On Becoming a Grandparent

"Facebook, Facebook"

I notice this is what people say when taking pictures of each other nowadays. In case you've been hiding under a rock for the last few years, Facebook is an on line networking site to connect with friends and relatives. Some people are concerned with privacy issues and its lack of security. I say, you post as much as you'd want other people to know about you. And it does have settings which you can set, for you to limit people's access to your information, comments, photos, etc. One friend had this negative notion about blogs in general, "It's as if you want the whole world to know what's going on in your life." She may be right, it's probably the exhibitionist in me. Oh well..

Anyway, last night as I was falling asleep I thought of going back to my blog and write again. I got up around 9:30 this morning and first thing I did - login to Facebook. Yes, that's how addicting it can get to some people, read - me! Fortunately, it's 12:11 pm now and I was able to twist my arm and here I am blogging again! WooHoo!

It's sort of overwhelming because I haven't done it in a great while and there was so much that's happened and trying to remember it all sort of gives me cold feet but I thought, heck, who cares what I write and what I don't write, right? So I figure, I'll take some baby steps, write anything and everything that comes to mind and let my creative juices flow as I go along.

Hmm.. so far, so good.

So, what's the first thing that I should write about??

Think, think..

Ha! Got it!

CAMILLE! Of course, which brings me to the title of this post.

Back in 2005, one comment made by one of my nephews here in the US when we're deciding to retire in the Philippines, "Niya mag retire la canyan di Bapa Rey uling ala la pang apu" meaning, the only reason we're retiring is because we have no grand kids yet. I just realized how right he was.

Last year, May 25th to be exact, Donna and I came back here in the US because our annual round trip ticket was going to expire. After three months I was going crazy with homesickness that I just had to go back home. Which I did, in July. But my daughter-in-law Rachel was going to have her baby in November so on October 25, I came back here to witness our first grand daughter's birth.

Before I left the Philippines, I was dreading the fact that I may have to stay in the US for at least five months; I'll have to stay for Camille's first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first New Year and then Mary and Robert's son Romar will have his wedding in March. I didn't want to dwell on it and make my life miserable here so I sort of let it sit at the back of my mind.

With Rachel's risky pregnancy, and not wanting to wait till she goes on labor, she and her doctors have decided that she'll have a C-section on the first week of November, about a month shy of her being full term.

It was a Saturday evening, October 30, 2010 I remember Donna and I were driving back from San Diego when we got a call from Adrienne. We were still staying with Emy and Nido at the time and he loaned us his cell phone on this weekend trip to San Diego. Adrienne said Eph has been trying to get a hold of us so we called him right away. He told Donna that he had to take Rachel to Hoag because she's been having contractions, this about a week ahead of her scheduled C-section. The call gave us a bit of anxiety, bringing back unwanted memories of Elijah's birth. I think both of us said a silent prayer at the time. We must have made a couple more phone calls to Eph that evening while we were zipping away on the I-5 trying to get updates. At one point, he said the doctors gave Rach some drugs to calm her down and to control the contractions. He further said his in-laws are at the hospital and it's up to us if we want to come as well. Of course, we'd want to be there so we went ahead and diverted our drive to La Mirada and detoured to Newport Beach where the hospital is located.

When we arrived, sure enough Rose and Jun were there along with a few of Rach and Eph's close friends.

They told us the contractions wouldn't stop so they had to do the C-section right then and there, a week ahead of schedule. It was deja vu all over again. We were in the same hospital on January of 2009 with Elijah. I'm sure when we weren't talking everyone's praying Camille will come out without any hitches. We were giving each other assurances that a lot of steps were taken to prevent the same thing that happened with Elijah; Rach's cervix was sutured, she was given medication for a more secure pregnancy and she went to see her doctor much more frequently for scans to keep track and make sure Camille was doing fine.

Finally, after a few excruciating hours of waiting, and I'm sure everyone there let out a huge sigh of relief when Eph came out and announced, "I'M A DAD!"

And the rest, as they say, is history. Check out my previous and upcoming posts for updates.