My first Sun was a year and a half when I conceived a Son as sunny as the first. Like his sister, his formation inside me made me bloat, the whole of my physical form. I find it very interesting though that as I have observed in my country the Philippines, many women gain weight as their pregnancy progresses; the arms, legs, nose will all swell. Could the culprit be food? comfort food that swollen bellies crave for. Here in Japan where I see more people preferring the nutritional value of food over easy preparation, even taste, many women can carry their term inconspicuously, without any change on their arms and face. In Saipan where I first got pregnant and gave birth, vitamins for the baby and the mother are generally dispensed and everybody expects the mother to be eating more as she needs to eat for the baby too. My weight escalated as I ate as much as I was hungry.
On my second pregnancy, the doctor advised as I ballooned again, that I do not need to eat more nor do I need the vitamins since I get them from what I eat, the baby will not get as much as I can give but can only take as much as it can. Eating more will just give me, a pigging out mother, the excess fats. True enough by my seventh month, gestational diabetes was easily detected in my body.
Delivery came, my son’s birth was a different story. Only the relevant medical staff and my husband were there. The only similarity with his sister’s birth was that he needed to be induced too for he was ten days overdue. It was also my second night in the hospital, the labor was so long that the doctor ordered another test which showed quite a big baby for a small pelvis. When dilation started, the pain was so intense and seemingly increasing that I accepted the epidural, I believed it did not work and came up with the thought of whispering to my son, “Alek please come out”, he popped! The hospital played a Happy Birthday right after…that was funny!
The head nurse rushed to call the “Incho Sensei”, who was just a divider away and handed my son over to him right after some cleaning. Was she confused as to whom to give the newly born to, to the father who was just standing right beside the mother’s birthing bed or to the grandfather who was the director at the hospital then. I looked at my husband who only smiled coyly. Having already lost all the sensation of pain, I smiled too.