The $30, 000 baby

I have vague recollections of my early days in the Philippines. Sometimes I wonder if I have dreamed it, or if they really existed. I have recollections of climbing bars with vines surrounding it. I have flashbacks of me running somewhere to play with palm trees everywhere stretching high into the sky, and my mom shouting at me to be careful and maybe not to run so fast. I have one image that stands clear in my mind of my mom and I praying side-by-side, by the bed as the sun sets. Maybe she was praying for me to have a better life. Maybe I was praying never to leave her side.

I was born accidentally, in my moms last years of menopause and 10 years after her last child. Because of her age and the frailty of her body, I was born 2 months premature and was kept incubated. It seems even as a baby I was in a hurry to experience life, costing my parents about $30, 000 just to keep me alive. Philippine Pesos or not, that is a hell of a lot of money. When I was about 2, my father died of a heart attack. He left behind a family of 9 and a stressed out mother with hardly any money to support her children. I am really uncertain of all the details and have only been told bits and pieces. The last time I saw her and I asked her about her decision she said, "I was sitting here in the dark, in this old house with nothing, no electricity and with no money even to buy my baby milk. I asked God what was I to do? And this was the answer." This is the day her heart broke. I am not sure if it really has been amended since then.

I was almost 4, perhaps close to 5, I embarked on the journey of the beginning of my Life. Really. I was asked the question, would I want to go to Canada for a vacation? A rhetorical question at that. So unsure of what was to come, I boarded a plane with an almost perfect stranger and headed to the land of opportunities. This almost perfect stranger would be my father's sister. The ironic and cruel twist of fate would have it so that this very fact would change my life. She had two boys with a Canadian man and couldn't have anymore. Her husband wanted a girl and so when my mom was pregnant with me, the offer was laid out: if it is a girl, can we have her? The answer at the time was no. The answer 2 yrs later, was yes.

It took almost 3 years for the paperwork to go through, during which my soon to be replacement father would send me vitamins to eat in order to remain healthy. And I did. Apparently my only attempt at fighting the change was coming up with a high fever on my way to Canada. Other than that, I had no complaints. I vaguely remember being carried into the airport, meeting a handful of people and receiving a teddy bear, whom would be my most devoted companion for the majority of my life. The $30 000 baby (probably more with the paperwork, flight etc.) had arrived.