The Anatomy of a Single Mom

At age 38, my friend gave birth to her first baby. A girl. Her boyfriend whom she met only in December is back in Italy. She gave birth with only her father and a house help by her side from 10 PM until 6 AM the next day. Her OB assured her of a normal delivery, but on the eleventh hour, her doctor called for a CS.

I came to see her and the baby at the hospital the same day. She was OK, with two cellphones in her hands, calling and texting home for instructions - stuff to be sent to the hospital, hospital bills to be paid, etc. And she lying in bed with inches of sewn vertical wound on her stomach. Hell, it was painful. I could see how she'd stop to draw some deep breaths to ease the pain. Some tube stuck on her somewhere so she could pee without leaving the bed. One would see the shade of her liquid wastes.

Damn it! And she was alone with this sleepy girl barely out of her teens acting as her aid. But what does a girl know?

She could have NOT gotten herself pregnant, but she wanted a baby, a child she could call her own. And for what? For this? This loneliness at the time when a woman should be celebrating her womanhood?

No, I would not give credit to the father of her child for calling and calling and calling while she was near-death giving birth. The least he could have done was fly back to this OFW-infested country and be by her side to hold her hand those long hours of birth pains and birth hells. OFW-infested. That is the only time when something is infested and the pest is not on or in the host.

There are no excuses for any man not to be with the woman he has impregnated the time the woman gives birth. Any male human who does that can never claim to be better than male non-human animals.

She said he would be back in December for their wedding and the child's baptism. Big deal. He could have gone home now and get married. Ano siya naghihintay ng Pasko?

Stupid, stupid male. Why is she even marrying him?

My guess, that is what friends are for. To be with their friends when they have no one else. And deliberately fade in the background when things pick up. And back again when things screw up.

I cannot tell her not to marry him. I'm not her mother. I'm just her friend.