Raphael Callum

Pic from this site.

Writing is my catharsis. There are a lot of ideas and thoughts that I deem too personal for a blog. But then again, this one incident in my life needs to be written down, recorded, blogged, however personal it may sound. Only because I want to 'bottle' up the feelings and experience. So that one day, our children can read and know about him.

We named him Raphael Callum. Raphael because Chuy is a big fan of Rafael Nadal and Callum because it sounds different and starts with C.

I remember that night when we learned he was there in our lives. I was 2 weeks delayed. Since this already happened before and we had false alarms, I was certain it was another 1 of those things. Chuy only convinced me to get a pregnancy test because I was going to have an X-ray the next day. So I did.

I was watching the test kit with excitement mixed with fear. Excitement that it might just reveal 2 lines; fear that it won't. Then slowly, it showed 1 very clear line and 1 faint line. I knew it was positive. We were ecstatic! I was almost afraid that Chuy would jump out of the window because of excitement. But don’t worry, he didn't.

We went to my OB-Gyne the next day. From my computation, we were only 5 weeks pregnant so an OB consult was too early, but we were excited. Looking back, I almost wish we didn’t consult that early. Because when that first consult ended, I had a nagging feeling that something wasn't right.

Our OB assured us and I went out of the clinic with medications and injections and all the works and yet, the nagging feeling persisted. Rafa’s size wasn’t what was expected of a 5-week old embryo. A week after, we were certain something was wrong. He still didn’t grow as expected and his heartbeat was very weak. Despite our prayers and medication, his heartbeat completely stopped when he was around 9 weeks.

I couldn't even describe my feelings, much less Chuy's, after all that. I could surely tell you that it felt like a roller coaster ride. Wait, no, it felt more like watching a movie but this time, we were the main characters.  A movie that ended sadly.

Our minds were filled with questions:  Why give us something that we wanted badly and take it away from us that soon and that way? Why give us hope then crush it just after several weeks? Why would He take away Rafa from us? Do we not deserve to be parents? Why didn't He give our child a chance to live? Deep in our hearts, we knew these question will be answered in due time. But sometimes, it just helps to be brats and ask a lot of stupid or rhetorical questions. It felt good to be a drama queen at that time.

As I am writing this blog, the answers to our questions are unfolding one by one. We knew there might be questions that will remain unanswered. But one thing's for sure, Rafa will remain in our hearts.

We will never forget to tell our children that they had a brother. We learned that behind every tragedy is a blessing. A blessing that I might just write about when I get the time and courage to do so. You see, it’s another very personal story.