Category Archives: Confusion

The ice cream date that did not go as planned

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Since we have now reached Daylight Savings Time for the year, and as the weather is slowly but surely getting warmer (or so we hope), I thought about how cute it would be if I took Kaia on brief little snack or dessert outings in Chinatown before we head back up to the Upper West Side. It would be a surprise, and given it would include food, she would surely be happy. So when I picked her up from school yesterday, I told her that I was going to give her a surprise. Of course, she lit up right away and got really excited. She eagerly held my hand and walked happily as we crossed Chrystie Street, went across the little park, and popped into an ice cream shop.

I chose Smoove Ice Cream, an Asian-owned ice cream shop with Asian flavors, since it was just over a block away, so it wouldn’t be too far from the train station. I let Kaia look at all the ice cream flavors and let her choose one. Of the ones she pointed at, she decided on lychee rose. We did a split scoop, so the second flavor I chose was black sesame. We got the split scoop in a cup and shared it in the small seating area that Smoove had. She was super happy, sing-songy, speaking all the Chinese I wanted her to speak. Then, when the ice cream was all finished, she got sad and ran up to the counter again with her empty cup. I told her that we were all done and that it was time to go home. She brought her empty cup up to the counter… so she could get MORE ice cream in it. She didn’t understand that this wasn’t like being at school or home — she couldn’t just ask for “more” and get it (without paying for it!).

I told her that we were done eating ice cream, and that it was time to go home. She yelled and said she wanted more and would not stop. So the worker behind the counter felt sympathetic and offered a sample spoon of whatever she wanted. Kaia asked for strawberry, so he gave her a massive sample sized scoop. As we walked out of the shop with it, she nibbled on it bit by bit, but of course, it was melting… and then, like a slow-motion crash, the big blob of pink ice cream slid down, and straight onto the ground. And the biggest melt down ensued. She immediately burst into tears and stomped her feet over and over. She tried to run back to the ice cream shop to ask for more, but I blocked her from walking back. Kaia refused to walk and just kept crying and screaming. I had to carry her into the subway and onto the train. She cried the whole way home until we exited the station.

Well, that was not how I envisioned our impromptu ice cream date going. But alas, things don’t always go as you’d imagine with a toddler, do they?

Travel insurance with credit card – the debacle comes to a conclusion

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It’s been almost two months since I was at the Mount Sinai West emergency room, on the day I was actually supposed to leave for our Thanksgiving European trip. Chris had to cancel and rebook train tickets. He also had to cancel hotel reservations, make new ones, and also change our outbound flight to Paris. It wasn’t fun for him, and just the flight change itself was extremely costly. But he realized that the credit card we used to book the original flight had travel insurance on it for trip cancellation/interruption, so I took photos of all my ER and Urgent Care forms and sent them in for consideration for our itinerary change costs due to my sudden illness.

You would think that given I was not only in the emergency room, but I also had extremely detailed documentation, that this would have been a smooth process that would have gotten approved relatively swiftly. Unfortunately, it was anything but. First, the contact details to file the travel insurance claim were not clear, likely by design. It’s not on Mastercard’s website. You have to call Mastercard, then get re-routed to a specific agent, who can then share the secret website you have to login to in order to submit all your claim details and proof forms. Then once you submit all of that, you wait. And wait. And then, for the first 8-10 days, I got no feedback. I simply saw “pending” as the status of my claim every time I logged into the portal. When I finally got in contact with the claims agent (a third party works for Mastercard to handle travel insurance), she grilled me about the time we left the apartment, when we would have needed to leave for the airport, what time I was admitted into Urgent Care and then ER, when I started having symptoms, etc. It felt extremely unempathetic, like she was simply looking for reasons to deny my claim. Chris copied and pasted literal paragraphs from their travel insurance policy stating why this was, in fact, applicable. I was shocked: wasn’t it clear that this was a very serious case, especially given all the details in the Urgent Care and ER forms? All of the forms had time stamps on them, so I wasn’t even sure why she was further grilling me. Did she even read any of the forms I submitted at all??

The claim was initially denied, as they originally said that my trip wasn’t cancelled, that we still went, so there was “nothing to claim” or get reimbursed for. I had to call them nearly every business day we were away in Australia, have at least 6-8 email back and forth communications with them, endless voice messages playing phone tag, and then finally a very annoying and painful phone call in the middle of the night, Australia time, to explain to them: what the hell else did they need to understand that I was genuinely sick, that I was in the ER for something that could have easily resulted in pneumonia or death, and that as a result of all that chaos, my outbound flight needed to be changed…?! It was clear that the claims agent barely read any of the documentation I sent. She may not have even opened them as far as I was concerned. I had to literally open each document, one by one, and point out to her where the time stamps or remarks around my illness were (e.g. “On the ER form, page 1, in the bottom left hand corner. do you see the time stamp that says ‘3:49pm’?”). It felt like I was instructing a small child instead of an adult. She finally realized after having her hand held by me that yes, this was a legitimate claim, and yes, it should be reimbursed. She reopened the claim for me as a “claim determination dispute,” then told me that at this point, the only reason it would be denied is if the manager thought I had some “pre-existing condition” back when the flight was booked. The flight was booked in July. You cannot have a pre-existing condition for a peritonsillar abscess; that’s just medically impossible and could easily be disproven. Plus, no one would have an abscess in their throat from July all the way to November!

I finally got an email notification last week that the claim dispute was accepted. I got my requested payment back today. While it was closure (and some much needed money back), it made me angry to think about how insurance works in this country. Insurance feels like it exists simply to exist and get money out of you. Then when you actually do need to use it, the insurance companies will do everything in their power to withhold money from you or even make you pay.

Not everyone would be as persistent as I was to get my money back. I made sure to call and email almost every day for over a month. Most people just let these things go. I’m sure they count on that happening. But no, I’m not getting screwed by all these stupid insurance companies as long as I can help it.

End of sanity as we know it

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Today marks the inauguration of Dipshit once again — a second term in one of the world’s stupidest countries. This was the result I feared most of 2023 and 2024. I was just hoping that my cynical side about the US would be proven wrong. Unfortunately, it was proven right.

As usual, I have nothing new to say about how I feel about the state of politics in this country, or the direction that this country is going in. All I can say is that I’ve turned off all news notifications since the day of the November 2024 election, other than BBC, and I will keep them turned off until at least 2028. I feel like my blood pressure will be better for it, as well as my mental health. The few news updates I’ve already seen today, such as Dipshit withdrawing the U.S. out of the WHO, really do feel like they are updates from The Onion. But well, we have reached the end of sanity, so what else is new now?

It feels only fitting, and a bit spooky, that the great activist, Cecile Richards, who was president of Planned Parenthood for 12 years, died today, after a two-year battle with brain cancer. She was only 67. It was really hard to see the news of her passing and to simultaneously know the beginning of doom was starting in this country today. While most of the U.S. sees Planned Parenthood as a place where abortions take place, many women, including myself, have used Planned Parenthood simply for accessible women’s healthcare.

I still remember back in 2008, when I first moved to New York City, and before ZocDoc existed, I was struggling to find a gynecologist. I was experiencing really long menstrual cycles that had no explanation. Every time I tried looking up a provider and calling, I’d get told that I needed to wait at least 2-3 months for an appointment. It seemed completely senseless that a simple appointment lasting less than 15 minutes could take 60-90 days just to get scheduled. So I called Planned Parenthood in West Village and was able to get an appointment for the following week. A doctor saw me, and while she wasn’t able to pinpoint the cause of my long menstrual cycles, she was able to help give me advice, medication, and also advise me to track my cycles (which, sadly, NO one had ever suggested or taught me to do before). Eventually, I did find an OB-GYN I trusted who was able to identify the cause of my abnormal menstrual cycles. And I finally felt seen and understood.

It’s sad that in a country where so much money is spent on healthcare that our outcomes are worse, that care is barely even “care.” And it’s sad that what Cecile Richards stood for is pretty much being broken down every single day in this country. And I have a feeling it will only get worse in the next four years.

Stereotyping based on how I look

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The average person who looks at me will assume I’m Chinese. A more nuanced person might see that I actually look a bit Vietnamese. And when most people see my last name, they will know for sure that I am Chinese, at least partly. When others who are familiar with Vietnamese middle names see my first, middle, and last names, they will then know for sure that I must be Chinese-Vietnamese. That would be a very educated (and accurate) guess.

A few years ago, when I shared information with my wider team about my YouTube channel and Instagram handle for Yvonne meets Food, I scored a lot of new followers and subscribers on both platforms. A large number of my colleagues regularly look at my Instagram content every day. So when I was having a 1:1 chat with a colleague I don’t chat with much (and doesn’t follow me on Instagram), as she asked to speak about specific work related items, I was a little surprised when she ended the call with, “Hey! I haven’t forgotten about your food channel! Don’t forget to send me your chicken chow mein recipe! It’s my absolute favorite Chinese dish!”

The call ended so quickly that I barely had a chance to even respond to that other than nodding and saying bye. But it was such an annoying way to end. Here goes a White colleague stereotyping me regarding how I look and just assuming that all my content must be stereotypical Chinese dishes she’s aware of… like chicken chow mein, something I never order and cannot even remember the last time I ate. Why don’t I also just share with her my family’s top-secret recipes for General Tso’s chicken and beef with broccoli (hint: our family never made those dishes, much less ordered them at restaurants!). Maybe she will feel like she knows me and my culture even better then!

It would be nice if in 2024, I could chat with people who are from a culture different than mine and hope that they don’t stick me in a box, whether it’s regarding personality or food I eat/make, based on a white-gaze stereotype that they’ve contrived in their heads and need confirmation is actually “true.” I don’t exist to confirm harmful racial stereotypes other people have.

Nanny quit at 10pm last night

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Well, that was fun. Our nanny sent a long, nasty text message, letting me know that telling her that the baby log wasn’t complete was “demeaning” and “you treated me like a child,” and she’s tired and can’t handle adult stress, so her time with us has come to an end. She used to say that she wasn’t used to being in a workplace where she felt so open and free to say what she thinks and feels. She would say that we treated her really well and we were good people, and that she was really happy she took this job. She had never worked with a non-White family before, so in her eyes, she was “taking a chance.” She had shared all the negative stereotypes she once held of Asian people. While all that was not fun to hear and perhaps sharing TOO much information, I thought she was trying to tell me that she realized that they were unfair stereotypes, and that we proved them wrong for her. I suppose she was just being two-faced all along. I guess I should have expected it since she shared so much nasty information about her previous mom bosses, but I thought it may have been different with us. I was wrong.

So, I guess Kaia is starting daycare earlier than we thought. To be honest, this is probably for the best for all parties. I didn’t think our nanny was keeping up with Kaia’s learning and development, especially after we came back from Australia. Plus, it was exhausting to have to manage her inability to accept even the most benign feedback. I was tired of constantly cleaning up after her when I was paying her money to clean up after my baby. I was also exhausted listening to her bring up bad experiences with her last employers. I was like an unpaid therapist for her, listening to her complain about past grievances and how they affected her emotionally. It was like I was being forced to deal with her past traumas, which were all bubbling up in my own home.

I’m sure daycare will present its own set of challenges, but after dealing with the emotional instability and outbursts from our nanny over common sense tasks, I think I am welcoming daycare as our next step.

Time flies by so fast

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Chris and I were pushing the baby in her stroller on Saturday afternoon in Inwood, and a mom passed us on the street and marveled at how cute Kaia was. “Enjoy it and soak in every minute!” she said, smiling. “It goes by so, so fast! I have two babies, and they are 16 and 18 now, just like that! It was like it was just yesterday! Where did my babies go??”

She’s right. It’s totally nuts. Kaia is already 32 weeks old, almost at her eight-month birthday. I was so proud of her yesterday when I presented steak to her. She had a big hunk she was sucking and chewing on, and after biting off two large pieces, she gagged a little on the first and spit it out with some coaching. She didn’t gag at all with the second piece, moved it around her mouth, tried to chew, and then eventually spit it out.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous watching her with that piece of steak in her mouth, which I knew she would not be able to swallow as it was without more chewing. I kept my exaggerated model of chewing and spitting out to show her what to do, and she seemed to get it. She’s catching on really fast. She still doesn’t have any teeth yet, but given how hard her gums are, I have a feeling a tooth is going to break out any day now.

It is work to teach her the basics of survival: how to chew, spit out, move food around her mouth. But these moments are the ones I live for. Watching her grow and evolve is the greatest gift I’ve ever had. Not a day has gone by when I have not given thanks for having her, especially when I know so many others who have struggled to conceive and still do not have their miracle baby. It easily could have been the case that I never even had a child. Every day, I feel like time is passing too quickly, like I don’t have enough time in a day to do everything I want. Something always seems like it needs to get done or fixed or cleaned. Or I have to pump or clean pump parts or do something else chore-like. Sometimes, I just want to sit and hold her and admire our little family, and that’s it. I guess this is what it’s like to be a working mom — never feeling like you have enough time for everything and always feeling like you could be doing more, for yourself, your baby, and your home.

Baby laundry: not dryer safe

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Before having a baby, I was warned by many other parents about how much laundry I would end up doing. It wasn’t necessarily that babies need a lot of clothes or that they get that dirty that often. It was more that they will spit up a lot on their own clothes as well as on yours. It is also that they are unpredictable when it comes to how many blowouts they will have. You may also have situations when you are taking off one of their dirty diapers, and then, you accidentally get some of their pee or poop on their clothes. Then, the baby can no longer wear that onesie or shirt anymore, and you have to soak it and get it ready for the wash. Or, another situation that may arise during a diaper change when you are changing them: they suddenly decide, oftentimes reflexively, that they want to take one of their little feet or hands and shove it right into the dirty diaper. Then, while you are trying to block them from getting into that dirty diaper, the smear ends up happening. Voila: there, you have another situation of yet another piece of dirty clothing that you have to wash.

Also, when other parents warned me about how much laundry I was going to be doing as a parent, no one warned me that baby clothes and baby cloth items cannot be washed in the same way that I wash my own clothes. What I mean by that is, these items often times will say, wash in cold water only, wash on delicate cycle, do not tumble dry, do not put in dryer; not dryer safe. Why is this the case? Well, for the clothes, it’s because the baby clothes will shrink. They are already so small. For the other items? I have no freaking clue. These baby companies need to get their crap together and actually make their cloth items washer and dryer safe. Stat. 

So what the hell are you supposed to do? You’re just supposed to air dry everything? When did having a baby and her clothes become so unbelievably high maintenance? I don’t even do this for over 99% of my own clothes! And I am an adult! 

Not everyone has the luxury of having an outdoor space with clean, crisp air where they can just line dry clothes and hang them up in the midst of sun and nature. Some of us actually live in urban areas where we dwell in apartments and cannot line dry our clothes and have them be nice and soft and fluffy once they are dry. We don’t even have a rack to hang clothes to dry. When we have the occasional item that needs to be air dried, I will usually hang it on a clothing hanger and then put it on the shower rod in the bathroom. But I can’t really do that with the baby’s clothes because they are so small and would just fall off. So what we have ended up doing is just putting all of her wet clothes out of the washer all around the dining room table and chairs to dry. And sadly, once they are dry, they are not soft and fluffy. Some of them are actually a little bit rough, as sad as that sounds. It depends on the material of the item, but some of them really are just not soft… At all. And that makes me sad given the original state the clothing item was in. Luckily, most of those items, after a few days in her drawers, get a little bit softer by the time she wears it. So in the end, it’s not so bad. But it is definitely not in its original baby soft condition.

So yes, you can add this to the list of things that I was not anticipating when becoming a new parent. No one warned me how high maintenance baby clothes and baby cloth items would be to wash. And don’t even get me started on the lounger covers and how hard they are to take on and off, not to mention baby chair covers. Those items also need to be air dried. How riveting and fun for new, tired, sleep-deprived parents.

First therapy session since baby’s arrival

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I had my first therapy session since about two weeks before the baby was born. At that point, I was feeling pretty good about everything and optimistic about how the baby’s birth was going to go. My therapist had been a great support to me over the course of the last year. I started seeing her after I had completed the IVF stimulations and was feeling a lot of uncertainty. Since then, she has been a solid outlet for me to sort through my thoughts, vent, and just be vulnerable without judgment. But today, I kind of got the sense that she was judging me. I get that it is her goal, and well, job, to guard my mental health. But she reminded me of what I had said to her months ago about breast-feeding: I told her that I was going to try my best to breast-feed and make this work because that was what I ultimately wanted. But if it did not work, then I was not going to kill myself over it, and I would formula feed in the way that it made the most sense, so with the type of formula that best fit my baby and my own beliefs. That is to say, there was no way in hell I was going to feed my baby with corn syrup laced formula.

Well, what I said to her then still holds: I am trying my best to breast-feed and make this work. It is just not breast-feeding in the way that I had originally imagined. Breast-feeding includes nursing as well as feeding breastmilk via a bottle. A lot of people are not aware of this, and it seems really silly to me. If you are feeding breastmilk via a bottle, how is that not breast-feeding? Where the hell did that milk come from? I told her that when I first mentioned this to her, I specifically thought about breast-feeding directly on the breast. I honestly did not realize that exclusive pumping was a thing. I originally thought that women only pump milk when they were away from their children and needed to give them something to eat via a bottle. It’s because I had never meant a mom who exclusively pumped and was open about it. I was learning as I was going, and because I was lactating and had a decent supply at this point, I wanted to continue this for as long as possible. She pressed me and asked where this pressure was coming from: was it because of all the blogs or the news or the lactation consultant or even Chris? Yes, I am sure that the constant saying of “breast is best“ is probably pushing me along. I am also sure that everything I have heard from the news and all the lactation consultants is also pushing me along. But what I am most sure about is that I am putting all of the pressure on myself. I know that if I were to switch my baby to formula tomorrow and have it be exclusively formula, I would likely ignore any judgment from anyone and just do my thing. I know all of my friends would be supportive… I am not totally sure my family would be supportive but… well, whatever.  But the point is that all of the pressure that matters the most to me is the pressure that I have put on myself. I want this journey to work really badly. Exclusive pumping is tough as hell, and in someways, it is even harder than nursing because you spend so much time with an electric breast pump, an animate object, versus your own baby. So a lot of the struggle is mental. It’s also a physical struggle because you cannot physically be with your baby  and interacting with her in probably the way that you want to, which is feeding her from the breast. And some days are harder than others. But I am going to make this work for as long as possible, and I told her this. 

She kept on insisting to me that breastmilk was not that much better than formula other than the live antibodies. But I do not agree with that. The corn syrup argument holds. I am also not certain that my baby should be eating palm oil so early on in her life and clogging her arteries… Which are teeny tiny, should I add. And yes, there are many brands of formula in this country that have palm oil. It just doesn’t make sense to me how these companies decide to put all these random pieces of crap into infant formula. That makes me angry, and I should not be feeding my child something that makes me angry.

At the end of the day, she was probably grilling me because she wanted to make sure that I was certain about my chosen path, but I am. I need the support of the people around me, both in word and in action. And if there was anyone who is not going to support my decision, I did not need to have them in my life, and that included her. She said she would be supportive of whatever decision I made, and whatever decision I made, my baby would be happy on whatever I chose to feed her with, but I really didn’t feel supported during this conversation. And that made me sad given how supportive if she has been to date.

American healthcare recognizes that I only have one boob.

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Thanks to former President Barack Obama, women across this country who are employed by companies of a certain size were entitled to dedicated spaces for pumping breast milk after coming back from maternity leave. On top of that, they were also entitled to having their breast pump covered by insurance, as well as replacement parts, after the initial purchase. I placed my order via insurance for my breast pump back in November, and the company they are going through notified me a week ago that I was ready for replacement parts if I’d like them, so of course, I requested them. What I was not prepared for was that the replacement parts were just for one breast.

This is what the box says:

Spectra Premium Accessory Kit

Contents:

Breast shield

Back-flow protector

Valve

Tubing

Bottle

Bottle Cap

Disk

Bottle Cover

So in case you are not familiar with pumping, the ideal setup, especially if you own a breast pump that allows for double pumping, which means pumping milk from both breasts… is that you WILL double pump for more efficiency. So the above contents are just for one breast, as each piece is singular. So what does this mean — American healthcare via my health insurance recognizes that I only have ONE boob and not two?????

This is truly American healthcare at its finest. This is beyond embarrassing that to call this a SNAFU (situation normal: all fucked up) would genuinely be an understatement.

And if you are pumping exclusively or pumping as much as I do (that’s 6-7 times per day), it’s recommended you replace your parts every month, not every three months as insurance will cover. And you would need to replace them for both boobs. So thanks, American health insurance, for only recognizing half of my boob inventory.

When bad dreams return

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It must be my subconscious slowly building its anxiety level, greatly anticipating when I will be back at my parents’ house in San Francisco. That bleak place with an odd, eerie chill and a damp, musty vibe rarely has a positive effect on anyone.

I woke up this morning from an annoying dream. It could be characterized as “bad,” but it’s more annoying because it really encompasses, to me, how frustrating my family can be. I’m here in New York and suddenly my mom calls, and all she says is, “Did you hear that Ed died?”

First of all, assuming that Ed were actually still around, why the hell would anyone ever so casually ask you if you “heard” that your own brother DIED? There is something so wrong about that that I cannot even put it into words. Death is not casual. It is especially not casual when it is the death of an immediate family member.

It is really insane to think that nearly eight years ago, my brother died. Tomorrow will mark eight years since his funeral, since the day I stood up at a podium and gave a eulogy for him that I never wanted to write, a eulogy that gave subtle but pretty obvious hints at what he died from. When I think of going home, I am always reminded first and foremost that he is gone and that I will never see him ever again.