Premature baby

When I was 4 years old, my mother told me the story of my birth.

“If you were there,” she said, “you would notice the furrow between your brows, suggesting you were trying hard to breathe and stay alive.”

When I remained unresponsive for two minutes, however, everyone thought that hope was lost. My father completely lost it, my mother was too numb to react, while my grandmother was already calling a priest to administer the last rites.

But a miracle happened. As luck would have it, I survived.

Born premature, I came out as a 3-pound, 26-week-old, very weak and sickly infant. My mother delivered me on the 16th of July, even when I was expected to come out in the last week of September.

As a result, I was underdeveloped. I had a weak heart, poor lungs and a diagnosis that I only had a 10-percent chance of survival.

My mother’s doctor thought that I would die. After all, two other preterm infants born on the same day at the same hospital did.

“But you were brave,” my mother told me. “You held on to dear life.”

We would both smile. She’d tell me that I was a good fighter, that I was a brave child. I grew up listening to her stories and believing that I was Hermione Granger, Wonder Woman and Ultra Violet rolled into one.

I admired Mulan and Pocahontas more than Princess Aurora and Snow White. I joined all the competitions that I could — swimming, chess, impromptu speaking contests — and even made competitions of my own simply because I was (maybe, I still am) craving to show my strength and bravery to everyone. And, throughout all that, my mother supported and cheered me on, her eldest child.

Behind her optimism, however, I knew she was sorry sometimes. She was sorry for the infirmities caused by my unexpected survival, for the things I could never do and for the limits they brought.

I have seen it in her eyes when I would have sudden asthma attacks in the middle of the night. I have heard her say it herself when she explained why it was harder for me to master the alphabet, which my younger sister had already mastered at the time.

Perhaps, this was why my mother told me the story of my birth in the first place. She gave me a story that made me see my condition not as a setback, but as a blessing. She gave me a story to hold on to when I was 6, as I battled severe pneumonia and once again fought for dear life, or perhaps when I was frustrated over my first homework, ready to give up.

I would remember the story, and a voice would reassure me, saying, “You can do this, Leah.”

I believed in that voice. And I would persevere.

That voice pushed me to keep working as I spent every summer reviewing in advance so I would not lag behind my full-term counterparts. That voice kept me breathing even when it was hard.

I may not remember what I thought of it when I first heard it 14 years ago, but now I know that it is more than a miracle.

Over the years, it has unconsciously become my “why” — my fuel — in life.

My story instilled in me the conviction that if I was given this chance to live, I must be meant to do something good — both big and small things in life.

I still believe that I can be as wickedly smart and gutsy as Hermione Granger, or perhaps as kick-ass and daring as Wonder Woman. But somewhere along, I’ve also learned to be sweet and demure like Aurora and Snow White — at least, I think I have.

I’ve learned to forget the rat race and my self-imposed competitions and to just appreciate and celebrate the little things in life. A stranger’s smile. The air I breathe. Breakfast.

With my parents’ guidance and with my miracle giving me reason to be better each day, I lived my way into who I am now. My story forged me, molded me, and now I know that I would not change it.

I embrace that part of me even if it means my having a lifetime of rhinitis, even if it means my being the smallest in our family. I would persevere even when everyone thinks I can’t. I would persevere just like I did the day of my birth. I would persevere all throughout my life.

It is an ideal that I — an always-on-the go, 5-foot-tall Filipino idealist — hope to live for and achieve. And it is one that I hope I will bring with me until the day I die.

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Leah Angela Cioco, 18, is a Grade 12 student at St. John’s Institute in Bacolod.