Monthly Archives: February 2023

1st time being separated from baby

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This Denver work trip was the very first time I was separated from Kaia overnight since she was born. It really wasn’t a long work trip at all — I left mid-morning on Wednesday and arrived back in the wee hours of Saturday morning, so she got to see me again when she woke up on Saturday at around 6:30am. It’s always been unclear whether Kaia actually recognizes that someone is missing or gone. When Chris went away on three separate work trips, once just overnight in Australia, she didn’t seem fazed at all. When she got separated from our nanny multiple times, she didn’t seem to care (other than crying when the nanny came back after her two-week long Jamaica trip). But it did make me happy when she woke up on our bed on Saturday morning, and she said repeatedly, “mama” and “mummy.” I hope she was happy to see me again, as she was quite smiley.

I didn’t really mind being away from her the first night or the second night, but by the time Friday came around, I did miss her and want to play with her again. While at the airport, I started watching videos of her on my phone just to see her and hear her sweet little voice. These times really do fly by, and I want to soak it up as much as I can while she is this little and actually wants to spend time with me. I missed my little Pookster and was happy to be reunited with her again.

Mental health advocate – the emotional labor of fundraising for suicide prevention

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I generally am pretty open about my brother’s death. I openly share that he died ten years ago, and that he died from suicide. Well, I kind of have to be open if I am fundraising for an organization called the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), and I say that I fundraise in memory and honor of my big brother. There’s really no way to get around that, is there?

I’ve been very fortunate and privileged in all these years fundraising. Family, friends, colleagues, ex-colleagues, acquaintances, even totally random strangers who have never met me in real life have donated money to my fundraising drive because they’ve been touched by Ed’s story and my desire to share it. Many of the people who have donated have donated year after year, since year 1. They don’t have to do it, but they do. But part of the reason I know so many people donate is because of how much detail and information I share regarding how Ed died and how he suffered. And so with all that detail means that people do have a sense of what I went through, and they then feel like they can openly share their own struggles, whether it’s with themselves or their loved ones, with me. And while I feel privileged that they feel they can come to me to share their most personal, vulnerable stories… it’s honestly a lot of emotional labor and burden for me. I’m then associated with mental health and suicide prevention in their minds, and so I’m someone they they feel comfortable sharing with when no one else “gets it.” I “get it,” right, because I lost Ed through suicide. So I’ll “get it” with my colleagues.

So I sat there and listened to a few stories of struggles of friends, family members, and children over the last couple of days at SSKO. And while it was touching to be remembered and thought of, it was also… tiring. It was already tiring to be around 400 of my colleagues nonstop for two days since I work from home, but then to add this additional layer of emotional labor just left me feeling beat. I like it when people come up to me to share what new food they’ve tried or made because they were inspired by me; that gives me energy. Having these conversations around mental health and suicide attempts, while I hope they are helpful… they drain me. I want to help, it feels good to help. But it’s definitely exhausting. Everything has its price.

Sales and success kickoff – flying on Jetblue

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And just two days after a company layoff, 400 of my US based colleagues and I all few to Denver for our annual sales and success kickoff — the very first one happening in person since pre-pandemic. It’s the first one I’ve been in person for: the first one was virtual, where I actually was an MC; the second one was last year, when I was out on maternity leave; and this is the third one. This September will mark three years with my company. It’s strange how time flies… and during all that time, this is the very first time I’m meeting so many colleagues in person for the first time.

A travel agent helped make all of our travel arrangements to and from Denver, from flights, hotels, to airport transfers. Although I got put in an “American Airlines” flight, it was actually a Jetblue flight due to their partnership. And since someone else did the booking for me, I didn’t even have a seat assignment until I called AA after the flight was booked to request one. All the window and aisle seats were booked in the front of the plane, so to be as far forward as possible, I opted for seat 8B…. yes, that’s a middle seat. I cannot even remember the last time I sat in the middle. But this was a class-less plane, and I knew having a seat in row 8 would pay off because I’d get off the plane faster. It actually wasn’t that bad, either, and Jetblue was a decent flying experience overall: they honored my AA elite status by allowing me to board first with Jetblue Mosaic status fliers. They gave me free snacks (plantain chips!), a screen per seat with a really good selection of movies and TV shows, plus charging outlets. The charging outlets were especially helpful because my phone battery is especially sad right now, so I pretty much had it charging the entire 4 hour-20 minute flight. Did I think it was weird that they offered earbuds and blankets for a fee? Yes, but I guess that’s how they make money, so why not? I happened to have earbuds to plug in from a long-ago AA flight when they used to pass them out for free in business class. It’s a good thing I saved them in my travel bag because they finally came handy!

Thoughts after layoff number I-can’t-even-count

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On Monday, the company I have been working at for about 2.5 years had a layoff. Ten percent of my colleagues got let go. This company, in its entire 13-year history of existence, had never had a reduction in force before. And it was pretty obvious one was coming: we didn’t hit our Q4 numbers, spend has been pulled way back, especially on work travel. I was just waiting for when it was going to happen… and wondering if I would be impacted. Our CEO gave a cryptic nod to it on Sunday night, and then on Monday morning, he announced on Slack that there would be a layoff later in the day: if you were impacted, you’d get an email within 10 minutes of the all-hands meeting ending. If you were not impacted, you would get a calendar invitation to the all-hands meeting the next day. So after the meeting ended and we all got off Zoom, we sat there for ten minutes, wondering if we’d get cut. As a defense mechanism, once I saw the Slack message in the morning, I had just assumed I would get laid off. Because… if I assume the worst, then I couldn’t possibly get too upset, right?

I guess that’s how I deal with layoffs now. Because I’ve gotten laid off twice before, fired once (yep), and every single company I’ve ever worked at has had endless layoffs where I was unlucky and “lucky,” I always just assume the worst. I cannot even count how many layoffs I’ve seen happen across the last 15 years I’ve spent working full-time; I’ve lost track. I feel sorry for the people who think that their individual contributions are so great that they couldn’t possibly get selected. That type of naiveté should only exist if you’re super inexperienced and in your early 20s; after that, that type of thinking is just flat out stupid and ignorant. We’re all disposable. Even the CEO of a company is at the mercy of their board or shareholders. At the end of the day, we are all just a number.

Was I happy I wasn’t affected? Obviously. Who wants to look for a new job in this miserable environment where pretty much every company is reducing its staff and cutting everywhere? But I honestly just felt numb in general. There’s really no such thing as “job security” anymore, anywhere.

Pumping all done, and then what?

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It is a strange feeling to be fully weaned and done pumping. For the last 14 months, my entire schedule and life revolved around pumping. I couldn’t wake up or go to sleep without thinking of pumping, pump parts, or how much milk there was in the last session or in the fridge. Now that I’m completely done, it feels very strange. It feels strange to go to bed without pumping, to wake up and not have to get connected to my pump. It’s weird not to see all my pump parts sitting on the kitchen counter, to not see my pumping bra on the side of the counter, waiting to be put on for pumping. It’s almost like there’s a void that needs to be filled. My body and mind need to get used to not pumping anymore. I am free now, though “freedom” has many definitions. Pumping, something that was so much a part of my identity and reason for being in the last fourteen months, is now over. So I am still getting used to my new normal of having my breasts and body back, of being liberated of the “shackles” of my breast pump. I am trying to embrace it. And every time I look at Kaia Pookie’s face, I remember why I went on that long, arduous, intense journey, and it was all worth it. It’s now becoming a slowly distant memory now, but one that I will always remember with love.

My highly verbal baby

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Since Kaia was quite young, she had already started her babble. She babbled earlier than the baby guides said she would, and since Australia, she’s been mimicking lots of sounds and words that we say. It’s unclear which she actually knows the meanings of, but it’s so adorable to see and hear her try to say certain things. The other morning, I told her that she’d have some Weetbix for breakfast, and she had a big smile on her face while saying over and over, “wee bih, wee bih!” She often repeats, “hey,” “byebye,” “baby,” and of course, “no!” One of the latest things she has been saying on repeat, which I have no idea what she is referring to, is “bobby! bobby!”

I can’t believe my baby is already over 14 months old. Sometimes, I still can’t believe we got so lucky with her. She is my sweet little blessing.

When eating a piece of bread feels like knives going down your throat

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I knew my HFM was getting worse when on Friday morning, I attempted to eat a piece of bread that wasn’t even toasted, and it felt like I was trying to shove and swallow knives. Everything going down my throat felt like my throat was being shredded to pieces. I had no idea how a sore throat could possibly be THIS painful. Was I going to have to resort to smoothies and pureed food just the way Gerber and all those nasty baby food companies intended for tiny humans? Even drinking hot ginger tea with lemon and honey hurt. Anything citrusy or even remotely acidic made my entire mouth and throat burn. The lesions were just waiting to scream at me, mocking me for even attempting to eat anything with flavor. It was miserable.

Today, despite knowing it would hurt, I still ate the delicious Boomerang Bites Aussie mini slices that Chris ordered. Yet somehow, even the tiny bits of cherry in the choc-cherry slice burned my mouth. Then, the CARAMEL in the sticky date bite wanted to murder mouth. Pretty much anything that tasted like anything hurt to either be in my mouth or go down my throat.

So, this is what hand foot mouth disease is, I thought to myself sullenly. I can only pray that I never get this again. Yet somehow, I have a feeling that this will NOT be my last time. This is what it’s like to have a young child who is getting exposed to every germ possible in the world. This is a mama’s life. I’m going to just take it one day at a time, even my throat feels like it’s going to close up completely and kill me.

14 months of pumping: a pumping mama’s reflection

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1,430.83 hours 

59.62 days 

225.07 litres

59.46 gallons 

That’s a lot of time being spent attached to an electric nipple sucker. I still can’t believe I produced that much milk. My husband still calls me an udder. 

Whoever said breastfeeding was easy either a) has never done it or b) got really, really lucky with it. I was not so lucky with nursing despite reading all the possible sources about it while pregnant, taking an online course about it, and naively thinking I was super prepared. I had a useless lactation consultant at the hospital, an arguably even more incompetent and toxic one at my baby’s pediatrician’s office who just assumed I naturally had low supply (the woman shaming truly never ends…).

When I became a new mother, I had no idea people “exclusively pumped” breast milk to feed their babies. I thought they only did this when they were nursing and were separated from their babies. I had no idea “EPing” as it’s called became a “thing” historically because women who had babies in the NICU who wanted to breastfeed started doing it, and these babies, either because of their size or condition, could not latch or suck properly to eat adequately and help mama build and maintain milk supply. I didn’t know my own baby had a “weak suck” until my pediatrician, of all people,  called it out at her 1-month check-up. All I knew from my useless breastfeeding articles and virtual course was to focus on the latch! Latch! That’s all they talked about! WHY DID NO ONE WARN ME ABOUT A WEAK SUCK?! So after a week, my baby’s weight was the same; she wasn’t gaining. In my super hormonal postpartum state, I actually thought my breast milk was poisoning her. So I went down the miserable road of “triple feeding” (nursing, bottle feeding pumped milk or formula to “top up” baby, and then pumping) – every three hours, around the clock – for the next three weeks.

My baby’s suck never improved. So I turned to exclusive pumping, or at least the pumping schedule of someone who DOES exclusively pump. I still nursed baby regularly, if just for comfort and bonding, up until about 5 months, then finally just stopped. I had to let go of my fantasy of being a nursing mom and really sit in my reality: I was actually an exclusive pumper. 

Due to having nearly two weeks without proper milk removal, I was late to catch up in building my milk supply. So I had to find a way to compensate and do it as quickly as possible. That’s when I turned to power pumping (#iykyk), as miserable and time-consuming as it was on top of already pumping 7 times a day. I power pumped at least once a day for two months. I drank endless amounts of water, ate all the oatmeal. I went through many resentful, teary moments, mostly in the middle of the night pumping, wondering why it felt like I spent more time with my breast pump than my own baby I was pumping for. My entire life revolved around pumping. It took me until about 3.5 months to be fully comfortable and in my routine with it. At around 4 months, I made peace with pumping and figured that although I didn’t choose to pump, my pump ultimately chose me. This was my destiny and how I was meant to feed my Kaia Pookie.

I pumped 7 times a day until 3 months; 6 times a day until just shy of 4 months, 5 times a day from 4 to 6 months; then 4 times a day until 11 months. Even after reducing PPD (pumps per day), my supply miraculously just KEPT on going up. At 11 months, I went down to 3PPD, then at 12 months, 2PPD. Shortly before 13 months, my Spectra S1 Plus pump died while traveling, and so I luckily was saved by a local mom’s group, where moms were happy to loan their pumps to me during my stay in Southern California. I will always be grateful for the selfless, generous support I got from that one mother in Fountain Valley, California. But when I came back to New York, Spectra had shipped my replacement pump late, so I had to use my Baby Buddha pump as a backup. Unfortunately, that pump just didn’t jive as well with me since my body was so used to the Spectra, so my supply depleted really quickly. It was then that I knew I had to end my journey at around 14 months.

I pumped in five different US states, three Australian states, and four countries. I have pumped at home, in my company’s mothers’ room (just a handful of times since I’m lucky to work from home), in cars, trains, planes, airport lounges, hotels, hotel lobbies, restaurants, at wineries, in multiple friends’/families’ homes. And don’t even get me started on how many times I had to constantly wash all my pump parts!! Yet somehow, some way, I made it to 14 months of pumping. 

Exclusive pumping is the hardest, most challenging thing I’ve literally ever done in my life. It was more emotionally, mentally, and physically intense than anything, even labor and child birth. And while I do feel liberated that my pumping journey has now come to an end, it is actually bittersweet; I have loved knowing that my body has provided the majority of my baby’s nourishment in her first 14 months of life; I say it repeatedly, but I mean every word of it. At the end, I got to 84.3% lifetime breast milk for Kaia. The haters above never would have guessed that. Pumping to feed my baby gave me a deep sense of purpose, like I was actually doing something that truly mattered. The saying is true: I didn’t love pumping, but I pumped because I love. I am proud of this journey my baby has allowed me to go on. During this journey, I truly came to understand and live the meanings of “perseverance” and “patience,” as no one’s milk supply increases dramatically overnight.

Do I wish I successfully nursed my baby? Yes. Do I wish I had better in-person support for overall breastfeeding? Of course. But I am thankful for my breastfeeding journey, the amazing support I had from Andrea Ramirez, the Cleo lactation consultant from The Latched Life who encouraged me, helped me identify I had “elastic nipples” (yeah, because how does a first-time mother figure THAT one out?!), and gave me the emotional support and empathy I really needed to continue my breastfeeding journey, but perhaps not in the exact way I had originally envisioned; my night nurses who kept cheering me on (one of them repeatedly said to me, “Everything has its time, and then it ends. Cherish it and be proud of what you are doing for your baby!”), my friends who encouraged me, and of course, my loving and supportive husband Chris, the best bottle feeder I know who is planning a mini blog series that details ALL the data behind feeding and raising our now 14-month old Kaia Pookie. 

And that’s a wrap for my breastfeeding / pumping journey. It was a wild ride, but one I’ll always be grateful for.

Hand foot mouth disease, seriously?

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Chris convinced me to go make an appointment for urgent care, so I saw a doctor this afternoon. Their assistant gave me rapid tests for both COVID and strep, both of which came back negative. I had noticed my throat getting worse this morning, so I took a look at my throat to see if I could see anything. It was absolutely hideous: I had small white blobs lining the back of my throat and tonsils. It hurt even worse today to eat or drink. Even drinking liquids that were more than warm hurt too much. 

After examining me, and looking thoroughly over my hands and feet, the doctor concluded, much to my shock, that I had caught hand foot mouth disease (HFMD). I didn’t even realize that I was also developing tiny red lesions all over my fingertips, but she caught them. It’s a viral illness, so I’d just have to let it run its course. But it was super painful and miserable. I always thought that having Kaia at home with a nanny would prevent her from getting it. But since she was exposed to other kids at the playroom, one of which is in daycare, I guess it was inevitable she’d get it at some point and pass it to me. I finally realized that the tiny red dots around her mouth were actually HFM. At least she didn’t have it too bad, as it lasted about three days and was mostly just a fever for her. Unfortunately, I have not been so lucky. 

The beginning of getting sick, yet again

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On Tuesday night, I went to sleep with a little congestion and the beginning of a sore throat. I figured it was probably just a little cold, so I didn’t think much about it. But on Wednesday morning, I woke up with a worse sore throat, plus body pains everywhere. I tried to let it go, as I thought maybe it was just my more strenuous workout from the previous day. But as the morning progressed, I just felt worse and worse. The body aches became nearly unbearable,  and a splitting headache ensued. I ended up taking the rest of the day off as well as today, as I just had no energy to even sit up. I couldn’t even read an article or keep focus on anything and felt terrible. 

Today, my throat has been getting worse and worse. It’s even started to feel painful when I try to swallow any food, especially anything that isn’t soft. Is this strep throat? I had no idea what was going on or how serious this was.