GIVE A LIFE

Baby Jojo and I are blessed... for despite the spotting, I can feel Baby Sac continue thriving inside me.

Hubs decided to take the day off and just work from here... so we're both happily clicking away on our computers side by side. And thanks to our education, luck and the choices we made... we're also lucky enough to afford unlimited internet connection (I use our DSL, he uses his Globe 3G HSDPA).

So I started browsing N@W files and came upon a list of Top 10 Hospitals to give birth to here in Manila. I decided to check the websites of each one (eventhough it's still a toss between Asian and Madocs for us, because it's where our OB is affiliated... and Jojo doesn't want me giving birth in PGH naman). At first, I was just e-mailing inquiries and critiquing each site until I came upon PGH's website.

The Head of PGH was the pedia who once saved my husband's brother's life from kidney problems when Rocky was only around 3-4 yrs old. :)

Then I came upon their appeal for donation from people and the private sector... and my heart went out to the indigents PGH help everyday. I have an officemate who is a cancer survivor, and he always makes sure to give something to PGH every year, for the children's cancer ward.

I then remembered to add a link to Py's blog for PGH... and I really have to create thumbnails for each one and post them in all my blogs.

Then I thought, PCMC might have a similar appeal in their website... but there was none I could find. I'm also surprised to learn that PCMC is not the biggest charity children's hospital... National Children's Hospital is... which led me to Give a Life Foundation.

Give A Life helps pediatric patients in Luzon by providing medicine and equipment in charity hospitals. The foundation needs all the help it can get... so that more and more children will be saved.

It is humbling to me, to have been so blessed, and to be reminded yet again of how others are not. I don't begrudge myself, and the N@Wie and Pexer moms am currently interacting with all the expensive baby stuff and kiddie adventures we are planning to buy or buying for our kids... but it does put things in perspective for me.

That where I am willing to spend thousands for a digital thermometer, I can already buy one nebulizer and donate it to Give A Life. And am sure it isn't an issue in the pediatric hospitals they help that they're only using the regular thermometer... who cares if the child is fussy anyway, so long as you're saving his life.

That where I have the luxury of having my baby's development monitored, there are a thousand other Moms who will never have an ultrasound performed, a hundred of which will give birth to babies with serious defects and health problems that could have been prevented or detected earlier.

That where I can spend thousands on prenatal/fertility medicines, other Moms don't even have enough money to eat three meals a day.

And where I can have the luxury of bedrest, other mothers have to continue washing clothes and peddling stuff as they bleed and gestate...

Sigh.

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I have money put aside for that thing we were hoping to do in Py's memory for other sick kids at PCMC. PCMC has yet to reply to our request... if that doesn't work out, then the money I've put aside will go to Give A Life.

I owe other kids that much... even if what I can give isn't much.

But what the heck, if the ocean is made of droplets of water... then so are great achievements. Besides, miracles only really require kind hearts. It can just be a thousand pesos to me, but taken collectively, it can be an answered prayer of chemotherapy for someone else's child.

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My heart broke when I read of the renovation Give A Life was able to pull off for Fabella Hospital's NICU. Didn't their old floor scream of germs?!

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For others who have extra out there... I appeal to your kind hearts to help save other kids. Let's all do what we can... we don't even have to give so much that it will hurt us, we only have to give a little...