lolo on card games because his lolo always cheats.
Whether boy or a girl, I would watch old Bruce Lee movies with them and practice screaming "ha-ya!" while we do karate outside the house. I would read them stories and ask them to tell their own versions to their friends. We will eat aratiles, never watch news, and read lots and lots of comic books. I will make sure they are always courteous to waiters, to the elderly, and to never be afraid of questioning their teachers. I will try to teach them that there are truths that are only true sometimes, and that some truths remain even if no one else believes them.
When they are a bit older, perhaps I can tell them my own stories. And when they are old enough to have children of their own, stories no one has ever heard. We will name stars, make up our own songs, disbelieve what we read. My children will know me -- not just as their father, but as me.
And if the heavens favor me, they will learn with me that God is far more terrible, and far gentler than what they may have heard.
Except for some faint, archaic notion that the eldest should be a son, I have no preference on the matter. I know the little bugger will grab my heart at the earliest opportunity and run away laughing with it while I look on -- bewildered that such a small creature with the smallest hands can sway my heart this way and that.
If it turns out to be a girl, I imagine sweet kisses and bedtime tickles. We will sing with her teddies and pick out names for her pets. I imagine my walls, notebooks, tables, and every other surface with her squiggly, girly penmanship, and nighttime jaunts to look at the stars. I can see her spilling her milk on the table, because she would insist she can do it, and answering endless questions of which i like better (puppies or kittens? blue or green? her lola's cooking or her mommy's) just so she'll know which she should like more. We'll have our special time on Saturday mornings because her mom refuses to wake early, so we'll go out and buy pandesal and eat them on the street, waiting for more hawkers who offer their wares. I hope she tells me everything, most especially the annoying little boys in her school because her tatay is her best friend in the whole wide world.
if it's a boy, then I'm on more familiar ground. It's all about adventure, and what's the next new thing he can do. We'll find spiders for fighting and dig for little crabs on the beach. Scraped knees due to bike accidents and torn t-shirts from climbing trees. We'll build paper boats and fly kites, watch community basketball tournaments and eat isaw on the streets. I will show him when to be patient (while waiting for the fish to bite the lure) and when to be decisive (whenever someone needs help). And I will tell him to never ever bet money against his lolo on card games because his lolo always cheats.
Whether boy or a girl, I would watch old Bruce Lee movies with them and practice screaming "ha-ya!" while we do karate outside the house. I would read them stories and ask them to tell their own versions to their friends. We will eat aratiles, never watch news, and read lots and lots of comic books. I will make sure they are always courteous to waiters, to the elderly, and to never be afraid of questioning their teachers. I will try to teach them that there are truths that are only true sometimes, and that some truths remain even if no one else believes them.
When they are a bit older, perhaps I can tell them my own stories. And when they are old enough to have children of their own, stories no one has ever heard. We will name stars, make up our own songs, disbelieve what we read. My children will know me -- not just as their father, but as me.
And if the heavens favor me, they will learn with me that God is far more terrible, and far gentler than what they may have heard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)