A Tribute to My Dearest Mother

This is a re-post of my blog posted on May 10, 2013. I am dedicating this tribute to my dearest Nanay who is currently fighting for her life in the hospital. Whatever will come next, Nanay, you have lived a life that's worth celebrating. You have fought hard enough and have won every battle a long time ago! And for this, we shall be eternally grateful.
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    There is something special and unique in being a mother. It’s all about sacrifice, taking risks, and beating  all odds in bringing a new life. It’s about giving oneself so that others will become whole. And this holds water for both biological and surrogate mothers who carried their babies to term. For motherhood is the ‘essence of a woman’. 

     ‘We owe a lot to our mothers’, this I always  stress to my students when we talk about reproduction in the Anatomy and Physiology class. And the reasons are plenty. It begins with oogenesis or egg cell formation, when oocyte prepares and accumulates a wealth of materials required to support the earliest embryonic developmental events that immediately follow after fertilization.  As such, the energy-producing mitochondria in every cell of our body all came from mom’s egg. And not to mention,  half of our DNA comes from our mom’s, too.

     But there’s a lot more to motherhood than the material legacy mothers bequeathed to their children. There is that emotional and hormonal roller-coaster ride throughout the nine-month journey called pregnancy. Early on, there is that yucky  nauseous feeling which comes with morning sickness as it occurs not only in the mornings but all day long. And there's mood swings, fatigue, headaches, constipation. As the fetus gets bigger, mom tends to suffer from shortness of breath as the baby pushes the diaphragm up and the urge to frequently urinate as the fetus presses  the urinary bladder down to the pelvic floor. And there are more changes associated with later pregnancy which  mothers had to endure: itchiness, stretch marks, muscle cramps, limb varicose and swellings, and pre-eclampsia. I remembered my wife having regular asthma attacks for almost the entire duration of her pregnancy with our first born. 

 

     Then comes the time when the expectant mother faces the ultimate challenge.  Pains, so excruciating,  come and go as labor started. The labor pains become more frequent  and more intense as  labor progresses. I spent sometime inside the delivery room when wife was giving birth to our daughter. I felt so useless when I could do nothing else but watch the wife suffering from recurrent intense pains that come with labor. And then, when necessary, the mom may undergo episiotomy if not a caesarian section  when conditions do not warrant normal baby delivery.

     But all of these seem to fade away the moment the mother sees her child for the first time. She becomes completely oblivious of the discomforts and pains she endured, as she regains her strength and shapes up her tenacity to raise the baby she just gave birth. And so her sacrifices continue.

     Let's celebrate each day as mother's day.  Let's make that special woman in our life feel so special. Hug your mom. Call her. Thank her for all what she did and she went through. For nobody is born without a mother!

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    And for our dear Nanay, should it be time for you to go, do it in peace! For after all those 87 years in your earthly sojourn, it may be time for an eternal rest!