UNEXPECTED
“I hope you won’t change the way you treat me as a friend and view me as a person once you hear what I am about to say,” I told my friend Jocelyn as we head back to the office after our coffee break one afternoon in June, 1989.
She turned to me and asked with eagerness, “What is it, Irene?”
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
I watched her eyes widen with excitement.
“You’re the first one to know,” I added.
She was the only one at my work place whom I trusted.
I was 24 and single. Mama came home during the Christmas holidays. We had such a good time. Mama had been in Canada since I was 15 and she would come home for a three-week visit once every two years. Mama stayed with me at the house I was renting in Pasig. My sister and her family came over several times during Mama’s vacation. That January we threw a birthday party for my niece, who turned one.
Then Mama came back to Canada. I was alone and the house was quiet again. I felt so lonely and I turned to my boyfriend for comfort.
Two months later I was experiencing these headaches and nausea. I had been throwing up every single morning. I remember one time, I was riding a jeepney and I couldn’t hold it in. I was sitting close to the entrance and I just threw up right there and then.
I didn’t understand at first what was happening to me. I would come home from work so exhausted with this throbbing headache. I would lie on the couch and cry. I couldn’t even get up to prepare supper for myself.
I went to see a doctor at a free walk-in clinic and he prescribed me Dramamine. When it didn’t work, he suggested that I see an eye doctor.
Ate Connie, my neighbour, thought that my headaches could have been brought upon me by a Nuno sa Punso (dwarfish old man under the anthill). That previous month, I went with a group of friends hiking and we had a picnic in the hills of Binangonan, Rizal. When nature called, the only other girl and I relieved ourselves in one of the bushes. We were very careful and chanted, “Tabi tabi po.” (Please excuse us.)
In the Philippines, the old folks believe that there are these invisible dwarves, locally called as Nuno. They usually live under anthills, under trees, near riverbanks or even people’s yards. One has to excuse oneself when they pass by these places just in case they were in their way. You don’t want to hurt them because they might harm you in return. But I didn’t believe in such folklores.
I guess I was just in denial. My boyfriend and I were very careful and I couldn’t believe that I could get pregnant just like that. But it had already been three months since I had my period and I knew it was time to have it confirmed. I went to have a pregnancy test. It came out positive.
