Is this the little boy I carried?

In a few hours, my only son Chino will walk down the aisle to await his bride Gi-Anne Marie Agoncillo by the altar.

- JOANNE RAE M. RAMIREZ

In a few hours, my only son Chino will walk down the aisle to await his bride Gi-Anne Marie Agoncillo by the altar. It will also be my walk down the aisle to a new role in life, my own date with destiny. In the blink of an eye, I will be officially no longer Chino's closest female relative. But in the blink of an eye I will also gain a daughter. Our trio—composed of Ed, Chino and myself—will now be a quartet. Our triangle will now have four corners. Sunrise, sunset.

The day Chino was born was the happiest day of my life as a married woman. Going through labor in a normal delivery is like navigating a tunnel—the light at the end of it makes the painful crawl worthwhile. My labor was brief and bearable. Shortly after midnight on March 16, 1986, in a country that just beheld a new dawn after a peaceful people power revolution—I beheld the dawn of motherhood. My own rising sun.

The crying 7.2-lb. baby the nurse showed to me was my trophy with my DNA in it. Precious. It was a gift with an umbilical cord for a ribbon.

"It's a boy!" Ed exclaimed when I was wheeled out of the delivery room. Ed is an only son just like his father and grandfather were. Chino, on my side, is the first grandchild.

(The ultrasound machine was out of order the day I was supposed to take the test to determine the baby's sex. So you could imagine the excitement of the clan for the gender reveal.)