Dad’s Ultimate Parting Gift

“Sayang, hindi n naabutan ng daddy mo si Julia” (It’s sad that your dad didn’t see Julia). But well in fact, He did! He knows of her, even prayed about her, called her his soon-to-be favorite apo, but not as Julia but as 5BA. 

You might ask me, how? He was gone before she was even born! 

Night of March 2021 (San Francisco time), I called my dad while he was on his clinic treating patients, asking for help, financial help. With what? You would think. Jeff has a stable executive job, but just few months young since he started a 6 figure income job. That’s the time, I admitted to my dad, we’ve been planning to have a child for quite some time, but luck hasn’t found us yet. We’ve been to many doctors, but they couldn’t find anything wrong with the both of us. And with our desire to have a child, prompted that phone call. With a soft voice, my father said yes, and told me he wanted me to be happy and to be completely happy that sometimes, only a birth of a young one can fill. I cried. Thanking him and mom and the Lord for an answered prayer.

We started our IVF journey, with my parents praying with us every step of the way. My dad, mom, Jeff and I will kneel in prayer for every procedure and tests. It was a very emotional journey. Happiness, excitement, fear name it, we could have felt it.  After all the shenanigans of IVF cycle and ovarian stimulation, i ended up with 3 embryos, namely 3AA, 5BA and 3BB. I can vividly recall how funny my father was, calling them his apos. And when he prayed for them, he was already regarding them as kids as our children, as his grandchildren. My embryo transfer, our most awaited day that finally I can be pregnant on Sept 24th. (We lost our father, Sept 23rd last year). And I still remember vividly, it was the 19th of September, when i was talking to him on the phone while he was still in the hospital, telling me, how excited he is! He even asked for my permission to announce in our behalf to everyone that I am finally pregnant. Though it is very hard for me to walk in to the hospital for the transfer, i still did. With my mom’s encouragement and reminder that this is my dad’s legacy. This is all he wanted. After the transfer, I cant help but grieve to losing my dad. 2 weeks after, we found out that 3AA stopped growing. Those very difficult moments, I sought for answers and remained optimistic, counting my blessings and being thankful despite all of those major events, I had Jeff and my mom with me. Because to be frank, i didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to feel. With all the depression that I was feeling at the time, Jeff made sure, I will be pregnant through the IVF process gifted by my parents before the year ends, that another embryo transfer will happen as soon as possible to save me from drowning in my sorrows. That’s when 5BA was thawed and transferred. I was hesitant at first. With all the what if’s in my head. What if it stopped growing again? What if it doesn’t survived the thawing process? What if I lost all of our embryos, and my parent’s (especially my dad’s) gift to us will be put to waste? But Jeff made sure. December 9th, we received a call from my OB-reproductive endocrinologist, saying my BHCG was 425, congratulating us for finally being pregnant!!!  Tears were flowing.. my eyes can’t stop welling up the moment i saw the ring shaped embryo during my first ultrasound! Fast forward to this day that our little 5BA is known to everyone as Julia. Sometimes Jeff and I still refer to her between ourselves as our 5BA.

My dad may have not known her as Julia, may have not seen her as a baby but he knew very well of her as 5BA - a 5 day blastocyst whom he already loved so much, prayed for many times over, and even called all three embryos his grandchildren.

Today, looking at Julia, we are very much thankful to Mommy Tess and Daddy Doc for this wonderful gift— the chance to complete our family. And we are eternally grateful to Daddy Doc Gil for, while it would have been to us his BEST & most precious gift, little did we know at the time it was one that turned out to be his very last.

Julia will always be my Dad’s ultimate gift to me. It’s been a year Dad! And I miss you immensely! I love you forever and I can’t wait to see you in the blessed resurrection morning! I love you Dad!