'I Feel Exhausted Because I’m Too Busy Worrying If I’m Doing Things The Right Way'

Last March 2021, we asked our readers to submit their answers to this question: “How did Smart Parenting help you on your parenting journey?”

We’ve chosen the 10 finalists from all over the country. But YOU get to decide who goes home with P100,000 by voting for the story that touched you the most (scroll below to vote!).

 One of the #MySmartParentingStory finalists is Jashmine Aubrey Bailon, a new mom from Laguna. Jashmine’s journey into motherhood began with a complicated pregnancy.

The many challenges she faced made her want to encourage other parents, “Padayon. Magpatuloy ka, kahit mahirap, kahit may mga oras na hindi masaya, kahit maraming ibigay na dahilan para sumuko.”

She also wishes more moms reminded each other to “Have fun!” She added, “Throughout my pregnancy up until this moment, I have never heard this word. I realized the reason I feel burned out or exhausted is because I’m not having fun. I’m too busy worrying if I’m doing things the right way.”

Jashmine’s Smart Parenting story is about her fight with APAS.

I was diagnosed with antiphospholipid syndrome (APAS) two days after I got married. My husband and I were surprised to learn that this auto-immune disease made my body reject the baby. I was five months pregnant back then!

My doctor even told us that we were lucky enough to surpass the first trimester. She mentioned that most APAS pregnancies can’t survive this phase. At that moment, I knew this baby was really meant for us.

I was pained by anxiety, despair, and fear. It became our first challenge as a married couple as we had to inject Enoxaparin every day to ensure that the nutrients were flowing to my baby. It was tough as the pandemic hit, and I had to stop working and barely earn enough to sustain all the medication and laboratory examinations needed.

Things got better when my mom shared my articles about APAS. She said that today’s generation is lucky to seek help from the internet. That’s when I thought, “Oo nga ‘no, I can search things on the net to help me understand my situation.”

That time, I bumped into Miriam Quiambao’s story published in Smart Parenting. Reading became a habit eventually. Others’ journeys shared through Smart Parenting helped me get through my worries and fears.

Smart Parenting was (and will forever be) a big help for us to get through the challenges of parenthood now that we have given birth to our rainbow baby.

Love Jashmine’s story? Click her name below to vote, so she brings home P100,000!

Want to read the other finalists' stories before voting? You can find all 10 entries here! Voting is until May 15.

While you can vote multiple times using this poll, the results you see do not reflect the actual validated numbers. Did you vote 10 times for one candidate? That will only be considered as 1 vote. So we highly encourage you to vote once and ask your friends to cast their votes as well.

The final winner will be based on the number of unique votes at the end of the voting period. Here's where the voting is so far according to unique votes.

As one of our 10 finalists, Jashmine will receive:

• An ible Airvida Wearable Air Purifier worth P8,795
• P2,000 worth of gift certificates
• A chance to win P100,000, tax-free, of course!

Submitted entries are edited only for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and formatting.

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