Anne & I were married in the beautiful hills of Caleruega, Batangas exactly three years, three months, & three days after we first became a couple. Our family & friends who knew us well felt it was a match made in heaven, as they saw the joy we had whenever we were together. Anne is the best thing to have ever happened to my life & I have never been happier! Five wonderful years of marriage & eight blissful years of being madly in love with each other have truly made me thank God each morning for waking up beside the only woman I want to spend the rest of my eternity with!
Now imagine our joy to finally find out after three years of waiting, wondering, praying, trying, and hoping that our pregnancy test finally indicated positive! Our happiness, however, quickly turned into terror when Anne started having stomach cramps & she started "spotting" just a few weeks into the pregnancy. We intended to surprise our families & friends about the pregnancy, so they had mixed emotions to suddenly hear we were finally pregnant, but needed urgent prayers because the baby was in danger. October 17, 2004 was the day i rushed Anne to Makati Med & learned we were not having this baby after all. We cried in each others arms as we arrived home & we baptized our little girl Toni the day after when she came out in the toilet. The pain was terrible. And no one knew how to comfort us.
Three months after, amidst our sorrow for Toni's loss, we learned we were pregnant again a few days before Christmas! We thanked God for giving us another chance & our family room erupted with shouts of joy when we announced it during our Noche Buena meal. But the New Year did not bring us new hope because as Anne neared the same 6th week, she again felt cramps & had little spottings. We were inconsolable as our families cried with us when our unborn Sidney left us again at the 6th week.
The sad fact was that those around us did not know how to comfort us in these dark hours. 99% of people sadly hurt us more with the things they thought would console us, with statements like "There's always a next time", "You can always make another one", "It's God's will", "Rejoice always", "There's a reason behind it", etc, etc! What's worse is when jokes are even used to attempt to lighten the mood, such as "You just don't know the right position", "You just don't know how to do it", or "You can't get pregnant by just praying & doing nothing", etc. Don’t they know that our babies died as it is, and they are not things you can just replace or jokes you can laugh about? These statements of theirs thus did not console us, but even spiral us further down our grief.
What we actually needed was not advice, counsel, or humor, but just the knowledge that they were there. A loving embrace & a "we're here for you" and "we'll pray for you" comforts us a hundred times more. Not advice, because, believe me, we know more about this subject than they do. Not humor because you just don't humor a wounded soul. Just silent love and a hug is the best we need in those moments. People will never understand until they've gone through the same experience.
I hope I could tell you there was a happy ending to this, but there isn't. After a year that Sidney left us, Anne was pregnant again, and my traumatized heart was hoping for the best. This time it was different, because for the first time Anne exhibited the true signs of pregnancy that I never noticed before, like the food cravings, weight-gain, etc. We had a better doctor this time, now knowing that it was an immune system problem that was attacking the fetuses. We've been well medicated now & were expecting a smooth pregnancy finally. But this was denied us the third devastating time. Reese Zambrano-Relova left us last March 2006 through D&C to clean up another undeveloped baby in Anne’s womb.
There is no happy ending to this story unlike most stories. The only thing that consoles us is the knowledge that whether we still will
have a baby or not, both Anne & I are complete. Even at the start of our marriage we are whole. Having our baby—which we are still hoping for—is a bonus which we will welcome with joy. But we love each other so much and we believe if it does not come, we are still... a Family.~ Toh ~
(Toh's thoughts as of May 2006)
Author’s Updates (November 2011):We’ve grown a lot from the time this article was written. We’ve become more accepting, more tolerant, more trusting, more cheerful and more excited for our lives and what our future holds. We’re hopeful and at the same time…. grateful.
Abangan ang susunod na kabanata… 
