I was getting ready to go to the gym this morning when I was in the elevator going down, and the elevator stopped at the 11th floor. A woman who was in a big coat wearing a face mask looked at me and was a bit wide eyed. She told me that she would just wait for the next elevator and that I could go ahead. I figured that she didn’t want to get in the elevator with me because I was not wearing a mask. But then again, our building had removed our mask mandate weeks and weeks ago. This basically aligned with when New York City had removed its mask mandate. And so the fact that I was not wearing a mask should not have been surprising. However, there is still a lot of paranoia around COVID-19 and all of the different variants that seem to still be coming out, and so of course, there are going to be people who are germaphobic, paranoid and are not going to want to be in small, cramped spaces like elevators with people who are not wearing a mask. I get it. I don’t really mind it. In the beginning when the mask mandate got removed, I was a little bit wary as well. I still wanted to wear a mask when I went into stores. But Chris got mad at this, and he insisted that I not wear a mask. He says that we are no longer in a pandemic, that instead, we are actually in an endemic, and that because of that, we would need to learn to live with COVID-19 as the new normal that’s just part of our lives. And anyway, we are all triple vaccinated other than a baby, so fingers crossed that the worst would not happen to us. 

Anyway, so I went into the gym and was getting my elliptical set up when I heard a loud hard banging on the glass door entrance going into the gym. I turned around and saw the same heavy coated, masked woman there. I was wondering why the heck she was even standing there given that it was clear she was not getting ready to go to the gym, and so I went to the door and opened it for her.

“I just wanted to let you know that the reason I did not get into the elevator with you is because you were not wearing a mask, and I am not comfortable getting into the elevator with anyone not wearing a mask, “the woman said. “It had nothing to do with anything else. I just don’t want to be around people who are not wearing a mask. I don’t agree with the fact that the building removed the mask mandate. There is still a pandemic going on, and I’m just trying to be safe.”

I thought it was a little bit ridiculous that she got off on the third floor and went to the gym just to tell me this. I generally do not think the worst of people even though they piss me off all the time: I genuinely thought that she was not getting on the elevator with me because I was not wearing a mask, and based on what she said, I was right. Why, did she think that I thought that she didn’t get into the elevator because I was… Asian, or something else that she may be against? And also, I have no idea how old she is, but she looked a lot older than me. And once you get to a certain age, aren’t you supposed to stop caring what other people think? Not only is this woman paranoid about COVID-19, but it is clear that she is also paranoid about what other people think about her, even if those other people are total strangers like me who will likely never run into her ever again. Even if I were to see her again given that we live in the same building, chances are high that I would not even recognize her. People seriously need to stop all of their paranoia and just take a chill pill.

This morning, I sat in my apartment building lobby with a bag containing Annie’s slippers, mask, and leftover opened snacks we got her. She asked me to meet her in the lobby instead of coming up to our apartment, as she had a scheduled train to catch at noon. When she finally arrived, she came with a large backpack in tow, likely to take a trip somewhere. We both apologized to each other for the miscommunication, and I told her that we really appreciated all her help, and that she clearly was amazing at her job, and we’d miss her. She told me that she’d be heading to Connecticut after this for a long weekend at her sister’s. And then, out of nowhere, she started tearing up.

Noooooo.

“I love Kaia,” she said, teary-eyed, her voice breaking up. “I love you. I’m going to miss you and Kaia.”

On the one hand, I felt bad that things had to end this way. On the other hand, I was annoyed. If anyone who did not know this situation were to witness this exchange happening, it would appear as though I fired her and let her go. That is NOT the case at all; she is the one who left us, and quite abruptly, might I add! She gave up two days of pay, today and Sunday, just because she got mad at the principle of having four days a week vs. three. And I know she wouldn’t have found work that quickly. Plus, she was giving up work anyway now to go spend time with her sister, so clearly she would not be working this Friday or Sunday at all to fill in what she potentially would have missed with us. Yet somehow, she was the one crying at the end of this even though she also admitted she could have been clearer about her expectations. I really did love having her; in many ways, she was far more thorough and meticulous in her job than Cheryl was. She really did give her all with her families, as she said.

But this is the way it is when you hire people to help you. Misunderstandings happen. We are all human, after all. Situations like this unfortunately are more common than not, as my friend reminded me.

“That shit happens all the time!” my friend exclaimed. “It’s SO awkward! That’s why we stopped having a nanny and just put the kids in daycare!”

Clearly, I am Asian and very Asian at that because as soon as I have one day (sort of) to myself during maternity leave and decide to leave the neighborhood, I immediately make a beeline to Chinatown. Well, what can I say? I am true to my roots, and when I crave most foods, it is most often Asian food, and more specifically, when I think about food that I crave for comfort, it is usually Cantonese Chinese food.

 It’s funny, though, to think about this because my story about how I have looked at my culture’s food is very similar to pretty much every other immigrant child. Growing up, food was mostly Cantonese Chinese on the table. And of course, being like any other child, I was not particularly grateful for that food. Instead, I was envious of my friends who got to eat more of a variety of different types of food, particularly when their families dined out. When our family ate out, it was always Cantonese food or Vietnamese food. When my extended family would get together, it was always, always Cantonese Chinese food, and it got so redundant. We would always order the exact same dishes at the exact same restaurants that my grandma or my aunt deemed authentic and good enough. It was tiring as a young person always eating the same food with family. I always asked my parents if we could eat something different, and the answer was always no. “You should be grateful that our family has enough to even eat out!” My parents would say to my brother and me in various ways.

Well, when I went off to college, I had to deal with eating really boring and bland dining hall food. The dining hall’s version of Asian food was pretty disgusting, but no surprise there. And when I dined out, I had no idea that there were weird variations of Chinese American food like crab Rangoon. And… I found out that people actually ate white rice topped with soy sauce and thought that was Chinese?? I ended up craving Cantonese food and wanting it when I went out with my friends. We obviously went out and ate many other things, but Cantonese food was always something that was just so comforting and made me feel at home. And now, whenever I get food cravings, the dishes that I always ate with my family growing up, whether they were made by my grandma or dishes that we ordered while at restaurants, those are the things that I always want.

 During maternity leave, I have not had easy access to Cantonese food. And so when I made that beeline to Chinatown today, I made sure to get a pound of cha siu from my favorite restaurant that makes it, plus beef chow fun. Those are the comfort foods that remind me of home. I also stopped by my favorite place for wontons and had wonton mein. And of course, I also made sure to get some bubble tea, some black sesame moon cake because I love all things black sesame, grass jelly and sweet soy milk from a family run place that I like that makes it well, as well as endless produce that Chris had to help me carry home… Even though he was not going straight home and was going to lunch with his colleagues. I probably strained my elbows and wrists carrying all of this home, even if it was only half the haul, but it was worth it in the end to get my Asian fruit and vegetable fix, as well as my Chinese food fix.

While down in Chinatown though, I thought about how not stroller friendly Chinatown was. Most restaurants are too small to accommodate a stroller to be pushed through easily. Most stores do not have aisles that are conducive to a stroller. And when it comes to the subway, I do not even know where the elevators are to be able to take the stroller up and down easily, which means that we will likely need to have one person carry the baby and the other person carry the stroller up and down the stairs. That is going to be particularly challenging when it comes to the huge grocery hauls that I always get whenever I come down here. Plus, I have wrist and elbow pain, so none of this sounds particularly fun or attractive to me. People tend to use the bottom of the stroller to carry things like groceries. But then, if you do that, you don’t actually plan to carry the stroller with all the groceries in your arms… So these are things that I am thinking about now that we have a baby. 

I want to make sure that my baby is immersed in my culture, as well as Chris’s. I want to make sure that she is familiar with and embraces neighborhoods like Chinatown, which have all of the delicious foods that her mother grew up with and craves. I want to teach her an appreciation for her cultures. And the only way to do that is to make sure that she has regular exposure to neighborhoods like this and to travel to these countries.

Given that our baby is slowly starting to sleep longer stretches at night, we have finally gotten her to a point where she can sleep up to about 5 AM, which… Kind of makes having a night nurse a little bit redundant. We did not necessarily want to forgo paid support completely, and so we asked our night nurse to come during the day this Friday. Okay, we did not ask her to come during the day; Chris asked her to come during the day. He asked her to come during that particular day because the weather was supposed to be good and that would mean that we could be out and about… But not together because he happened to have lunch plans with his colleagues. That was great planning as you can see. 

However, I am still pumping every four hours, and so while I am comfortable using my portable pump with my wearable cups, I still need to think about logistics of the cups getting set up and taken off, as well as milk storage. I have to think about clean bathrooms where I can lay out all of my pump parts, empty out the milk into bottles, and safely store the milk. Having a wearable pump is not necessarily as convenient as I originally thought it would be. I suppose if I drove and had a car, it would be a little easier, as I could do all this in my car, plus keep a cooler in my fridge with ice for the milk storage, but it is what it is. It’s fine if I just go out for a couple hours and come back to my apartment, but if I am going from place to place, the logistics tend to be a bit more iffy. And what I am really eager to do is to go down to Chinatown and stock up on a bunch of pantry items, freezer staples, fresh Asian fruit and vegetables as well as bakery items. But honestly? Chinatown is probably one of the worst places that I can think of when it comes to… Clean, spacious bathrooms where I would be comfortable taking apart my pump and handling my baby’s food. And I also want to get a pedicure because I would really like to have my nails polished, but I cannot deal with doing them myself. So we will see how the day goes.

Last Saturday, I went to the first social event since giving birth to my baby. It was also the first party that I had attended since pre-pandemic, so almost 2 years. It’s kind of crazy to think that once upon a time, bridal showers, baby showers, birthday gatherings, and family gatherings were just a normal part of life. And now, it feels like it’s all new and something that we are getting adapted to attending again.

My neighbor, who I had been friended while spending a lot of time at the gym over the last two years, is having a baby in May, and so her friends threw her a bridal shower in our building’s lounge room. She is 40 years old expecting her first child, and we have IVF in common. She and her husband were trying for over eight years to conceive and did not resort to IVF until the last year. She was so excited for me when she found out that I was pregnant, and I found it peculiar at the time when she knew so much about pregnancy as well as baby stores that were in the neighborhood. At the time, she had said she knew about all of this because she had so many friends and family who had recently given birth, and so that’s why she was so knowledgeable. When she told me right away that she had conceived via IVF, I had also told her that we had the same journey. I generally don’t tell people that I went through IVF unless they are close friends or I know they have gone through it themselves. It’s one of those things that I’m happy and comfortable to discuss, but only if I think that the people who are there want to hear about it.

Anyway, the baby shower was really beautiful: her friends clearly went all out for her. She is expecting a little girl, so there was a lot of pink all over the lounge room. There was even a drink station with water with strawberries sliced in it, all pink drinks, and even pink books decorating it. Because she works in child literacy and as a literacy professor, she asked for only children’s books as gifts. And given the book theme, the entire lounge room was decked out with the most extensive collection of children’s books I had ever seen, strategically placed at all of the food and drink stations as well as at the sitting areas. A bunch of her friends had pitched in to make a variety of beautiful salads and put together some meat, cheese, and cracker trays. There were also gorgeous spreads of fruit and veggies. I especially loved the cookie and cupcake station, where they set up little boxes for you to take these home as party favors.

As for me, I was excited to finally wear something that was different than just my nursing tops, pumping bras, and sweat pants. I actually wore jewelry and makeup, put on a dress, and shaved my legs. When I looked at myself in the mirror before leaving, I smiled: I actually remember this person… This person who had a life before pregnancy and birth and outside of just being a mother. I no longer saw just the dark circles under my eyes or the split ends in my greasy hair or the post-birth belly I still hadn’t lost. I wasn’t focused on all the bruises on the tops of my breasts. But given that it was a baby shower, I still talked a lot about my baby as well as my birth experience and pumping, since there were a lot of other moms there who asked me about these details and wanted to know about my experience. But it just felt nice to be socializing again and in the midst of a lot of people who were just gathering to have some fun. Gatherings in general were missing obviously during the pandemic, and it felt really good to be in a group setting once again.

As the weather has been slowly getting warmer, Chris and I have been eager to get out and about more. For the last three months, neither of us has sat down at a restaurant, with the exception of his going out for a regular colleague lunch about once a month. We have pretty much been in hibernation mode given our baby was born in the middle of December, and this time of year, it’s pretty freaking cold here in New York. So even if we didn’t have a baby, we would unlikely to be going out much anyway. But now that she has gotten her vaccinations and the weather is getting warmer, we are looking for ways to get out more little by little. This week, we took her out to Central Park for a second stroll, and we went through the Ramble… All while I was connected to my portable, wearable breast pump. I have been a little bit self-conscious with using the wearable portion of the new breast pump that I bought. The breast pump itself is actually not wearable. It is just supposed to be portable, as it is smaller than an iPhone. But with the Legendairy milk cups, you are able to hack the tubing so that you can connect the milk cups to the pump and add the cups into your bra. I connected the cups and the breast pump and turned it on right before we left. I even made sure to prime my breasts before we left by doing some breast massage and applying heat. 

This was my second time using the wearable cups component, and I will say that it actually worked pretty well. The thing is, the cups just assume that you either have a 24 or 28 mm diameter nipple. I am actually a lot smaller than a 24 mm measure, and so I know I need to buy an insert for the flange in order to maximize my output, but for now, the 24 mm will do. With flanges, you really need to have the exact measurement to fit you as an individual, otherwise, you will either experience pain or you will not have the maximum output. The first time I used the cups, I did not have a great output, and I wasn’t sure if it was just because the flange size was not correct or I just wasn’t using the cups correctly. The other thought that I had was that because my output is not consistent throughout the day, perhaps I would have gotten that similar output if not just five or 10 mL more if I had used my regular Spectra pump. I would never know for sure. 

But when I wore the cups out at Central Park that day, I actually had a pretty high output, all things being equal. And so I was pretty satisfied, particularly since I was not able to “see“ my let down,  nor was I able to do breast compressions. Because that would defeat the “wearable“ component of this breast pump set up, right? Being able to see a let down is really key for me to control the settings of the breast pump to maximize my output. Some women are able to feel their let down reflex, as it will feel prickly or like a tingle, but I am rarely able to feel that and instead, I have to rely on being able to see the milk spraying out of my nipples through my milk ducts while connected to the breast pump flanges. But alas, if you are wearing a wearable pump, you are not able to see any of this, nor would you want to because you would probably be in public. So, I have factored that into my judgment of whether these wearable cups are really doing their job and giving me as much output as I ideally would want out of a wearable pump. Because based on all of the above, you cannot really judge a wearable pump and its output against a regular electric breast pump given you are not using it in exactly the same way and being able to control it the same way with the same pieces of information during use. 

I was letting my friend know about this, who is considering getting this portable and wearable breast pump set up assuming that she gets pregnant a second time. It really does make a huge difference if you are pumping a lot and need to be on the go. A couple of things to factor in, though: you probably should not be bending down when you are wearing this pump because the tops of the cups have holes in them where the tubing is connected. And so, if you were to bend down, you could potentially risk spilling milk. That would not be great. Anyone who ever said, “Don’t cry over spilled milk“ clearly has never pumped milk exclusively for their baby to eat before. 

Another thing to factor in is: if you were going to be away from home for a while, you will need a place to be able to empty and store the milk cleanly and safely. You would not want to walk around with these cups all day long not just because they will make you look like you wear an E cup bra, but also because it just would not be comfortable. Plus, you need the milk to be stored at a lower temperature for safe eating for your baby. So, it would be smart to have a portable cold storage container where you could pack ice to keep the milk cold in bottles. You will also need a place where you are comfortable enough to take the cups out from your bra, set them down, and tip them out into bottles that you can then store in a cold place. These are all the things you have to think about if you are choosing to use a wearable breast pump out in public.

So, it’s really not as convenient as you would originally imagine, as there are a lot of other things to factor in when it comes to comfort, breast milk storage, portability, sanitary places to empty out the milk, clean surfaces, etc. But I was happy to be able to be out and about with Chris and our baby while also knowing that I was able to pump. It felt good to know that I was not being hindered from going outside just because I needed to pump milk. And that is not just to pump milk just because the baby needs milk, but because I know that if I go too long without pumping, I will get very uncomfortable and potentially engorged. And I definitely do not want that.