To Go or Not To Go

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.