SimplySxy

Author: Em-Em

  • How does a young unmarried lady prepare for Pregnancy?

    How does a young unmarried lady prepare for Pregnancy?

    When a young, unmarried lady gets pregnant, people naturally assume that it was unplanned.  My first pregnancy at age 22, however, was never an accident; it was mutually planned by me and my then boyfriend, Matt.  We talked it over one day and we both assured each other that if we were going to have a child then we were ready for it.  We trust that we had maximized our youth and that we were already primed for a new and more matured threshold in life—as parents and having our own family.  It was a mutual decision to stop using contraceptives and allow what will happen to happen.  We both believed that contrary to our youth and naivety, we were prepared for the big life-changing responsibility of becoming parents because we were going to stand by it together.

    With all the possible symptoms present, I anticipated that I was already pregnant.  I took a pregnancy test on September 30, 2011, a couple of days after my delayed menstrual period and the results came out positive.  Those two lines made me smile – a smile that I never had before and one that I will never forget in my entire life.  I was thrilled and happy at the thought of another living individual inside of me who shares the same heartbeat as mine.

    Filled with eagerness, I went to Matt’s basketball practice at the Regional Science High School that afternoon and showed him the PT result.  He looked at it and asked me what it meant, with eyes hopeful that it would verify the question he had inside his head.  I smiled sheepishly and nodded at him.  He then threw that overrated question, “Positive?” and I confirmed it with successive nods.  We smiled at each other, fancying the thought that we were going to become parents soon—I at 22 and Matt at 24 years old.

    As I was about to leave the basketball court, I got caught in a somewhat fantasy world when I heard him said aloud, “I love you” to me in front of a huge crowd.  I was stunned for a while.  I felt butterflies in my stomach.  The moment I knew I was not dreaming was when I saw Matt smiling handsomely at me.  For someone who is not vocal and does not like public attention made, that moment epic and priceless, truly delighted my heart.

    My pregnancy did not quite sink in until later that night.  We conversed about how we were going to start saving for our family and what precautions we needed to do should my pregnancy become delicate.  We had love and adornment in our relationship, and a baby on the way. Matt was very protective about my pregnancy.  I had my fair share of emotional turmoil but amidst it all, he did his best in being patient with me.  We came out stronger after every trial and aside from ourselves, our baby became our strength.

    We went to our first OB Gyne check-up and I was very pleased that he was there with me.  I could not really explain the feeling but it was heartwarming knowing that he wanted to become a hands-on father.  My doctor confirmed that I was 11 weeks pregnant at that time. We heard our baby’s heartbeat for the first time and that moment was so surreal that I laughed.  At the same time, I felt like crying too.  I had “life” inside of me; “life” made out of Matt and I.

    I was not scared of becoming a parent.  In fact, I was very excited about it.  I had already enjoyed my life prior to my anticipated motherhood. I had nothing to be ashamed about because I had a decent job, I was earning quite fairly, I lived with the father of my child and we had plans of getting married before I gave birth.  I did not have to prove anything to our audience and I was certain that Matt feels the same way as well.

    My pregnancy marked a new chapter of our lives together and I knew that we were going to make it work.  We were going to make our child proud and make sure that we live up to the kind of person that s/he would like to become someday.

    Image courtesy of MorgueFile
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  • Everyone’s Best Love Story

    Everyone’s Best Love Story

    I had dwelled over several wrong people in my life and during that time, I had not yet realized that I was only wasting my time and a huge amount of my emotions.  Had I known better, I would have made use of my precious time to moving on and embracing new beginnings.

    Most people would vouch that they have the best love story in the world and even I would say that.  I have had too many love stories compiled, and each one I had dramatically claimed to be the best.  After several relationship failures, all short-lived, I now find myself thankful that I did not invest too much of my time being committed to any person from the past.  I would also like to negate my declarations that those previous love stories were the best because (for me) failed love stories are not the best, they are attempts and are, in the simplest of explanations, not meant to be.

    I have had numerous destructive relationships, in which I see myself being stupid and doing stupid things.  I suppose that every broken-hearted individual yearns to justify his/her actions by trying to cope with in such a way that their level of maturity during that time dictates them rather irrationally.  If I had the power to reverse time and to do things over again, I would have done so many things differently.

    Matt and I share the same opinion in that aspect.  However, life is only lived once, thus, one cannot undo what has already been done.  In the course of every life, there are always regrets, moments lived only partially, and really big mistakes along the way.  These things do not sum up the highlights of one’s life but they serve ways to either break the person completely or make the person rise to his/her best.

    I would like to serve as a living testament that everyone has the power to overcome every hurdle, especially heartaches.  I have made heartache an excuse to get the best of me and enjoy the pathetic benefits of self-pity and empathy.  When everything has been said and done, it does not make anything better at all.  It only adds fuel to the fire, which eventually makes one’s life more miserable than it already is.

    How and for what reason I have gained the maturity to move on is not much of a miracle.  At first I thought I could find the miracle in the genuine kindness of other people; I thought with them I could survive.  I also once believe that I needed to force myself to be okay which I found it effective except for the “force” word.  “Choose” is rather the right word.  Moving on and getting better also happens with time but more than that, it comes with one’s determination to finally let go of the complications, leave the bad behind and start anew without holding on to anything or anyone anymore.

    What makes moving on long, tiring and difficult is the wrong notion that what caused it is synonymous to what could fix it.  The solution is only acceptance.  When one accepts the pain and is willing to move forward, s/he can push away unhealthy factors.  One can easily divert his/her attention, time, and emotion to positive things.

    It was after being able to live in that viewpoint that I found myself being directed to the many great opportunities in my life.  It was in being still and in letting God do His wonders that I found out that love only happens when you do not compel it to happen but let it happen in its own conditions and timing.

    I could truly say that despite the many drama and uncountable claims of love in my 20 years of existence, it was only after meeting my true other half that every “first” in love became authentic.  It does not matter who your first boyfriend or girlfriend was, your first kiss, the first person you made love to with, and how long you had been in a relationship with someone.  It is all about who you find yourself being most in love with, how passionately you kiss that person, how making love to the one you are with now is the best of them all, and knowing that you will stay together forever, with each day feeling as though your happiness is immeasurable.  When you finally find that person, everything that you do together as a couple is your “first” because only the two of you could live in those moments together, and those moments will be the most essential in your lives.

    You may fall in love several times and may fall in love with a person for a long time.  But you only truly love once and when you do, you never feel otherwise. You no longer fall in love for a long time but you stay in love for the rest of your life.  That is what counts.  For whatever consolation, you tell yourself that everything, including the messing up part, happened to lead you to the one meant for you.

    This is exactly what I want to share to every person who feels that his/her love story is the best in the world.  Your love story is indeed the best in the world because that is yours and that no one can take that away from you.  The past does not matter.  It is a different book, not a different chapter.  The moment you find your other half, it is the only love you will ever believe and live for your entire life. In that love story, you need not have to move on, you only move forward together.

  • Holding on or Letting go

    Holding on or Letting go

    There are two choices in life – holding on or letting go.  On a number of instances, I have been faced with that difficult decision-making.  Every single time, it never gets any easier for me.  It seems that whichever choice I make, there is either a resolution or a consequence that comes with it.

    It is funny how we tend to hold on too much onto something or someone that contains a lot of memories in them.  Regardless of the setting that we are in or we are going to be, somehow we still want to bring them with us no matter what.  This recognition of such a general truth is applicable to every context usage in our lives, be it on things, on people, and on issues with our selves.

    We should know when it is already time to walk away and let go, as well as when it is necessary to hold on and fight.

    Letting go is not a one-time-big-time thing.  It happens every day.  I see it as a resolute choice to make, in which there is no turning back anymore.  You do not get to press any rewind button and restart all over again.  When you let go, a part of you dies inside and it is that kind of death that is irrevocable.  But sometimes, letting go can be very helpful and it does us the favour of making our lives less complicated.  When we let go, it is like throwing something heavy off our chest and recognizing that life is better without it.  From time to time, it is necessary to let go of things and people, especially those that are becoming a burden to us. In letting go, we realize that it is either the healthiest choice we have ever made or something that we will regret for always.

    On the other hand, most people think that letting go is the hardest choice that we will have to encounter in life.  I would have agreed to that if I had no experience of it first-hand.  But, because I do know and based on my own familiarity, I now beg to disagree to that belief.  As an unsolicited opinion, holding on is more enigmatic than letting go, especially when we are the only ones who want things to stay exactly the way they are.

    Holding on can be very debilitating in the long run.  I am not trying to promote the concept that we should not follow our heart’s desires, but when we hold on to something or someone for far too long, it becomes a habit and habits are usually hard to break.  At the very least, we should always see to it that whatever or whoever we are holding on to, should be worth it.  We must keep in mind that regardless of losing that one thing or that one person we are desperately holding on to, we do not lose ourselves in the process.

    It is not that holding on is a detrimental option.  I am not against it.  In fact, most of the time, I find myself holding on to things and to people more often than I should.  However, I found out that not because we are holding on means we are doing what is more glorious.  It is about the ‘why’ and the ‘what for’ behind it.  In the end, we will have to honestly answer to ourselves if our reasons are worth it or not.

    In life, we will always find ourselves in a quandary as to whether to hold on or to let go.  When we reach that point wherein we need to make a choice, we should reflect upon and assess the situation carefully and subjectively, and not in a biased manner.  It is important to use both our minds and our hearts to evaluate the pros and cons.  It is true that our feelings and emotions can magnify our thoughts and we may end up making the wrong choice.  But it is also true that in some situations, when we follow our hearts, we will never go wrong.  That is one of life’s ironies.  Living life is never a facile and carefree thing to do.  As they say, you win some and you lose some.  You just have to make up your mind, be firm with whatever choice you make, and not look back at it with regret.

    Yes, there are two choices in life which we make every day.  There are a lot of hurdles to pass through and we have to know which ones are worth letting go and holding on, because what it all comes down to is not just about winning the gold but about the sacrifices made and what was left until the very end.