Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Doc to Doc By Mayette Q. Tabada
THE witching hour struck Jo Janette and Wilson De la Calzada on a Valentine’s Day nearly 13 years ago.
Strictly speaking, it was already Valentine’s Night. Wilson, a medical student then at the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila, dropped by to pour out his woes about a girl to his close friend and fellow med student, Janette Resurreccion.
Since she was still on duty at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), he came back after her shift ended at midnight.
It was dawn of the 15th, Janette recalls. Leaving a 24-hour Burger Machine to walk to her apartment in Ermita, they “felt the silence between them change.”
No one even remembered the girl causing Wilson grief as, more than a year later, Wynona Jaye, or Nonay, was born.
Confessing to a baduy (sentimental) side, the couple preserved a pattern of naming all five of their children according to their first initials. After Nonay, 11, came Waldo Julian (“Yano”), 9; Wanette Jo (“One”), 8; Winillo Joaquin (“Eo”), 5; and Wanda Jude, 3.
“Our (youngest) was so named because she was to be the last so wa na jud (no more),” quips Wilson, 36.
The couple is proudest of their children. Janette was diagnosed with Endometriosis, a condition that can cause infertility. Today, when people comment about their large family, Wilson jests, “I had an excuse… I had to work fast.”
Having the children come one after the other wasn’t a matter of levity though when Janette and Wilson were still finishing their PGH training, she for general pediatrics and pediatric-neurology and he for orthopedics.
Supported by their parents, the couple finished their training and residency on time.
If anything, the lean years drew them together as a family. They slept in one room in Wilson’s parents’ home until last year.
“We’ve had our little milestones, like buying our first car (it was like having a baby again) and sending the children to school on our own as our parents used to do that when we were still training,” says Wilson, the assistant medical director of South General Hospital of the Cebu Doctors’ Group of Hospitals.
Despite private practice and part-time teaching at the Cebu Doctors’ University, Janette assists the older children with homework every night. All are achievers, the parents attest.
“I would not have had such wonderful kids if not for her,” reflects Wilson. “We did it together, these things that were just dreams once.” (MQT)
