Long-Distance Love

Our little Silver

Vannesa and Silver :)

Me and Silver

Vannesa and Silver

Irra, Vannesa's mom, Vannesa's sis and our little Silver

The little one :)

Me and the little one

Vannesa and the kids :)

A sugary baby smile

Don't keep taking pictures of me all the time!

Sleeping, and of course some milk is running out of his mouth

Little Silver in his stroller

Ok, we're now home from the hospial, me, Vannesa and our little boy Silver Anthony. I'll be posting pictures from the trip and our son when I'm back home in Finland - as the Internet here has a habit of fighting against it, so you get to wait until then, until you can see him.

The hospital and doctors cost us a small fortune - we'd been told the doctor's fee would be about 20000 pesos and the hospital about 30000, a total of about 50000. The final bill was therefore a surprise to us, thankfully my mom was able to arrange us another 500 euros, so we got to pay the bills. The final sum was about 80000 pesos - budgetting didn't help us much, as it went that much over.

At least the bills are paid and we're home now. :)

The strategic information: 1'8", 7 lbs 9 oz (I know, Facebook says a few fractions of an ounce more, but this is official and final, as it goes onto his birth certificate), born on July 14, 2010 at 3:47 am Finnish time. Blood group A+, as we thought earlier.

Ok, we've celebrated our wedding now, and there wasn't any problems in front of the judge. Other than me shaking when I signed the marriage contract. Now we're waiting to get our own copy of it, which they say should be on Friday. We'll be needing the paper next week on Wednesday, when we head to the hospital, so that we can prove our marriage, because we won't have official proof of our marriage, our Marriage Certificate yet - as getting it might take a few months.

But at least things are progressing now, no matter that we have some financial worries - we have each other according to law.

I'll be posting the next update when I have something to report - probably after our son is born.

I'd written this somewhat ealier, but didn't get here when I had my memory stick with me, so am writing this again as I'm sitting in an Internet-cafe.

Ok, we've managed to speak with the judge. He thought, since we get our marriage license on 1 pm on Monday, that we could celebrate our wedding at 2 pm the same afternoon. In the end we decided to postpone our wedding to the following morning: we'll celebrate our wedding on Tuesday 6th of July at 10 am local time, which means we won't be busy once we go to City Health to get our license, to the court house here in Minglanilla to our wedding, instead we get to go home in peace and only the next day to the court house.

Today Vannesa spoke with her uncle, one of the two witnesses we'll need, she spoke to her aunt, the second witness, a couple of days ago. Everything seems to be in shape for our wedding, as long as the money is enough - as we need to have a certain amount of money a little over a week from now for the hospital...

The next update will come after we're married...

On Thursday we went with Vannesa and her parents to the Marriage Section of City Health to fill the last requirements for our marriage license. We filled the last paper with her parents, and then swore that everything we've filled out is right and as it should be and that we, taking Vannesa's age into account, have her parents permission to get married.

Now we're waiting for July 5, when we'll get the marriage license in the afternoon (as it can only be gotten during the afternoon from there). Next week we intend to be in contact with the local judge, who was even recommended to us, to agree on a specific date for our marriage. Which should be before our baby is born, that is as quickly as possible after the fifth. Just in case, as even though the c-section is about two weeks before the due date, the birthing may begin just about anytime.

But now we have slightly over a week to basically just wait before we can get the license. And then quickly get married. I'll be posting the next update after we've been in contact with the judge.

A quick update to the situation here in the Philippines. Day before yesterday I was visiting the Finnish embassy in the Manila area to get the required certificate, which cost me 1750 pesos. The price of it in the local currency varies depending on the exchange rate, as it's priced in euros: 30 euros. Not a lot, but everything can be felt in this financial situation.

Yesterday we didn't open the store at all. Instead we took care of things in town with Vannesa. First we grabbed a jeepney to go close to the store, where we delivered a big bag of mangoes, and after that we rode mostly taxi for the rest of the day - first to the NSO to apply for Vannesa's birth certificate (nice how she can walk past the queues, being pregnant!), then to the clinic for her doctor's appointment and the last ultrasound, where we had to wait and wait... The time for the ultrasound was supposed to be at 1:30 pm, but no... the doctor responsible for the ultrasound didn't come in until after 2. We even had to wait for the results longer than the normal 15-20 minutes. Then quickly back to the NSO to get the birth certificate (again, passing all queues) and onward to City Health to grab the CENOMAR's we'd ordered.

When we had our CENOMAR's in hand, we quickly swapped tables and had our papers checked. And all the papers were fine, even the one that's meant to be used only within the European Union, but they accepted that one without problems.

But we didn't file for our marriage license yet - we'll be going there today again, this time having Vannesa's parents with us, because this is required as Vannesa isn't 25 yet. Or required and required. According to law (as I've found it online), we'd get our license even without her parents - but it would take us three months, while this way we get it in the normal 10 days.

I'll keep updating on the situation from here, if not immediately after the weekend then soon after.

I made it fine back to the Philippines last Tuesday, meeting another Finnish man heading to the same country on the way. Even so far that we were on the same flights all the way from Helsinki to Cebu, from where he went still further on while I stayed at Cebu. The departure from Finland was a bit late, when Finnair had to change planes around. The plane we were supposed to leave on had had to be used for another flight, so we were waiting for an arrival from Joensuu, with which we got to depart about half an hour late. Thankfully there was enough time to change planes at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, that even with being late there we still had almost four hours time.

Vannesa and her father came to meet me at the airport and we grabbed a taxi for home just about immediately - where we were at about 1 pm. I had hoped I would be able to sleep on the flight to Hong Kong, but it's good if I managed to nap for an hour or so. So when I got into the flight from Hong Kong to Cebu, I started to fall asleep, and as the plane reached the island of Luzon, I fell asleep to wake up just before arriving in Cebu.

On Wednesday we went to have our papers checked, and at least in Cebu they still require the visit to the embassy to get the certificate from there. In Cebu it's nowadays possible to order papers from NSO at City Health, even though it takes a little longer - the CENOMARs take 6 days this way. They didn't comment on that "Matrimonial History" paper, but there's no idea if that's a good sign or not. We also went shopping for some clothes for me - for certain reasons I had so much gifts with me that I had had to leave some of my own clothes behind. So we bought some clothes, even such that I'll have use of them in Finland.

On Thursday we "dropped by" Vannesa's and her mother's store, where we spent just about the whole day. We had a few hours break during the day, during which time we went to the Internet cafe to check for flights from Cebu to Manila and back, and immediately bought tickets for me and Vannesa's sister for Tuesday, flying Cebu Pacific Air. The departure from Cebu as early as 6:50 am, the return departing from Manila at 6:45 pm. This should give enough time in Manila, or at least that's what we hope. In the end we decided to close the store early to go home.

Friday, the whole weekend and Monday went pretty much at the store, so basically nothing to report of those days. But this morning was a very early wakeup, as we had to be at the airport early enough. I was a little worried how we'd get on board the plane, as I didn't have anything but the confirmation number - no matter that we checked a few cafes for printers, we didn't find one with a working one so we could have printed out the confirmation email. But it ended up going well, at least here in Cebu.

The plane was at Ninoy Aquino International Airport about ten minutes before schedule and we got out pretty quickly, so fast across the airport (I got the tickets a little cheaper for travelling light, that is without check-in baggage) and into a taxi. We didn't take one at the airport, though, but walked to the street to grab one from there, as this saved a couple of hundred pesos - an airport taxi would have charges us 450 pesos, while now we ended up paying 200.

We were at the embassy fifteen minutes before they opened, so I got to be the first customer of the day. They promised to have the paper done before noon, so for a while to SM Mall of Asia to look in stores and eat something, then back to the embassy at about 11:30 am to get the paper, which was already done. Then a taxi back to the airport, where we were a little after noon, with the flight departing hours from now.

Vannesa was going through her papers, as well, and realized she doesn't have her birth certificate left - we have a xerox of it, but need one on NSO security paper, so she should be going today to NSO to order it. Then as quickly as possible to City Health to file our papers for our marriage license, so that we'll have the chance to be married before our baby is born.

I'll end this report here at NAIA in Metro-Manila and will likely continue after Friday, possibly as soon as this coming weekend, but it might take to next week...

Things went forward a big leap today again. The paperwork is going ahead fine, as I received the last missing document in the mail yesterday. Week before last I had already got my extract from the population register and orderd that legal capacity that came yesterday, last week I had also received in the mail the certificate of my divorce from the Keski-Suomi District Court (even though the certificate is intended for intra-EU use, it just has to be enough for the Philippine authorities).

Today I ran (well, used two buses) to the registrar at first, where I had the papers stamped by the notary public. Onward to the ministry of foreign affairs, where I got another set of stamps on the papers - and was surprised when I heard that the Philippine embassy in Finland has opened its' consular section, even though we at the Philippine Society didn't know of it yet (I'm in the governing body of it). So I quickly visited home to grab my passport and back to town, first to get the pictures of me needed for the visa application, then to get photocopies of all the documents and quickly to the embassy to fill in the visa application form and to leave the paperwork for authentication.

The price, in total, with the pictures and photocopies: 235 euros. But at least everything is getting ready for our marriage with Vannesa this summer! :)

A very short update this time...

It's a big day for me and Vannesa today - it's exactly one year since our first contact, from the moment we started to slowly get to know each other. :) Slowly and slowly - I mean to say quite quickly. So it's an imortant day for us, and we're both celebrating it with pizzas.