Mel and the New Normal

I promise, I have happier posts lined up soon! We went on a great mini road-trip, and I have several pictures for sharing. Will be posting them over the next few days!  Just wanted to share some sad news that I've known for a couple of weeks. Often, since Kat died, we get told, "don't worry, you're still young, you'll have another chance!" FYI, this does not hurt our feelings, it's not like people are intentionally telling us that another baby will replace Kat --- we know what they mean that, at least, we still have another chance. Though we are young (question mark here, we might actually be old!), and we would love nothing more than to have another baby to hold (I think this comes with the territory of giving birth but not coming home with your baby), I fear it won't be possible.

I've been avoiding it for the past couple of months, but looking thru the stats of my page, there are people who are still reading the page to know more about CDH, our experience in Makati Med, etc. So in between my experiences about restaurants and life, I'll be posting little by little regarding our months leading to delivering Kat. I do admit that it's difficult to go through the materials, but I know that it will help families out there. Part of what made the experience so difficult was the lack of information about CDH, and infant surgery, in general, in Asia and the Philippines. So I hope the entries I will write little by little, help you.

The most common misconceptions about BabyKat's short life are: 1) She died while I was still carrying her; 2) She was unresponsive when I gave birth to her; 3) She did not live long enough for us to see her. As I was still required to stay in bed for the first few hours due to the my CS operation, J was able to capture photos and videos of her, and would show it to me. I was sadly not able to see her during this particular time, when she was still super active and feisty. The nurses had to tie her arm down to keep her from moving so much (her organs might get damaged from all that pushing and pulling). By the time I saw her, one of her lungs had already given way, and she was under heavy anesthesia already. They had to actually give her shots to calm her down, as all her movement was making her heart race. These images and thoughts still keep me awake at night. Was she moving around so much because she was looking for me? Was she scared? How much pain was she in? She never eve...

1. Twenty-nine is OLD.  I have always thought that 29 was still a good age to have a baby. I mean, most of my friends don't even have kids yet. But in my first appointment, my first OB called me "old" when I complained that this pregnancy was more difficult than my previous 2. By OLD, she didn't mean old, but she meant older than the usual women. I thought she was kidding, but 2nd and 3rd opinions by OBs agreed - 29 is apparently not "young". Which was odd. When I was 12, I always assumed 28 onwards was the marrying age. The risk of having a baby with chromosomal disorders increase as a woman grows older. The most common of these disorders is Down syndrome, a combination of mental retardation and physical abnormalities caused by the presence of an extra chromosome. At age 25, a woman has about a 1-in-1, 250 chance of having a baby with Down syndrome; at age 30, a 1-in-1,000 chance; at age 35, a 1-in-400 chance; at age 40, a 1-in-100 chance; and at 45, a 1...

Sometimes, life works so that you never forget the dates of certain events. After giving birth to Josh and having an epidural, my memory was never the same. Perhaps I'm just finding a scapegoat, but I really was a sharper tool before anesthesia . With Mika, I had an all natural birth (not by choice, FYI), so it was the first time I would forget a lot of things. I eventually learned that I just had to accept it, and write things down to remember them. Dates were the worst. I would forget the right date of my kid's birthdays, and instead, remember the dates that we celebrated them on. Isn't that terrible? The only reason I remember very clearly J's birthday is that it is the exact reverse of mine (I'm 5/9, he's 9/5.) But yes, sometimes, life makes it easy for you to remember certain dates. Justin and I had our congenital scan on April, but the position of the baby failed to show us if she was a boy or girl at that time. Her position also blocked the positi...

Transferred from tumbler. I Can’t Believe I’m Blogging Again. Because I Dislike Bloggers. Just a day or two ago, I told my friends that I dislike bloggers. (Dislike being a conservative word.) Well, not all bloggers. Just some. I actually used to blog, right after college. This was shortly after my dad passed away, and I was facing life after college. But when I realized my clients were reading my blog, knew too much details, I became wary. I stopped. Five years later, a client mentioned that she found my old blog. I immediately deactivated the blog — I realized my 20 year old thoughts were not something I wanted my work world to see. It seems that after meeting the real world, I realized that I didn’t want everyone to know where I go, what my kids looked like, my opinions. In fact, due to the nature of my work, apparently, I am not entitled to opinions about food, restaurants, etc. It didn’t seem to make sense to critique anything if I/We could’t do a better job, right?  ...