Don’t you just hate it whenever the car bugs down just when you’re all ready to leave? That’s exactly what happened this morning.

You see, we don’t use the Revo anymore for bringing mateo to school. Usually, we take a trike, drop him off, then walk home. This morning, however, was different. Since andrea’s mom (we call her mamu) and grandmother (nanay) are both going out, we decided to use the revo to provide transportation for all three – mateo, mamu, and nanay. The plan was to drop mateo off to school, bring nanay to the church (it’s her birthday today) and then bring mamu to the market (near the church). It was pretty convenient.

However, when we were all ready to go, I turned the key and nothing happened. No revolutions. No vibrations. Just clicks. The battery went dead.

So instead of trying to fix the problem there and then, we called for a trike, then the three went on their way. I then asked help from a neighbor and borrowed a battery to get the revo started. It roared back to life. I returned the battery, reinstalled the original one, then went around the subdivision hoping to get enough juice inside the cell. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

When I tried restarting the thing again, the same irritating clicks happened again. Great! We’re not even done with our problems from the delivery and now this! I don’t have any 5th wheel warranty or any emergency savings left. And both andrea and anika are due for a post-op checkup later within the week.

With the emergency CS that we got, mateo’s previous emergency trips to the hospital, and now anika’s share of would-be medical concerns, I’m starting to regret not getting cheap health insurance for my family.

I know it wouldn’t be able to free us from all the medical expenses but it will surely ease up a little. I’ve realized this when I was filing my philhealth papers for the hospital where anika was delivered. The office had a seperate segment devoted entirely for assistance from health insurance, and I’ve seen a couple of people in the office getting significant help from the insurance. It made me wish I got one.

Well, at least I’ve learned my lesson. Once I get to Brunei, I’ll be enrolling my family in one, that is if the government doesn’t take care of them first.

Oil prices are going up again. Electricity bills are following the same trend. And people are angry because of all the price hikes.

I can’t help but feel sad that we’ve have become slaves to such things – slaves to electricity, slaves to oil, slaves to technology – when technology was supposed to have been created to help improve our lives, not to enslave us. What makes the situation even sadder is the fact that we’ve already identified the solutions yet we don’t take steps to solve our problems.

We have wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, biogas, and so many other  greener, more efficient solutions that can liberate us from all the problems of electricity and oil price hikes. You don’t even have to own or rent an industrial equipment to install any of them in your house. Yet, we stubbornly choose to do nothing but complain and hate everyone, the government, the oil spill, the gas companies, everything except our own sorry butts.

Wake up people!

By 5:30 AM of August 5, andrea’s cervix has fully dilated, or at least that’s what I thought I heard. That’s why they’ve started asking andrea to push since 5:30. I, on the other hand, was called into the DR by 7AM. Perhaps because that was supposed to be the peak time of the labor (when they expected the most pushing to happen and when anika was expected to come out).

Unfortunately, when I came, she wasn’t crowning yet. The doctor explained that anika was not going down as expected. Something keeps on pulling her back up after each push. They tried several methods until finally the doctor decided that it was going to be less risky if they did a C-section instead of going through with the normal delivery. They gave us a deadline. By 8:30, if the situation doesn’t progress, we’ll have the operation. We agreed.

When 8:30 came, andrea and I sadly said yes to the doctor, but we know it’s for the better. After cutting in, they immediately discovered that anika’s umbilical cord made several coils on her body (1 around the neck and 2 around the shoulders much like how the straps of a backpack go around the armpit). All the doctors in the room hurriedly work on getting her out of the coils and checking her vitals. She seemed okay.

I was relieved. I remember asking myself about what to give people after having a daughter delivered – oliva cigars, daisies, dolls? I had no idea. All I know was that I was just so happy to see my baby. I wanted to cry but I didn’t want to make andrea worry. The doctors were still working on her but the atmosphere seemed a bit more relaxed after anika came out.

Except for the fact that andrea was still lying on the table and getting stitched up, everything was so beautiful. My wife and my baby were safe and so the world seems perfect again.

On the morning of August 4, andrea woke us up with a news of a bloody show. I knew then that it wouldn’t be long before anika would come out. I told her to get ready so we can head off to the hospital, but she hesitated. She said she wasn’t feeling the contractions yet. So I brought mateo to school first, went home, leisurely continued packing, then picked up mateo from school before heading to Cardinal Santos Medical Center.

On the way, that’s when she felt the contractions – regular, 8-minute spaced tummy contractions. But instead of panicking, she was calm. In fact, she wanted to eat lunch at Pizza Hut first before proceeding, so we did. Afterwards, we calmly went to the delivery room where her conditions were assessed. By this time, her cervix has dilated by 3-cm.

Before reaching the hospital, mateo fell asleep. When andrea went inside the DR, mateo and I waited outside where I continued mateo’s Daxter game in the PSP. At around 2 pm, andrea’s mom arrived. She volunteered to keep an eye on mateo while I settled the deposits and got a room ready. When I went back to check on andrea, her dilatation hasn’t progressed yet. But she was given permission to stay in our room.

It wasn’t until 11:30 that evening that she was readmitted in the delivery room and made to stay in the labor room until the next day. Although throughout the whole afternoon her contractions were getting stronger to the point that she was grimacing in pain already, it took her until 5:30 the next morning to completely dilate.

And even though I wasn’t with her the whole labor, it was comforting to know that the people around her were very accommodating. Apparently, medical assisting schools in the country are still producing good products.

Actual delivery to follow.

Whenever I remember the parking fee I had to pay yesterday, I just can’t stop my blood from boiling. Seven hundred plus pesos for a 4-day stay from Wednesday to Saturday – bloody hell!

Yes, it’s true you don’t get club flyers on your windshield, nor bird poops on your roof, but it’s also not a 5-star hotel parking space. The whole place is a 3-layer metal construction – the one that makes grinding noises whenever a car rolls on the top layer. Heck, it doesn’t even give your car enough shade from rain.  Yet, they have the balls to charge you 150 bloody pesos per overnight stay… after being confined in the hospital in the first place.

When other hospitals and establishments wave parking fees after showing them the receipts or proofs of you being a patron of the establishment, the one in Cardinal Santos does the opposite. This one is just a heartless money-churning business preying on those who are sick, no less. Why? Because the sicker you are, the longer you stay in the hospital. And if you have a car, then the longer your car stays in the parking area, hence the bigger your parking fee gets.

I just hope that those who were responsible for the idea of that parking fiasco don’t experience bad karma for all their crappy ideas.

With all the changes going on, the one that is most affected of all of us is our little kuya. Yes, mateo is affected more than he lets on. In fact, whenever we ask him, he says he’s very excited but his actions seem quite the opposite. He’s been more stubborn the last few days than ever. I don’t know if it’s his way of establishing his very own semblance of order or if it’s all a form of defiance to the changes around him. Either way, he is struggling.

We’re not so surprised though. We expected this much from mateo. Although we tried to prepare him really well for the changes, we know the actual experience is going to be different. This is the reason why we thought of buying him something as a gift from anika – to ease the transition and acceptance.

You see, a few months ago, when we passed by the department store, we searched for toys that the two will give each other during their first meeting in the hospital. For kuya, we thought of a black train. For anika, however, it was a bit more complicated. We wanted mateo to give her riding boots, or a dress, or maybe a rattle, but at the same time we also wanted mateo to choose which one he’d like to give her. In the end, mateo got the train and a puzzle bear (the bear we gave already, but the train is still in hiding), and anika got the rattle along with a loot bag of other action figures. Hehehe!

A few days before August 4, andrea was already feeling some of the symptoms of childbirth – cramping, contractions, dissolution of the mucus plug, etc. So on the night of August 3, we already packed our things ready for our impending stay in the hospital. Here are some of the stuff we brought.

• 3 days worth of change of clothes
• our papers (Philhealth, medical records, marriage contract)
• PSP (for mateo and occasionally for me)
• chargers for the phones
• my laptop (planned to work while waiting or when doing nothing)
• toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, and a towel)
• and some of anika’s would-be clothes

We were set, or at least we thought we were. Because in the end, we ended up doing groceries on our first day there. We had no snacks. No water. No extra tissues, and even my laptop restarted a couple of times (seems like whatever router they’re using there is making my laptop go haywire, which is quite unfortunate because I had no laptop insurance whatsoever).  Despite having gone through everything with mateo before, we still forgot how the whole hospitalization thing worked. Hehehe! Good thing friends and families kept visiting and supplying us with food and other necessities. Hehehe!

When we were initially planning for our 2nd baby (Vivienne), we figured it would be safe and better to try out other hospitals (aside from St. Luke’s). First, we kinda knew what to expect – the labor, the intervals, the timing, and even the pain so that part we had covered. Second, we had an idea of how much it costs to deliver a baby. We spent around 50k for mateo in a ward in St. Luke’s. Obviously we wanted to find a cheaper alternative that wouldn’t compromise health and safety.

These are the reasons why we checked out other options – FEU hospital which is closer to andrea’s parents; and Manila East because it was closer to our home in Antipolo. Both had lower rates, were practically close, but known also for good quality. Unfortunately, things had a funny way of working out.

We realized it wasn’t entirely our decision. After getting to know our very reliable and amiable gynecologist, we realized that our choices of hospital are limited to the hospitals that she attends to, effectively narrowing down our choices to Manila East and Cardinal Santos Medical Centers. Then, before we could fully prepare for what seemed to be the only remaining option in our initial choices, we had to move back to QC. Goodbye Manila East. Hello Cardinal!

Cardinal Santos, at first, seemed to be a fine choice. Actually, in a lot of areas, I believe it still is. The small private rooms were adequate for a very limited number of visitors, but that’s alright. They had air-conditioned lobbies, free wifi access, and lots of coffee shops. They had sparking-clean, almost hotel-quality comfort rooms, and a very friendly staff.

The only thing I didn’t like was that everything inside, like in all private hospitals, seemed overpriced. The food in the canteen was expensive. The supplies were all expensive. Even the nasty metal parking construct that looked like one of those metal buildings was overpriced. Imagine, charging you 150 per overnight stay despite being confined already in the same hospital. What a ridiculous idea!

If not for the really expensive bill, I’d be glad we stayed in Cardinal Santos. However, whenever I think about the money…. UUgghhh!

Last Tuesday, mateo started complaining about tummy aches after lunch. He slowed down a bit, but didn’t quite lose his usual happy mood until he fell asleep. However, when he woke up before dinner, things got a bit serious. He continued to complain about the pain in his tummy but every time we asked him to point out which part hurt, he pointed at a different area in his tummy. While eating dinner, he barfed and wasn’t able to continue eating anymore. We thought it might be just gas but he’s passed gas several times without any signs of relief afterwards. By 9:30 he’s vomited 4 times already and that’s when we decided to bring him to the closest hospital.

On the way to the hospital, he was closing his eyes already, perhaps weakened from not having to eat anything since lunch. The only thing that was giving us a bit of a relief is the fact that he didn’t have any fever so we know it wasn’t Dengue. But we were still worried.

We didn’t have a lot of money in the wallet. We also didn’t have any Blue Advantage or any other health card for that matter. So we were running a bit tight. Fortunately, when the doctor (a female ER doctor) came to see mateo, he perked up, started jumping on the bed, and started flashing me silly grins.

The doctor told us that he must have eaten something in school that didn’t go well with his stomach. All he really needed was to get rid of it on his own and he’ll be back to normal.

The day after, I asked mateo if she remembered the doctor that he saw last night. He said yes. Then I asked him if he found her beautiful. He smiled sheepishly and said yes again.

Thinking back about what happened, I’m now certain it was something he ate that gave him an upset tummy. However, what I’m not sure of is what made him feel better. Was it really the vomiting or was it because of seeing the lady doctor. I wonder.