Originally published on Oct 21, 2017 and is part of a 3-part series. Part 1 is here.

1. Friday, August 25 – The doctor told us if everything was okay we would be able to go home. They took us back into the Genesis Center, so they can make sure that Mae was no longer experiencing contractions.

However, during the monitoring, Mae was having contractions similar those who were about to already give birth at the 9 month mark.

The doctors immediately started all kinds of medications and treatments to stop contractions. She was sedated, and several new medicines were attached to her IV.

Unexpectedly, the side effects of all the medicines were severe. From a lively and strong demeanor, she was weakened to a state where she could barely talk and open her eyes in a matter of a few hours.

I was afraid to leave her side the entire day, and even more so at night. My deep fear was that something wrong would happen while I was asleep. So I tried to stay awake by her side for as long as I physically could. (I couldn’t stay there for the night since the Genesis Center is a special unit where people really just wait for pregnant women to give birth, so no beds for companions).

A part of me though knew I had to get some real sleep so that I could take care of her the next day. So I went up to our room, two floors up, and slept praying that everything would be okay.

2. Saturday, August 26. – I set an alarm but never woke up to it. So upon waking up, I immediately rushed down back to Mae wishing everything was alright.

It wasn’t.

She already had trouble breathing so they started to give her oxygen. Another tube attached to her. She really looked like a very sick patient.

I asked her how she was. And in a very frail voice, she said, “I wanna go home”.

That line broke me.

3. That weekend doctors ordered a barrage of tests to see what was going on. In a span of 48 hours, we were informed that we were possibly dealing with pneumonia and risk of pulmonary embolism. Yes, the diagnoses were scary.

But what hurt Mae the most was….

Wait.

To explain it we’d have to go back 2 years ago, during our wedding.

On our wedding day, we weren’t able to really taste our cake because the day had just gone by so fast. Many of our guests told us that the cake really tasted good!

That’s why for Daddy’s 70th Birthday party, which was Saturday evening, we ordered cake from the same supplier.

After 5 days of eating bland hospital food, Mae was really looking forward to eating that cake.

Until the doctors said, “You have Gestational Diabetes”.

Translation: No cake for you.

I think that was the line that broke Mae.

4. Thankfully, the following days Mae’s condition started to improve. However, the contractions weren’t stopping even with all the medications. Everything happened so fast, I think both of us didn’t really know what was going on.

It was only when the doctor explained the possibility of having a premature baby, that we really understood what was at risk.

The doctors had done everything that they could, and it was just a waiting game. Mae could give birth at any time, or nothing could happen and we end up staying at the hospital for several more weeks.

No one had answers, not even the doctors.

To cope with all the uncertainty, Mae and I talked about our 3 rules to survive.

Rule #1 is to trust in God especially the things out of our control.

Rule #2 is to each do our best in the things we can control.

Lastly, Rule #3 is to be always be grateful.

That night, we added these 3 rules to our daily prayers to remind ourselves that everything was going to be okay. And when we talked about the 3 Rules, I think that was the start of when we started to fully accept the situation.

This is when the question of ‘what can we do now?’ became more important than ‘why is this happening?’.

5. Around 10pm is the time when I’d usually leave Mae to rest, and I’d would go up to our room. My routine would be, take the elevator, go to the water refilling station, walking past the nurses station, then into our hospital room where I would change to my pantulog clothes and rest.

But for some reason, that night when Mae and I talked about our 3 rules, I forgot to refill my water bottle.

It was only until I had stepped out of my room, holding my empty water bottle did I realize I was already wearing my boxers and pambahay t-shirt.

In a split second I had to make a crucial decision: Go back to the room and change to something more decent… Or just go through with it, even if I needed to walk past by the nurses station.

I went with the latter.

It was my silent statement to everyone in the 5th floor, that we were ready to stay here for a long time.

To be continued…

Read Part 3 here.