Aftermath

After the anesthesia subsided and everything dawned on me, there was a feeling of unexplained sadness and emptiness in me. I would sometimes find my self touching my tummy only to realize that our baby is no longer there.

The images in the emergency room rushed back on me. I was lying on the hospital bed, bleeding profusely but was unconcerned about my own welfare all I wanted to know was if my baby was fine. The nurse was trying to listen for my baby's heartbeat. I listened to it too as if its the only sound in the world that matters (at that moment, for me it really is the only sound that matters). I was waiting for that familiar rhythm that made hospital visits tolerable. It was not there. I asked the nurse if my baby was still there. She did not say a thing but deep within me I knew the answer. A few minutes after, my aunt and uncle came to the hospital. My uncle told me that the baby was gone already, it was that lump I felt when I bled in our wash room. My aunt followed after, hugged me and was crying. I cannot feel anything yet at that point. I did not feel the hysterical sadness I thought I'd feel. I was just staring at them.

I was that way - unfeeling - for a day. I was unfeeling and yet there was this growing void that is eating me. If there was anything in the whole event that consoled me, it was Rain. He made me feel secured. He traveled from Manila to Baguio soon as I told him what happened. He never stopped telling me that he loves me. He consoled me, hugged me and did everything he could to make the whole situation somewhat bearable.

On my second night in the hospital, as Rain was taking his shower and I was there sitting at the edge of the bed, everything dawned on me. Suddenly in my lonesome, I all of a sudden felt my loneliness. My baby and I are no longer one. I never felt so alone in my life. The realization that my baby is no longer with me, I will no longer hear the tiny giggles that I was so excited about. I will not hear him call me Mama, neither will I feel his hugs and kisses. I cried for the first time. I cried for the things I will not be able to share with him, the milestones that I know I will excitedly watch out for and track but more importantly I cried because I lost a son, my first baby.