ichi-go ichi-e

Special Chapter: Quarantine Edition

Mayang's POV

I woke up with a sharp stabbing pain that I felt on my lower abdomen. Sobrang sakit. Muntik na akong mapasigaw. But I held it in because I didn't want to scare my peacefully sleeping husband beside me.

I tried to calm myself down. Hindi naman siguro seryoso. Dahan dahan akong bumangon para mag CR.

3... 2... 1...

"Mahal?" And there you have it. Gising na ang pogi kong asawa. He always wakes up everytime I get out of bed.

"CR lang po," I asssured him.

"Mahal... naihi ka ba sa kama?"

That's when I noticed na basa nga yung iniwan kong space sa kama at may tubig na tumutulo sa binti ko.

And then another wave of pain hit me. It was so painful, I forgot to stop myself from shouting.

"Ahhh! Aray aray aray!"

"Mahal! Mayang!" In a split second, nasa tabi ko na si Franco.

When he got to me, he already had the maternity bag we had prepared for this moment. He carried me straight to the car that he bought using his compensation for the pediatric building he painted for the Faulkersons.

I thought he would go straight to the driver's seat. Instead, he went next door to call Kuya Aldo. In a few minutes, we were zooming towards the Faulkersons' hospital.

Franco was seated beside me, telling me to "breathe in, breathe out," while calling our OBGYN.

To be honest, the pain I was feeling earlier was replaced with amazement. During the days leading up to tonight, I was feeling nervous and admittedly a bit anxious about the way Franco would react when the time comes for me to deliver our baby.

Franco is a man of plans. You know how he is. He feels agitated when things don't go as planned.

After getting married, we carefully planned for everything: our house, a car, the baby, we have scheduled everything.

We decided to buy a townhouse just a few houses down from Kuya Aldo's. We wanted to have our own home so we could really live independently, but we have to admit that we can't really live far from Franco's family and mine.

We have carefully planned how to pay for everything. Franco's IG page got featured in KMJS, the country's leading magazine show. Franco got invited into a lot of interviews, his artworks got famous. His page blew up!

Because of that, we got more than enough to pay for our house. We even saved some for our future kids.

The Faulkersons' influence was also a big help. Other children's hospitals and pedia clinics commissioned him to paint murals on their establishments.

We used some of the money to buy the car that we have. It's not so grand. We decided that we can make do with it for now.

I thought of investing our savings in one of the Faulkersons' restaurants. Of course, their patriarch gladly helped us with it. Because of it, we have a continuous income.

Meanwhile, I continued teaching SPED classes. I am blessed to be in a good institution. It's one of the country's most respected special education institutions and I'm grateful that they sponsored my graduate studies. I pursued my master's and now I also get to teach in college as a part-time instructor.

We planned that we won't try to conceive until we're ready. It was only last year when we decided that we were. And when we did, God didn't make us wait for too long. Now I'm giving birth to our first baby boy.