For those moms who had difficult pregnancies, those who had preemies, those who fought and won, fought and was challenged, for moms who had stillborns, moms who had miscarriages… No words can describe your unconditional love.

Two years ago. It was in July 2007 when I had one of the most terrifying events of my life. It was during my first trimester pregnancy with Maia when Merlin caught chickenpox and I was so afraid to contract it because of risk of birth defects. I was so mentally exhausted, and nothing was comforting and spirit-lifting. Internet info even made it worse, “…Sometimes, infection of the fetus causes a pattern of birth defects called the varicella embryopathy. The birth defects seen include scars, eye problems, poor growth, underdevelopment of an arm or leg, small head size, delayed development and/or mental retardation. Some babies may have only one of these problems while others have some or all…” I tortured myself by reading more. So today, Happy 2nd Birthday terror, I hate you.

Having a baby is not always as blissful, as hallelujah-moment, as light and as cute as a Johnson’s Baby commercial. Some have high-risk pregnancy when a mother is put on bed-rest for weeks and even if it may sound like a mini-vacation, the mom gets bored and restless, and the younger family members might not even understand why mom couldn’t even get up to prepare dinner. And there’s always a worry of seeing blood on the underwear or feeling contractions and it would cause panic thinking a simple tummy ache is contractions. The drama doesn’t end there because you’d find out that the real thing starts at giving birth. Some like me undergo caesarian birth because I had polyhydramnios (and my hope of natural birth went out the window.) Some are induced. Some have premature birth. And I still wonder up to now how it feels to ever give birth the normal way, what labor pains feel like. Because they say you never really experienced motherhood without giving birth the natural way. With two CS, I still feel half-baked. When moms in preschool ask me, “Did you get epidural?” I’d go, No I was CS, and I feel like so out-of-season.

Have you witnessed a miracle? Maxine and Maia have a total of three first cousins. One of them is Baby Nikki who is in the US. Today is her day. She just turned the big ONE! And she is the Miracle.

Nikki was born preterm and had to undergo major surgery on her spine the moment she was forced out of her mom’s womb. When Kuya Nardie (Merl’s one and only brother) and Ate Racel told us about Nikki, that the probability of a baby having her condition was like winning lotto, everyone was downcast. I saw a tear in Merlin’s eye, maybe more for his brother. He was driving but we prayed. I wanted to tell the parents not to blame themselves because it was no one’s fault. They knew that for sure. They sent pictures of her with tubes. She was so tiny, so fragile, so beautiful. For months all pictures were in NICU when the background was supposed to be her cozy crib in their beautiful home. She fought.

I’ve head stories of mothers and friends who gave birth to premature babies and their pains, both emotionally and financially. Some survived. Some lost. And I could just imagine them in that sheer terror, when they would hear the beep, beep, beep of the machine attached to their little ones. Will my baby make it? I have to be strong… Breathe dammit! I will not breathe until you breathe! It’s like walking in a minefield. You are afraid to fall in love with that small person in the incubator, you just couldn’t – a defense against the chance that the little angel might go home. The emotion is VERY overwhelming. And VERY painful for a mother who just gave birth. And the next day being wheeled by her husband into the NICU, seeing a miniature thing unfamiliar yet so familiar, legs unfold like a frog’s, with ventilator tube taped over that tiny mouth, more wires on the chest, goggles on the eyes, much of the lanugo hasn’t fallen off, purple veins like spider webs very visible in the entire body, ribs like toothpick you’re scared it would break just by breathing… This couldn’t be my baby? How could the sun be shining outside?

So it was Mommy Racel I worried about. She is supposed to be enjoying this, I thought. I felt she was cheated by savoring that moment with her newborn. The only worries she should be thinking right now are lack of sleep and how to loose those post pregnancy pounds. Is she jealous of other parents who just went home with their newborn in a breeze? Does she even think it’s unfair? Or question God why? Is it difficult for her to see commercials of healthy babies? Does she even think she is a bad mother because she wasn’t able to breastfeed? And when they finally brought Nikki home, did she ever ask herself, “Is this baby really mine?” Because she couldn’t remember anything sweet now about the birth. This was how it felt to have a real heart break, nothing like a lover’s quarrel during teenage past.

The first time I was pregnant, people would tell me that the moment I would see my baby for the first time I would experience a magical love that would never match all the other loves in my life. They spun tales of a world filled with tears of joy and milky-sweet baby’s breath, of hours gazing into newborn eyes, of a world where the baby would fill an emptiness in your heart that you didn’t even know existed and how you could literally hear the angels singing as your baby yawns. But it was never like that to me. The moment I woke up from anesthesia, the first thing I asked Merl was, “How are the dogs?” And for two days I didn’t come near the nursery until Merl said, “’Di mo ba pupuntahan ang baby?” I was embarrassed, what kind of mother am I? And when I saw baby Max I was looking for that mother-baby connection, THAT magic. It was later that I found out I was undergoing post-partum depression. Now with my second baby, I was hoping it would be the other way around, but then she was in an Isolette for days being treated of an infection. I never had it perfect.

But it’s the people who love you that will make you move on. Mommy Racel is blessed with them. They are her source of strength. And not to forget, half of the credit goes to the Supportive Husband. Nikki’s birth is downright rocky but it’s bittersweet chocolate. Mommy Racel is strong, Nikki got it from her. I once read that the best gift to a baby is a happy, healthy, whole Mommy. Now I know what present Nikki’s mom gave her for her first birthday.