September update on life and being an expectant father......

First a little social commentary:-

I don’t know whether the British have a good deal with their banks and I know a lot who would complain about the service and miss-selling of all sorts of products, but life seemed a lot simpler when dealing with the retail banking industry back in the UK than it is here, so I guess we were certainly spoiled. I will provide some examples of the things that stump me here:-

• Bank branches here are treated as separate entities, if I want to pay money into my own account, which is held in Carmona at any other branch they will charge me P100 for the privilege (around £1.40).
• Cut-off times for branch-to-branch transfers differ depending on the bank you visit, but can be as early as 1pm, which means that the money, even if paid in cash will not be credited the next day.
• Withdrawals and credit card usage is severely curtailed, I am able to withdraw only P20,000 per day on my ATM card and only P10,000 at one time (approx. £130).
• Despite huge government efforts to ensure the correct taxes are paid, making any sort of payment using electronic means is complex, internet payments are no different and this encourages a cash economy with the obvious opportunities for ‘discounts’ and for tax not to be paid. There are stories of people buying cars valued at several million pesos in cash, with envelopes or bags full of notes.
• Cheques (or checks for our more American English readers) are commonly used, especially post-dated ones for on-going payments.
• Standing orders and direct debits are almost unheard of here, requiring cell phone accounts, utility bills etc. to all be paid monthly in person.
• Debit cards making use of chip and PIN are only now being introduced, many are still without.
• On the good side, some banks are open on Saturday, although these tend to be in shopping malls.

Pregnancy update…

At the time of my last post Kat was around 10 weeks pregnant and we had decided that after several scans it was time to go public with the news, although quite a few people already knew or suspected as she was forced to make some changes to the way she dealt with patients who might have an infectious disease like measles or chickenpox. The realities of being a father are still sinking in and I am not expecting them to fully manifest until I am holding B² for the first time around the middle of March, or maybe a little earlier if the OB decides that is best.

Living with a diabetic wife who is pregnant is challenging at best. I have to say that Kat has done very well in moderating her diet, cutting down on rice and starchy foods, significantly reducing her refined sugar intake and eliminating almost all soft drinks (sodas) and all caffeine containing products. The result of this is that her blood pressure is now normal, although we need to keep monitoring this and she has not gained much weight (actually she has lost several kg since our wedding).

All this, however has not come without cost, I am forced to be the conscience and to monitor portion sizes and also to stop her when she wants something sweet. On the plus side, I too have lost some weight and am slowly getting back down to having something close to a healthy BMI. To achieve this we have been eating a much healthier diet and are eating out at local fast food places a lot less; the convenience of living much more centrally to her clinics makes this so much easier. I have also been working on my culinary skills with our new kitchen equipment, although I think the deep fat fryer may be under utilised for the next few months.

The pregnancy itself is moving along nicely, we have been having regular scans and consultations with the obstetrician, mainly due to the high risk nature of Kat’s pregnancy, both to her and the baby. All seems well, the last scan at 13 weeks indicated that the baby is developing normally and in fact may be a little large for its age. Much to Kat’s delight, it would seem that B² has a more Caucasian nose, or at least that is what the scans are suggesting when the little scamp stops dancing around and stays still long enough to get a good look at him/her. B² also seems to have inherited my knobbly knees, although this one I am hoping is just an artefact of the scan.

We are hoping to see an OB friend and colleague near the end of September to have a scan where we can determine the gender; I don’t have a preference either way, boy or girl, both will provide huge amounts of pleasure and challenges. I know that Kat’s dad is hoping for a boy, but he too will be happy with a healthy grandchild either way; I know he is hoping to get B² a bicycle and to go for rides together, although in the short term he is going to have to settle for a buggy or something like that.

I am determined to try and bring up the child in an environment of self-determination, I will not make him or her play with dolls or boys toys based on gender, I would like it if he/she is happy and interested in what they are doing. I will of course be delighted if we are lucky enough to have a technically interested child as I will be able to relate more, I have a certain dread of having an arty kid as I have no personal knowledge to impart, but perhaps that could be a learning opportunity for both of us.

One thing is for sure; I hope to make use of the opportunity of our child learning both Tagalog and English to help my language skills, especially in Tagalog. I will also have to learn to let go of any pedantic thoughts I may have with regards to ‘American English’ and accept all of the incorrect spellings that accompany it, especially the use of the letter ‘z’ where I would expect an ‘s’ or ‘ss’. I suspect that some things will slip through though, Filipinos talk of things like “equipments”, “furnitures” and “sheeps” when in my version of English such items use the same word for the singular and plural e.g. “a piece of equipment” and “there is a lot of equipment in the room”. I anticipate that B² may end up being scolded by the teacher during lessons if she/he tries to correct the teacher or insists on “But that’s how my daddy says it, and he’s English so he should know!”

I keep on teasing Kat that we (B² and I) are going to get a project car to rebuild over several years, I am not sure whether it is the thought of a rusty old heap of junk slowly rotting away in the corner of the garden or the idea of us spending hours getting all dirty and greasy that puts her off the idea, either way I am going to have to give it some thought once B² is big enough to decide whether they want to do that, after all, it could become their first car……

Breaking news update, going be be a daddy!!!

The past 2 months have been a bit of a trial for both Kat and myself; back in June she arrived home from a clinic she had been holding locally, but didn’t immediately get out of the car. I was curious, but thought she was maybe answering a phone call or something like that, after all there is little or no peace when you are a doctor, even when you get home from work. After a few minutes, she got out and came over to the house with what I can only describe as a confused expression on her face “What do you think?” she asked me, showing a pregnancy test stick to me. There were two lines, the control line was thick and clearly present, the result line was a little less defined, but still there. “Looks like you are pregnant” I exclaimed, somewhat surprised but happy with the outcome, Kat still wasn’t convinced so she sent me out to get a number of additional tests from a friend’s pharmacy. To cut a long story short, over the next few days all of the tests, including one done in a certified medical laboratory came back positive, although all indicated that this was an early pregnancy.

Since Kat had miscarried a year earlier, we had some concerns about this pregnancy, following the advice of friends sought a consultation with a maternal/foetal specialist obstetrician at Asian Hospital in Alabang. After a brief history was taken, Dra. Reyes conducted an ultrasound scan; frustratingly the results were inconclusive with only a couple of follicles being visible on one ovary. The interpretation was that we had caught this really early, something like 3 to 4 weeks, which explained the weak response of the pregnancy tests. We were asked to return in 2 weeks for a repeat scan, Kat and I were also admonished for not monitoring her blood sugar and pressure since she suffers from diabetes and hypertension. Suitably chastened we arranged to visit her diabetician early next week.

The time between the first and second scan seemed to drag on, we were both very anxious about any twinge or discomfort that Kat was feeling, this was exacerbated by the battle to get her blood sugar to within the limits set by Dr Hingzon after our consultation, including the need to monitor her blood sugar and to administer insulin injections. I started a spreadsheet to record the results so we could easily identify any trends by plotting the results on a chart.

Eventually it was time to return and see Dra. Reyes, she was somewhat surprised by my chart, suggesting it was a bit OTT (obsessive she actually called it) as all she wanted was a notebook with the numbers; I maintain that I am doing the right thing and besides it makes me feel more a part of the whole thing. She was not overly impressed with the numbers and asked us to try harder. The scan this time showed that we had an embryonic sac, but it was too early to see whether the embryo was viable or not, she estimated again that this was around 5 weeks, supporting the earlier finding that we had detected the pregnancy early. We were sent home again with a request to return in two weeks.

Two weeks later and an early start we returned to Asian Hospital, armed with further results of Kat’s blood sugar and pressure, the latter of which was now better than mine as she has stopped consuming caffeine in all forms and especially in Coke etc. the blood sugar results were still a bit outside Dra. Reyes guidelines, but the general trend was much better. The all important scan this time was an overwhelming experience, we could see the embryo, although it was very small, something like 1.5cm crown to rump but the kicker was the heartbeat which we heard for the first time, it was a little fast at 169 bpm but I couldn’t help but have a little tear in my eyes at the sound of our babies life force being confirmed. We also now had a better idea of the age of the pregnancy at 7 weeks 1 day and a due date of 24^th March, 3 months after my birthday! Dra. Reyes asked us to return in two weeks and also alter the monitoring protocol of Kat’s blood sugar, rather than immediately before a meal, she wanted it done 2 hours afterwards; this was to prove troublesome in almost all respects…

Following our consultation with Dra. Reyes, we headed off to Kat’s parents to share the happy news and to show them the sonogram pictures. It was also around now that we shared the news with close friends and family, mindful of the fact that it was around 7 weeks that we lost the last pregnancy, although Dra. suggested that now we had a heartbeat and an implanted embryo that another miscarriage was less likely. We also scheduled another consultation with Dr. Hingzon since the new regime of post prandial monitoring of blood sugar was throwing up some quite scary numbers, this led to an adjustment in the insulin dose, increasing it slightly and to monitor after 1 hour, not 2 as this was more likely to give a better number.

In the intervening two weeks Kat and I have been dying to tell more people that we are expecting but we agreed to keep schtum to all but some additional friends and colleagues who needed to know so Kat wouldn’t be exposed to patients with infectious diseases like measles and chickenpox.

We returned to Asian Hospital the other day, only to discover that we had all forgotten that 21^st August is a public holiday here in the Philippines, this meant no scan or consultation. We were however fortunate that an OB Sonologist was to be at one of the clinics where Kat needed to carry out ward rounds later that day, so we arranged to get a quick scan done for peace of mind and check the heart rate. This was an even more emotional moment if that is possible than the last scan as not only did we get the heartbeat again (still a little high) but we also were able to see the baby moving a little, we decided that he/she has the same sort of sense of rhythm that I have, i.e. not much. The baby’s age differed slightly from that determined earlier, but only by a few days so well within the error inherent in the measurement technique, around 10 weeks.

Kat’s blood sugar is still causing us some concern as measuring it before a meal is easy, but we have forgotten to do the measurement on time after a meal and it fluctuates wildly because of this even worse to hit the marks requested by both Dra. Reyes and Dr Hingzon she can drift into hypoglycaemia a couple of hours later if we are not careful, symptoms of this are cold sweats, trembling and a feeling of overall malaise. Accordingly Kat takes some fruit or crackers with her to clinics and we have made arrangements to have a consultation with a dietician so that we can get a menu plan and better understand what is happening; I shall be taking my spreadsheet with me just in case it is useful….

Did I really move, or was it more of a mathematical translation of location??

A friend from back in the UK who was toying with the idea of coming out to the Philippines for a visit contacted me recently, whilst I was more than happy for her to come and stay with us, it did occur to me that it is a long way to come. To help make the decision I made a comparison of Surrey, where she lives and Laguna, where I now live; I was quite surprised by the conclusions I came to:-

1. In Surrey there are Audi, BMW and Mercedes drivers who think they own the road and have no compunction in letting everybody know this, in Laguna we have mainly Toyota Fortuner (or its pickup alter ego the Hilux) and Mitsubishi Monterosport (also similarly the Stada pickup) drivers who think the same (we also have Audi, BMW and Mercedes drivers, but they are a rarer breed here, they still drive like they are entitled to flout the rules much like their British counterparts) there are some other vehicles too, I could mention the executive van style of vehicle whose drivers tend to bully their way around and of course we are forced to suffer "white van man" here too, are these a-holes everywhere?
2. In Surrey, they have “Chessington World of Adventures”, here we have “Enchanted Kingdom”.
3. Here we have Taal Lake and Tagatay, in the UK they have the South Downs National Park and the like.
4. There is a university here, Perpetual Help, which has a med school as well as the other faculties, back in Guildford, the University of Surrey.
5. There is a major road a short distance from our house, South Luzon EXpressway (SLEX), Haslemere has the A3.
6. Both Santa Rosa and Haslemere are close to the countries’ capital city in our case Manila is 60km away; Haslemere is about the same from London (although getting to London is easier as there is a regular rail connection, not so good here).
7. Although Guildford and Haslemere are close to two major airports, Heathrow and Gatwick as well as the smaller London City Airport, Santa Rosa only has Ninoy Aquino International (NAIA). I have complained a lot over the years about airports in the UK, but they are all a paradise in comparison to NAIA, which is in dire need of a serious makeover.
8. Both Santa Rosa and Guildford are centres of commerce with light industrial developments in the vicinity, taking advantage of the space to grow and the proximity to the road network, the capital and other transport links.
9. Haslemere has occasional flooding problems when it rains heavily, so does Santa Rosa.
10. Guildford has a cathedral but is not a city, Santa Rosa is a city without a cathedral.

In summary, what this means is that I haven't really moved at all, just swapped a temperate climate for a tropical one!!

In other news, it would seem that I am closer to getting back to work as the company I have been in discussions with now has a number of projects they would like me to help out on. It all comes down to the clients agreeing.

I applied for a tax number a few weeks back, the only purpose is so that I can pay tax on any earnings made if I do get back to work. There was some difficulty in getting registered, the web portal for the Bureau of Internal Revenue was, I thought, the easy way, but I was stymied by the way it works, I am still waiting for an email with a link to complete my registration and that is after some 6 weeks of waiting. Having asked Kat's accountant to assist me, I am now registered and have all the necessary paperwork. Bizarrely I am required to make a sworn affidavit for months when I am not working, since rather than make it an annual thing, tax is taken monthly and or quarterly here. What this means is that if I don't earn anything I have to pay PHP200 to say I haven't, bearing in mind a false declaration is illegal anyway, so what is the point???? 

That just about wraps it up for now, but more news to follow soon……

This was the month of the World Cup, or at least one version of it using a ‘football’; personally I am looking forward to the Rugby Union World Cup next year, which is to be held in England and Wales. Anyway despite England’s early exit it set me to thinking about why the Philippine people are such basketball fanatics. If you analyse the countries formally colonised by the various European nations during the 18^th, 19^th and early 20^th centuries you will see that the game of soccer has become the main game in most of them, this excludes the larger, former British colonies of Australia, New Zealand and the Indian Sub-continent where one or both of rugby or cricket are the main sports and sadly they are seemingly better than any of the current British teams at these games which is all the more galling since we invented them in the first place). But back to soccer, nearly all the Spanish former colonies in South America are really good at it, as are Brazil (Portuguese) and several of the former French colonies in Africa (Cameroon, Ivory Coast to name but two). So what went wrong here, after all the Spanish were here until the end of the 19^th Century? I can only imagine that, despite the Filipino being, on average, the 2^nd shortest in South East Asia, the Americans introduction of Basketball to the country during their time here, won out over what I would imagine is a much more suitable game for their physique and agility, of soccer; I mean apart from goal mouth tussles over crosses and corners, height is not really an advantage in soccer, unlike basketball, when it would seem to be almost a pre-requisite and is evidenced by the PBA restriction on the importation of overseas players over a certain height to the domestic game. But still all that not withstanding, you can see basketball hoops bolted or nailed to all manner of supports (walls, utility poles, trees) as well as free standing poles everywhere there is space for a game and sometimes where there isn’t really and this includes roadsides, car parks, people’s houses in addition to purpose built courts.

Basketball is such a way of life here, that beats anything in the UK, that even the sporting legend that is Manny Pacquiao, world champion boxer at 9 weight categories and currently a congressman in the Philippine House, that he trains using basketball and is now the head coach of the newly formed Kia team and he may even be a player coach for a season or two……

On a personal note, the month started pretty much as June had ended, quietly. Kat’s Tita Eva and Tito Bobby were still here, although they had taken a quick trip to Cebu with some of the family for a short break. Kat and I were mooching around the house, the rainy season having put a serious break on my gardening activities since the soil was too wet to dig or prepare for a seedbed. The lawn, such as it was had sprouted all manner of weeds, sadly selective weed killers are not easily available in the retail market here, so if I wanted to get rid, I had two or three choices, do it by hand myself, pay cousin Ricky to do it, or pay silly amounts of money to get a professional in to do it. Events, however, conspired to push this right down the priority list.

The night of Tuesday 8^th was momentous as Typhoon Glenda ripped its way through the island of Luzon, arriving on the southeast coast and travelling up to the northwest. I have no idea of wind speed, but the news channels all suggested we had winds of 150kph gusting to 170kph or more, but this was my first experience of a typhoon, what with the earthquake back in June we are clocking these things up quite quickly. What was for sure is that it was very scary with the sounds of the wind and things being blown around, this caused quite a lot of damage to trees, houses and utility lines. The power went out for us around 3 or 4am, there was a bright flash and a big bang and that was it, no lights and no air conditioning. The winds continued through the morning, bringing a lot of rain, although flooding did not seem to be a major problem this time at least inland at Santa Rosa City.

The lack of power to the whole area caused a number of problems, the most immediate was that, since, most of our household appliances use electricity in some form or another we couldn’t cook or keep food cold; also as the sub-division’s water is pumped from a well, using electricity and the stored water in the towers was soon consumed, we had no water, despite the solar water panel. The lack of water problem was fairly easily resolved as Kat’s parents have mains water, which is drinkable and was not affected by the storm. Cooking however was a bit of a problem, but we managed to buy a single burner gas cooker and a small cylinder of gas. The rest of Wednesday was spent tidying up where we could and mopping up rainwater where it had forced its way in through the windows. Taking stock it would seem that we were fortunate with very little damage and the whole of the local area was soon back up and running, with the exception of water and electricity to our development.

Wednesday night was our first without the benefit of water or power. I showered on the front porch using water in a bucket and a Tupperware container as a scoop (aka a tabo) this was not my idea of fun and besides the indignity of it all, the water was cold!!!!  Cooking in the dark was a challenge, although one that we rose to, after this we decided to go to bed early although sleep was a long way off as it seemed that all of the local frogs, lizards and geckos had found the pools of water nearby our house and were having some sort of an orgy, there were croaks, squawks, squeaks and whistles going on through the night, that and it was hot and humid meaning sleep was difficult.

It took a few days for things to return to a semblance of normality, the water being restored first through the use of a generator to run the pump, domestic power was a bit longer in returning, finally on Friday night around 9:30pm the lights came back on, as did the air con and the fridge!! The clearing up will take some time to complete as many old trees have been uprooted or badly damaged, so a full recovery will be some years away, the good news is that as far as I can tell, there were few casualties as a direct result of the storm and most of our friends made it through unscathed although some homes had roof panels torn off or windows broken and many people’s gardens have suffered some damage, ours included with the bamboos bent over and some leaves torn off but all in all not too bad.

I shall have more news in a few weeks, something momentous may be about to happen, but can’t say more right now……..