During my pregnancy with Mateo, I debunked what pregnancy sites and books say about having an easier second trimester. Although most of my second trimester was okay, it was heralded in by bouts of headaches and dizziness that beat any I have ever had.

So I guess I have no one to blame but myself when I stupidly looked forward to starting my second trimester. I should have known that although there are differences in each of the three first trimesters I’ve experienced, my body wasn’t acting unpredictably at all.

When I went home last Monday, while I was checking out http://www.quicktrimextremeburn.com for a friend, I was hit with a throbbing headache that made my head feel like it weigh tons. It only took me a few hours to realize that it’s exactly what I experienced with my first pregnancy. So I grudgingly took out my eyeglasses and wore them.

I first got my eyeglasses during the second trimester of my pregnancy with Mateo. My then-ob referred me to an ophthalmologist to check my eyesight because according to her, a woman’s eyesight can suffer during pregnancy. Her guess was correct and I had to wear them just to lessen the headaches. And wouldn’t you know it, the eyeglasses worked like magic! They’d make my head feel great every time I’d wear them. When I gave birth however, I realized that I didn’t have to wear them anymore because I don’t get the headaches anymore even without them.

There they stayed stored in my cabinet until last Monday. Unfortunately, although they helped somehow, I think the lenses have to be changed. For the next few days, I have to just wear them and hope they suffice. Not much reading and surfing for me right now. If the headaches persist then it might be time to visit the ophthalmologist once again.

Ramil and I will be celebrating our ten years together in less than a month. It doesn’t feel like it’s been ten years since we got together in our second year of college.

Although we only greet each other with a ‘Happy’ every 7th (bf-gf monthsary) and 17th (husband-wife monthsary), and sometimes we even forget, ten years together is such a milestone that we want to celebrate it, any way we can.

I was thinking of an overnight for the two of us. It would be nice to spend time together as a couple. So much nicer if it’s a place that has relaxing, comfortable atmosphere, a swimming pool or even just mira showers, and serves delicious buffet breakfast. Unfortunately, the most affordable I can find (although they don’t have mira mixer showers or mira electric showers), is still not do-able for us right now. We’d rather save the money for the baby on August.

So right now, all I did was ask my sister to babysit for us and maybe we’ll just troop to a nearby spa to have a relaxing massage. Although ten year together is indeed a milestone, we’ll have many more years to celebrate it the way we want to. Next year perhaps?

A person’s life starts out in phases: infancy, toddler years, preschool years, gradeschool years, high school years, college years, … Things could get all muddled up after college for me. However, whenever I look back on the past few years, I realize that I’ve made divisions for the phases that come after college.

1. College with Ramil – Let’s start off with this one especially since this defines everything that comes after. It was a carefree part of my life, where my allowance, cutting classes, getting rid of blackheads, and winning a game of bridge are the most of my worries. We got together towards the latter part of our second year in college and our college life is pretty much marked by our times together. This phase of my life brings back memories of fish balls, kikiam, isaw, casaa, bridge (the game), walks around the UP Diliman campus, passing time in the sunken garden and waiting for the sun to set, riding the UP-SM North jeepneys, Math building, IB and Pav4, lantern parades, going to SM North before going home, and so much more. I love looking back on this time of my life.
2. Ayala Life – After graduating, I just rested for a few weeks and started work immediately when May came around as an actuarial specialist. I spent three years in this company and my memories are filled with Ayala avenue, MRT rides, Glorietta, lunch-outs, monthly valuation reports, going to the gym, Jupiter, sales during office hours (hehe!), enjoying the employed life with Ramil (i.e. getting to ‘date’ more), and many more. Although my time with Ayala Life is actually longer than my college-with-Ramil years, this phase is the one that holds the least fond memories. I’m not saying I wasn’t fond of those memories but I guess I’m just not cut out for the corporate world.
3. Hedcen, pre-wedding, dorm – When I started teaching at Hedcen, Ramil and I stayed at the teacher’s dormitory because Antipolo was too long of a commute from Novaliches. This phase, although half a year only, is very significant for me. This is where I discovered my love for teaching, and where Ramil and I adjusted to the idea of being together from morning until night. The only time we weren’t together is if we have classes and during the night while sleeping. Despite knowing each other really well, being together in a work environment where we are both employees is still very different. It was a wonderful discovery that we aren’t just good together as a couple, we also work together really well.
4. Taytay house without Mateo – When we got married, we rented a small one-bedroom house in Taytay. It was a wonderful phase that will always hold a special place in my heart. We loved being married to each other and we never thought that being married will be that great. Yes, we had our share of the usual newlywed troubles albeit very few and minor ones, but those added to the greatness of the whole experience. Five months into the marriage, we found out we were expecting and it added a whole new flavor to our married life.
5. Taytay house with Mateo – The first six months of Mateo’s life was spent with just the three of us in our rented Taytay house. I think this phase is the phase where our rate of maturity is the highest. Nothing to make us grow and mature faster than an infant who depends on no one but the two of us. It was basically just the three of us. We’d visit our respective families on weekends whenever we can but we were pretty much on our own. It was also during this time that I fully realized that I would love to continue teaching. After six months of staying home and not teaching, I was eager to take on a teaching load even if the pay would only allow me to hire a yaya.
6. Evergreen house, changing yayas – Since I was able to get teaching loads, we hired a yaya to watch over Mateo during the three hours that I’m not home. A few months after, we found a bigger house in Evergreen where we still currently reside. It was very convenient for us because aside from having more space, we were five minutes away from school. Mateo had several yayas during our years here in Evergreen. It was pretty much a plateau for us, we were just focused on bringing up Mateo the best way we know how. My employment status changed from part time to full time and then back to part time. This phase of my life is not very momentous because we were pretty much just living our lives. However, we do have a wonderful proof that there were many amazing moments during this phase, Mateo.
7. Our Angel Baby – Very short phase but one of the most painful ones.

The next few months will be the last of the just-the-three-of-us phase because come August, it will be an altogether different phase for us. For me, there’s a sense of urgency to make the most out of the time where Mateo has us all to himself and we have no one else to tend to but Mateo.

Still, I’m excited and looking forward to everything that God has in store for us. Basically, all we do is stay home, go to school, do chores and errands, and occasional trips to our families or to the mall, but I feel like my life is so full right now. I know that I’m living the kind of life I would love to look back on when I’m old and wrinkled already.

My dad’s small restaurant business is not doing very well. He is actually thinking of temporarily closing it down until things that he plans to add are already available. He’s been managing his business every day for around three months now though and according to him, business is not that good.

Also, I think he’s wary of leaving it to the helpers only because he doesn’t have a POS system in place. I saw the products from the POS Geeks and I think the restaurant POS systems will be great for him. It’s applicable for any kind of restaurant business like fine dining restaurants, fast food joints, food deliveries, and many more. I think it’s going to be good for his small restaurant business.

While browsing the site, I also saw a retail POS system which would be good for my mom’s store. Again, the difficulty with her store is keeping up with inventory and making sure that her helpers are being honest. With a POS system in place, it would be easier to monitor her goods and earnings.

I guess I just have to tell them all about it when I find the time.

I’m not the most organized person on earth. Sometimes I do start very organized but once work piles up, I get lost in my own clutter. This is one of the reasons why I love lists. They’re always my attempt to organize and re-organize.

It’s going to be a busy weekend for me, chore-wise. Let me attempt to list down everything so I can look forward to crossing them out.

• Do the laundry.
• Clean the bathrooms (we have 2).
• Fold the laundry.
• Clean the house: sweep floors, mop floors, remove dust from everywhere!
• Check test papers.
• Make new quizzes.
• Start making the final exams for my classes.
• Clean the electric fans.
• Finish several blog tasks.
• Check out some industrial products online for a friend.
• Sort through Mateo’s toys and throw the broken, unusable ones.
• Make sure to set aside some time for relaxation.

There, I think I got everything covered. Let’s just hope my two days will be enough for all of them.

I’d like to think that I’m very low-maintenance when I’m pregnant. The worst that my husband could expect from me are my emotional outbursts at times but other than that, I think I’m okay.

This pregnancy is proving to be easier than my previous two pregnancies, even though I only had three months of the second pregnancy. Although I’m still feeling nauseous and lazy at times, my morning sickness weren’t that difficult. One unique thing I noticed with this one though is my difficulty with sleeping. During the first few weeks, I could only sleep 3-4 hours a night because I find it hard to fall asleep at night and I wake up early and can’t go back to sleep. Good thing that I don’t have problems with my skin during pregnancy because otherwise I’d be reading tazorac for acne that I usually develop whenever I don’t get enough sleep.

During the first few weeks, even afternoon naps are not too enticing for me. Instead, I’d feel sluggish and sleep at around 5 pm – just when I’m supposed to be preparing our dinner. My solution lately is to take afternoon naps with Mateo with the air-conditioner turned on. Oh yes, I fall asleep but we end up using the air-conditioner for a minimum of two hours, not good for our electric bill.

I am hoping I get a lot of sleep soon because I know I won’t get much once the baby arrives. Or maybe this is nature’s way of making me get used to sleeping less every night.

Ramil will be celebrating his 29th birthday this April while I will be celebrating mine on October. I just suddenly realized that we are just almost a year away from our 30th birthday! Although we won’t be needing anti aging products soon, I can’t help but cringe inwardly every time I think of us as thirty-year-olds. Haha!

Nevertheless, we are looking forward to ‘earning’ our last year. Somehow, people who have reached thirty and beyond seemed so much wiser and older to me. I guess we’ll be joining their ranks soon but I still don’t see myself among those wiser and older people. I still feel like a beginner at life and I still find myself making mistakes that I used to think only younger people are allowed to make.

In another light, it gives me relief that we’ll be having another baby this year before we reach our thirtieth birthdays. Ramil and I used to make computations and we figured that if we have a child when we’re both 30, he or she will just be graduating from college by the time we’re 50! And that is if he or she takes up a four-year college course. Considering the age that people nowadays get married, we might be too old to enjoy our grandchildren by then!

In other words, Ramil and I have long decided that we want to have kids early which explains why we got married at 23 and had a baby at 25. If only we were more financially comfortable, we would have maybe two kids by now and another on the way. Haha!

So I guess we’re getting older and our life is pretty much limited to our small family life and school life (which is basically an extension of our family life ). While other people our age are enjoying life by traveling and trying out many different things, we are tending to a preschooler and soon to another baby, enjoying life as a kid would enjoy it. We may not have everything but we have our life just the way we want it.

Summer is fast approaching and as early as now, I can already feel the summer heat. I will be around 6-7 months pregnant during the months of April and May, and I am anticipating a summer that’s hotter than usual for me.

One of my plans for this summer is to take Mateo swimming at least twice a week during the summer. I initially thought of enrolling him in a swimming class but I figured that exposing him to regular swimming activity will make him comfortable in the water as well, not to mention that it is going to be cheaper.

I’ve scouted several pools near our area and I’ve found a good one that don’t have too many people swimming there and the entrance fee is just 100 pesos. I found a more busy one but fee is slightly cheaper. At least I have several choices as early as now.

Since I’ll be very pregnant by then, I figured that swimming will be good exercise for me as well. The only problem I see now is the need to look for a swimwear for my pregnant belly. It’s good that I don’t have to worry about chest acne or back acne but I would have a huge tummy that would be difficult to fit into a regular swimwear. I’m thinking of just wearing some of my two-piece swimsuits because they would leave my tummy free but I figured it might be too obscene for some people sharing the pool with us.

So the hunt for a swimsuit for pregnant women is on. It’s a shame that such swimwear is not so easy to find here in the Philippines. But I’m looking forward to shopping for one.

Finally, we’ve reached the 12th week mark. Based on my earliest ultrasound scan, I am exactly 13 weeks pregnant today. When I found out I was pregnant, my mind automatically made a boundary mark on the 12th week – the week we lost our baby. Even though I fully know that the evidences for the reasons for fetal demise was not related to early first trimester miscarriages, I still somehow feel that going beyond 12 weeks will be milestone of some sort.

As the 12th week grew nearer, I was absentmindedly bracing myself for the worst. It gives me so much peace of mind to finally reach the 13th week. Although from my previous pregnancy I’ve learned that you can never be totally sure, I’ve so far learned as well to trust God more.

So now, my lower abdomen has been growing and feeling firm lately which pushed my worries about losing abdominal fat a few months away. Here’s what babycenter has to say about my pregnancy so far:

Fingerprints have formed on your baby’s tiny fingertips, her veins and organs are clearly visible through her still-thin skin, and her body is starting to catch up with her head — which makes up just a third of her body size now. If you’re having a girl, she now has more than 2 million eggs in her ovaries. Your baby is almost 3 inches long (the size of a medium shrimp) and weighs nearly an ounce.

The following words are like music to my ears…

This is the last week of your first trimester, and your risk of miscarriage is now much lower than earlier in pregnancy. Next week marks the beginning of your second trimester, a time of relative comfort for many women who see early pregnancy symptoms such as morning sickness and fatigue subside.

Our house, that is. As early as now, I’m anticipating the changes we will have to make around the house once the baby is here. It’s going to be very different from when we baby-proofed our house before in anticipation of Mateo’s arrival. Back then, it was just Ramil and me. All we had to give up are our own personal spaces. This time however, we have an active, energetic three-year-old who has toys everywhere around the house. I could only hope he’d be generous in making space for the new baby.

One of the first things on my list is our sleeping arrangement. Right now, we put Mateo to sleep in his own sofa bed. However, sometimes he’d wake up late at night or early in the morning and join us on our bed. We don’t even have to make space for him, he’d just squeeze himself into whatever space is available. Since I plan to co-sleep with the baby for a more convenient breastfeeding system, having Mateo join us on the bed unannounced will be a problem. I don’t want a small baby crushed by her/his big brother. Aside from this, I might have to consider allergy mattress covers just to be sure since the baby will be sleeping with us.

There’s also the problem of keeping the house clean which I don’t get to do much these past few months. We haven’t had househelp with us since almost a year now and the chores have been the most difficult thing for us.

Soon, I would also have to bring out the crib, stroller, and other baby stuff that I put away. I just hope everything is still in good condition so that we don’t have to buy too much stuff.