*My mom used to write here and she planned to make this her personal journal but due to her difficult pregnancy (all thanks to me!) she wasn’t able to do so. You can read about her roller coaster experiences as an expectant mom on her blog http://joshuakieffer.com. She dedicated that blog to my late big brother Joshua, she lost him to miscarriage. 
I love you big bro! Anyway, mom decided to bequest (big word from mom) this blog to me, to chronicle my many little life’s experiences in this big, big world. And as my initial offering, I would like to share with you my most favorite story…the day I came to the world. Enjoy!
I remember this story like the back of my teeny weenie hand. And it goes a little something like this…
It all started on a Monday, July 7 2008, very early in the morning. Actually I wasn’t sure if it was morning because all I can see was darkness. But I did hear my mom’s somewhat tensed voice telling my dad that she thinks her water has just broke. My dad asked what time it was and she said its quarter past 2 am. She was really nervous, I can tell because she was shaking. My dad, though still very sleepy, stood up, hugged my mom and kissed her on the forehead. He got changed, took the already set overnight bag with all the things that my mom and I will need and drove to the hospital. I even heard Gram Celia and Uncle Rey’s voices so I guess they went too. My Mom was quite scared, she was constantly talking and telling me to hold on and be strong. So I just stayed put. Mom was ushered to the delivery room and after a few minutes the resident doctor came and checked on her. The doctor had a very sleepy and quite intimidating voice. When my Mommy told her what she suspected has just happened, she immediately dismissed the idea and said that it was just urine leakage and not water bag breaking. My mom insisted that it wasn’t urine because it was continuous but in the end the doctor won the argument so we went home. Too much for excitement huh? But my mom knew in her heart that something’s not right, that her water bag might be leaking but sadly they don’t have the facility to test if it was urine or amniotic fluid. So how sure that doctor was in saying that it was just urine incontinence? She was rather arrogant in saying that there was no “vaginal pooling” (whatever that is) so it’s impossible that mom’s water bag broke. It quite pissed me off really (oopps don’t tell mom I used that word). The OB-gynecologist called and said that mom should have an ultrasound to check on me by 10 am but since it was just around 4 a.m., we went home first and just went back. Mom did not sleep a wink, she prayed hard. She was so concerned about me and almost on the verge of crying, I whispered “Don’t cry Mom, I’m okay in here.” Poor mom, she loves me so that’s why. I prayed too and said “Lord, please make me safe and away from harm, I don’t ever want to hurt my Mommy. She lost my big brother Joshua already, she’ll be very sad to lose me too.” God heard my solemn prayer and everything turned out A-okay. Mom tried to relax for the succeeding days but come Wednesday morning she can no longer contain her fear that her water bag was really leaking and that I might get infected. She wanted to make sure that I was okay so we went to the hospital again. The doctors put a wire on mom’s tummy connected to a giant machine. They said that it’s used to monitor my movements and heartbeat and mom’s contractions too. I did not like that part because I was expected to move about a lot. It was my sleeping time. That was around 10:30 a.m. After an hour, they removed the wires and there was this really long sheet with scribbles on it (Mom, showed it to me later on) saying that I have a good cardiac activity and that I’m healthy. But she was instructed by a very nice and soft spoken female resident doctor that since the machine detected contractions, she has to monitor the strength of it and when it is regular already she needs to come back to the hospital ASAP. That was 11 a.m. of July 9. We had a hearty lunch of roasted chicken, soup and vegetables before we went home. My mom’s in labor already but she’s still in the latent stage ((it means early, another big word learned from Mommy) and I heard from one of her doctors that she still has a long, long, long and really loooong way to go before she’ll have me. I’m feeling the contractions too because whenever it comes I don’t have a choice but to stop what I’m doing. It felt like I’m being squeezed out. To where? That I did not know.
So mom and dad went home again though mom was pretty sure that she’ll have me really pretty soon. But she chose to remain calm and relax this time. She feels the contractions come and go but she kept it to herself. She decided to just watch her favorite shows on the telly. She loves Travel and Living on Destiny cable so much. She loves watching all the cooking shows. And every time she does, I can’t help but get hungry too, even though I haven’t eaten anything yet aside from the water inside mom’s tummy. Around 2 a.m. of July 10, the tightening around mom’s tummy was getting stronger and frequent also. I wanted to catch 40 winks but I can’t because I feel like I’m being pushed down and I’m getting quite scared when that happens. Mom started monitoring her contractions from 2: 19 a.m. to 3:32 a.m. From an interval of every seven minutes to every 5 minutes and the duration of the pain from 30 seconds to 45 seconds. Mom suddenly had the urge to pee. She went to the john and when she stood up that’s when her water bag really broke. I heard a loud splash like that of a hundred water balloons getting punctured all at once. That’s when my mom started to get really scared and she was trembling because of great fear that something bad might happen to me if we won’t get to the hospital fast. She hollered to my dad and said “Daddy, Sophia is coming out!” And I was like “Huh? But I don’t see any door here.” Dad, immediately got up and got dressed so was my mom and they drove to the hospital. This time it was just the 3 of us who went there. We did not rouse anyone up because it might be another false alarm but it wasn’t, it was the real thing. Mom and I were immediately rushed to the DR (READ: Delivery Room) and the same arrogant doctor who first looked at Mom last Monday was the one on duty. I was overjoyed when she confirmed that my mom’s water bag broke and that there might really be a leakage when she came there the first time. My mom being modest as she is, just kept quiet and inwardly felt glad that her suspicions were right all along and quite terrified because I might be already infected by that time. That was 4:30 a.m. After 3 hours my mom was wheeled to the Labor room already to monitor her contractions more closely. They said that her cervix was just 2 cm dilated so they still have to wait for it to be dilated by at least 2 cm more before they could give her pain reliever and before they could start inducing labor by Pitocin. I later found out that Pitocin is a drug that initiates or augments labor by making contractions stronger and more frequent. But I learned also that this drug earned its ill-reputation by making contractions more painful, about 10 times more! I just can imagine how painful that was because others were already screaming and almost wanted to break the whole hospital bed down, because of too much pain. But not my Mom, she is the bravest person in the world! She was just softly groaning and whimpering every time another noxious contraction comes. The doctors said that since she ran out of water already, for every contraction there would be blood instead of water and a whole lot at that. I heard mom said to one of the nice male resident doctor, Dr. Jon that it felt like a blade was being slashed on her abdomen followed by an awful pain on her lower back. I’m sure that it was really Ouchy, because mom was gripping the hospital bed. After a few more hours she was transferred to the OR (Operating Room). When mom was about 8 cm dilated and was in so much pain, her pain reliever wore off and the anesthesiologist was nowhere to be found because he went out for lunch! Imagine my mom enduring the almost unbearable pain for 1 whole hour without pain killers, Wow! She really is something. 
Around 1:30 p.m. she was given another dose of pain killers and that’s when she reached the needed 10 cm dilation. So proud of you Mom! Now, she’s expected to push and I’m telling you that I’ve never felt her pushed that way before. She was very exhausted and weak but I don’t know where she was getting the strength to push that hard. She was holding a rosary on her right hand and the stampita of the Divine Mercy was placed on her chest. These were both given by my Mama (maternal grandma) for a safe delivery. And Mom was saying a silent prayer to God to take good care of me with her every push. I wanted to help mom but I was too scared that’s why I kept on running around inside her tummy. My mom was losing her strength already when one of the doctors decided to help mom by doing a fundic push. It’s fundal pressure on mom’s tummy every time she tries to push me out. There were 3 doctors pushing mom’s tummy with all their might to force me to come out. After 3 fundic pushes, I finally came out; it was already 4:32 p.m. I immediately cried when I felt that my environment grew suddenly strange. And the next thing I knew, weird things were being done to me by many doctors. I later found out that it’s called the APGAR test. It stands for Appearance by checking the color of my skin if it’s blue or something, Pulse by monitoring my heart rate, Grimace for my reflex response, Activity for my muscle tone (I think I scored a perfect 10 for that because I was kicking my legs so hard) and Respiration if I was breathing normally (another perfect score for me because I cried the doctor’s ears off, tee hee..). Then I was wrapped in a blanket and I really liked it and I loved it even more when they placed me beside my mom. See our first picture together below. Do you know what my mom was telling me right that moment? “Hi, angel! You look like your dad.” And she was never been right. Later on, I’ll show you proofs that I do look exactly like him.
It was a thoroughly happy day for me. I made instant friends in the nursery. NOT! I was such a cry baby but very cute of course. See for yourself:
And though I wasn’t able to be with my mom and dad that day, I was happy that Mom gathered all her strength to visit me the next day.I gave her the sweetest smile that I could muster or was it gas? It doesn’t matter at least I made Mom and Dad happy.
And from the time that I came home with my parents, I’ve never felt more loved and secured compared to my 9 months stay inside my mom’s dark, lonely and wet womb. It felt like a cave in there not that I already experienced being in a real cave. I just picked that up from Mom during one of our many conversations.
Now, I’m asking you guys to join me as I share with you my colorful thoughts about this crazy little thing called life, life in the eyes of a tot.
