A Letter to an Expectant Father

18 April 2020

(38 weeks exactly)

Dear Let,

You ready yet? Today could be the day as I have reached my 38th week of gestation, the day my OB says I can safely deliver Galen via a caesarian section. I have been experiencing irregular contractions in the past two weeks. Galen has been keeping us in suspense, but for good reason. He wants to be as ready as he could be before meeting his excited family. Let’s see if he could wait one more day to meet our schedule.

As I am wheeled into the operating room on Monday, please stay calm and fervently pray for a safe delivery and a healthy baby boy. I derive my strength and courage fully knowing that you’ll just be right outside the OR praying for me and Galen. I have been able to put off my anxieties in all the nine plus months because of your steady love and support. If there is one thing good that has come out of this COVID-imposed lockdown, it is having you by my side 24/7 in the last weeks of my pregnancy. 

You’ve been nothing but the perfect, supportive husband and expectant father. I appreciate that you would always indulge my requests for a back massage. You would also not complain when I would ask you to prepare me a glass of milk well into the night.

We never planned to have a third child. In fact, we were already coping well by ourselves without a helper, thinking we could keep our life simpler with just the four of us. What a shock it was finding out I was pregnant. You said it took a long time before the thought of me pregnant could sink in. “But how?,” you asked.😀

Galen shook our established routines. I was forced to stay home for almost half of the pregnancy. And you were forced to actively search for house-help again. Then came the lockdown, and you were placed into a position you never thought would fall upon you. For the first time, you had to do grocery shopping and take over managing the household. You’re no longer just a provider but you’ve become a caregiver and a household manager as well. I have been for the most part just in bed, practically useless, all thanks to you! It seems like you have paid extra for all the times you missed my prenatal appointments when I was pregnant with Garrett and Gabee. Now, I have that privilege of wailing in pain should labor come early and be brought to the hospital in a car. I took a jeepney to the hospital the night I felt uterine contractions with Garrett and an FX the day that I felt Gabee was pushing her way out. You were traveling at both instances and had to drive home when I was already in labor. Well, Galen is lucky to have you just waiting, with your own hospital bag packed and ready. That gives me such a relief despite the situation we are in due to the threat of COVID. 

With God’s constant grace, we will come through this safe and more blessed, with Galen giving us hope that all will be well. Galen is our silver lining amid COVID-19. We can only hope that the world would be somehow better, its people more mindful, caring and kinder when we go past this pandemic.  Keep the faith and stay safe.

Love, 

Cess

Idle Thoughts

4 April 2020 Journal Entry

Today I count nine months or 36 full weeks of carrying my third baby (Galen). Just a week from now and Galen will be considered full–term, ready to be born. If my delivery goes as planned, I will have Galen in my arms on April 20th of the year 2020 -- lots of 20’s in his birthday! 👦

How are you? Manila is on its third week of the COVID-19 lockdown. As of this writing, there are a million confirmed cases and almost 60,000 deaths globally per the WHO. The Philippines’ cases number 3,018, dramatically up from the 6 cases reported on March 6, less than a month ago. Singapore, which was one of the early countries to report a case after China, has been managing well, controlling the spread of the virus through mass testing, isolating the confirmed cases and seriously doing contact-tracing since January, but yesterday, it acknowledged that its COVID positive cases are increasing in number via local transmission; its Prime Minister addressed the nation to convey its plan to roll out their version of a lockdown – full home-based learning, and only establishments providing essential services will be allowed to continue to operate next week. Many countries have caved into the lockdown trend to contain the spread of the virus.

The coronavirus originated in China in late 2019 and has spread globally in the first 3 months of the new year. Now, we see that other countries have surpassed China’s number of positive cases with the US reporting triple the number of positive cases than that of China at 240,000 plus versus 82,000 plus. Italy and Spain have also exceeded China’s number with each having over 100,000 cases. China’s strong hold of its people has spelled the difference with the containment of the virus. Assuming these countries all have resources at their disposal, China has leveraged its communist party-led state to effectively control its people’s movements thereby effectively containing the spread of the virus. Compare that with what’s happening in the US where you have a president first saying that the threat of the coronavirus to the US was a hoax and that it would soon go away, resulting in federal states stepping up efforts to contain the virus without a clear national directive. Just when the confirmed cases were starting to spiral in number last month, many US citizens went about as they pleased, emptied grocery shelves, and either stayed home or continued with their routines.

Each one of us needs to take measures to control the COVID-19 spread. Experts say that the COVID-19 impact is nothing they’ve seen in this lifetime. IMF stated that the world has entered into an economic recession. Until a vaccine is developed, tested, and distributed, we face a grim year full of uncertainties. Curtailing workers’ movement leaves little that can be achieved. Production and manufacturing in all sectors, even food/agriculture, have been greatly scaled down with some grounded to a halt for the time being.

Hotels are empty. Cruise ships, except those still at sea with no ports accepting them, will remain anchored. There’s no telling when people would start traveling again. Meantime, airports will remain practically empty. The skies will remain blue and quiet, and the roads less noisy. For the first time in urban areas, we get to open our windows to let the sun and some fresh air in. We can’t for now fully enjoy the sunsets where they are most beautiful to look at.

Amusement parks, movie theaters, concert halls, museums, galleries, and libraries will have to maintain their upkeep so they’re kept oiled and dusted, ready to open again when lockdowns are lifted. Our favorite hangout, the malls, are off limits save for their grocery shops. We eat in, we share more meals with family, more time to share stories and enjoy light banters with the people we care the most (if we are lucky that we are locked in with them), and that's a great thing. It's not all bad after all.

Summer break in the Philippines for most students has started early but offers not a lot of excitement as kids are bound to stay at home doing the same things over and over each day (enduring the heat of summer with hardly any reprieve to run free in the sun), missing their classmates and friends, and running out of creative ideas to spend time, thus, resorting to using their gadgets to keep them busy and entertained. What can parents do? Eventually, we relax our rules on gadget use and screen time, we get tired of reprimanding our children, and let them be to some extent. We each have our quiet times, coping, waiting until this is over.

Many mothers these days must be searching the Internet for recipes to cook to excite palates that have grown tired of sinigang, adobo, and menudo. Housemaids are itching to get their free days away from households they serve.

We all itch to go back to our old ways, to gain back our freedom to move, to plan our days without restrictions. But I, for one, don’t see that day happening soon. We are in this lockdown for another stretch of time. And when that day comes when the lockdown is lifted, we will be well advised to carefully come out of our homes, restart our routines fully aware that the virus remains and that we can easily contract it. Let’s be extra careful and take care of our health more than ever.

Getting into the Philippine High School for the Arts

Dear Gabee, 

I was the first to find out the exciting news that you qualified to study at the Philippine High School for the Arts, the country’s prestigious arts school. I shrieked with utmost surprise and joy! I called out to your dad to break the very happy news. You were still asleep. I woke you up and startled you with the greatest surprise of all. “Gabee, you did it!”

Wow! Amazing! God is amazing. He heard your fervent prayers to study at PHSA! You wanted to get out of Poveda. You didn’t settle well there, or just could not blend well with the Poveda students. Truly, this is an answered prayer. I couldn’t be more proud of you, and more thankful to God for his amazing blessing.

I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t believe you were gonna make it. Well, the chances were too slim! Only 7 of you made the cut for visual arts field. That’s out of more than 100 young visual artists who auditioned from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao! But I was secretly rooting for you, holding on to what little chance you had. I would check the PHSA website every day to check if I would see your name there.

Congratulations, Gabee, my sweetheart! I pray you soar high and truly discover the artist in you!

Love,
Mom