Please help. Be a Champion for Chino.

Tonight, I learned that someone I love is going through what I would consider my worst nightmare. Tonight, I learned that a sweet little boy is in for the fight of his life. Tonight, I will ask you, whoever you are, whether you know me personally or not, to please help keep their hope alive.

Carlos Aleixo A. Nebrao was born a little over ten months ago, the third child and only son of Clarke and Cynthia Nebrao. On August 27, his dad took him to the doctor for his routine shots. But during the checkup, the doctor detected a slight murmur when listening to baby Chino's heart. By the end of the visit, Chino was diagnosed as having a condition called a severe mitral regurgitation with mild stenosis. The baby needs open-heart surgery. He needs it soon. It will cost around 1.5 million Philippine pesos.

Go back a few decades. It's 1990 and I'm entering high school in a new town, without a familiar face in sight. Cynthia, or Cynch, and I were in the same section of the freshman class. That's how we met. I don't quite remember when we first started hanging out. Even then, I wasn't the best at making new friends. Thankfully, she was and over the next four years, we shared experiences that I knew would make us friends for life.

How many mornings did we meet, before it was even light out, to ride around our mountainside town on our bikes, hers green, mine neon yellow? How many times did we climb into that city-bound bus to spend the day at the mall, looking at clothes we rarely bought, just having fun? And how many times did I seek refuge at her house, arriving at all times of the day, and sometimes night, heartbroken about something or other? I still laugh at the memory of the time we drank mass wine out of coffee cups at her house, to keep from being caught by her mom.

Our lives and choices took us in different directions after high school. Different universities, then different countries. She got married, started having beautiful babies, and embarked on a life as a missionary for Couples for Christ. Her journey took her to Africa and back to the Philippines, via several other countries. Mine took me to the US. But when we get together now, no matter how few and far between those reunions, we are those old friends still.

The last time I saw Cynch was a few weeks before she had Chino, in Washington DC. We were both pregnant but still managed to see the sights. I met her husband for the first time. We talked like two moms for the first time. Decades after we first met, we still managed to experience things that are new.

This too is another first. As a new mom, the news of Chino's condition moved me in a way that would not have been possible before I had my baby. Though I do not know exactly what they are feeling, I can imagine, all too well, what Cynch and Clarke must be going through right now.

I always took it as a matter of fact that our children would grow up as friends. The thought that Mateo and Chino might not have the chance to be what Cynch and I are...well, it breaks my heart.

So tonight, while my baby sleeps soundly in his bed upstairs, I ask you, whoever you are, to help give another baby, halfway across the world, a chance to grow up--to be a kind boy, a good man, my son's friend, and his mother's son. Chino could be all this and more. He only needs the chance to be so.

You and I can help give him that chance. If I've tugged at your heartstrings, then let me move your purse strings as well. Two million pesos is what they need. That's about $44,000. Sadly, the clock is ticking.

Please help. I know that in these economic times, giving can be difficult, but for Chino, every little bit will help. There is no real health insurance insurance in the Philippines. Most have to come up with the cash to pay for treatment. So if you have even a dollar to spare, please consider giving.

Friends of the family have set up a website to help raise money for Chino's operation. You can learn more about Chino and his condition there too.

If you've read this far, I thank you. If you decide to give, I am ever grateful. As you hug your little ones, or not-so-little ones tonight, please say a simple prayer for baby Chino, his family, and my friend.

I'm going back to the Philippines...

...where a yaya is waiting!

While I sort out the ticket situation, I'm thinking about how best to spend the two weeks we have carved out for this trip.

So far, we have lined up a day trip to Corregidor, a weekend in El Paradiso, and a must-have visit to Los Banos. If you were going, what else would you see and do?

Here's one take on a balikbayan guide.

Breaking up is hard to do.

Like many of you, I've been through my share of difficult break-ups. But this one, I didn't see coming.

See, earlier this month, I decided that it was time to stop breastfeeding. And it's been harder that I ever thought it could be.

As a first-time mom, I've been fully indoctrinated on the value of breastfeeding. No one can argue that health-wise, it's best for baby. Some of the benefits include: less gas, diarrhea, and constipation; stronger immune systems; higher IQ; and less risk of childhood obesity. For mom, it helps in more quickly returning your uterus to its original size, and it burns tons of calories, aiding in shedding the pregnancy weight gain.

And while I don't mean to over-romanticize breastfeeding, it does create a kind of bond between mother and child that only the act of nursing can. That for the first months of his life, baby relies on just mom for his sustenance is a powerful thing. So is the feeling of holding baby close--the weight of him, the warmth. It's a unique relationship, and I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that comes close to the breastfeeding experience.

This "feeling" is what has me yoyo-ing between weaning and not. It has me resenting baby bottles, throwing dirty looks at the canister of formula, and longing for the lulling sound of my Medela. Strange. And difficult.

Unlike many others (I hope), my breastfeeding experience has been difficult from the start. There was pain, physically and emotionally. Baby lost an alarming amount of weight a few days after coming home from the hospital because he wasn't getting enough milk. Without the prodding of our then-pediatrician, a man who likened baby formula to junk food, I would have popped a bottle into my son's mouth right then.

Over the course of the seven months of nursing, I saw lactation consultants, attended support group meetings, got acupuncture, bought both heating and cooling implements, used a Boppy and a My Brest Friend, and pumped, pumped, pumped.

But in the end, only one thing led to my decision to stop nursing, my arch nemesis since the beginning: mastitis.

Mastitis is an infection of the breast tissue that results in breast pain, swelling, warmth and redness of the breast. And pain, did I mention pain? And fevers, chills, body aches, and some more pain. I got mastitis a total of five times in seven months, the last one coming at the end of July.

Mastitis alone is no reason to stop breastfeeding. Moms can, and are in fact encouraged, to continue nursing while being treated for mastitis. Nursing clears the milk ducts, and keeps the milk flowing. And if you feel iffy about giving baby the "infected" milk, docs say that baby's stomach acids can effectively kill any bugs that might pass through. I nursed my wee one through all five bouts of mastitis and he's never gotten sick.

So why stop now? First, and perhaps most selfishly, I want to feel normal again. By normal, I mean pain-free. Breastfeeding for me has also always been about managing levels of discomfort. Maybe I have faulty equipment, but my equipment have always been so sensitive that I couldn't wear anything but a thin cotton bra. So sensitive in fact, that I've had to encase them in plastic shells for days on end.

Second, I'm done passing harsh antibiotics on to baby. The frequency of these infections have caused doctors to give me more and more drugs to fight the infections. While all of these antibiotics have been deemed okay for breastfeeding moms, they also are always prescribed with warnings that baby will likely get diarrhea or suffer some other side effect. We've managed to avoid those (baby is on a daily regimen of acidophilus), but I just can't keep exposing him to such drugs.

Finally, I simply don't want to keep getting sick. I've gotten sick and seen more doctors in the past few months than I have in all my years pre-pregnancy. And when you can hardly lift baby because you are so weak and tired, well, that's just not good all around.

Upon reading what I've written so far, it sounds a bit like I'm justifying my decision to stop breastfeeding. And maybe I am, to myself mostly, and to other moms out there I suppose. Having gotten past the the recommended six months of breastfeeding, I feel a little bit better about my decision. Still, I think I needed this mental exercise to mollify the emotional uncertainty I have over the whole thing.

It's taken me weeks to wean baby, and we are still working on it. He's taken the bottle like a champ and seems to be doing well enough on organic formula. But at night, when he goes to sleep with dad and a bottle, I feel a little stab. He doesn't "need" me now, at least not in this sense, and it's more than just a little heartbreaking.

This feeling, the hurt of breaking up with the boob and with my baby, is a recurring theme in parenthood, I've been told. As baby grows up and becomes more independent, he will need us less and less. I look forward to it, and dread it as well.

For now, I will relish the last remaining days of this breastfeeding experience. I know I should give him a bottle now, but maybe I'll nurse him, just this once today, instead.