Category Archives: family

high chair is ready

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At our baby’s last doctor’s appointment when she reached 4 months of age, they sent us home with an infant feeding guide for solids. Given that our baby still needs assistance sitting up and hasn’t shown much interest in food at all, I don’t think she is ready just yet for solids, but it certainly made us think about that next stage a bit more. Chris got excited by this and wanted to start putting the high chair together, so our friend/handyman came over today to build it for us (he just likes doing these things, so no, this is not in scope).

Well, we placed the baby into the high chair just to see how she’d look in it… and she immediately started leaning to one side, indicating there was no way she would sit in this thing unassisted. Granted, the high chair comes with a harness that you can strap the baby into, but she still didn’t seem stable enough. None of this was surprising to me, as I already knew she wasn’t ready. But it was hilarious to see her hunching over to the side a bit, wondering what the heck we were trying to make her do.

Maternity leave is nearing its end

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I can’t believe that I’m already in my 19th week of maternity leave. That means that I’m almost 19 weeks postpartum, which also means my baby is almost 19 weeks old. Time has gone by so quickly that I almost want to just freeze time so that I can really enjoy all these little moments with my baby close to me. I was packing up some of her newborn and 0-3 month old clothing and getting a little emotional about it. It reminded me of the conversation I had recently with my friend, who told me she was really sad to organize and bag up all of her 18-month old daughters’ clothes to hand down to me.

“This is the first and only girl I’ll have,” she said. She’s scheduling an embryo transfer for boy embryos moving forward so that they can have one girl and one boy. “It just made me so sad to think she’s my one and only girl.” She said her husband didn’t get why she was being so emotional about it.

I get it, though. Even though my baby was slow to gain weight in the beginning, once we got her on track, she’s been growing very nicely and along the curve. She’s getting longer and longer every day; in the next month or so, we’ll likely need to transition her out of her bassinet into her crib. Every time she squawks or shrieks or lets out what sounds like a little laugh, I just want to bottle it all up so that I can hear it over and over and remember these moments. Even when I was sleep deprived, even when I wanted to throw my breast pump out the window and give up on pumping, even when she’s had her fussy moments with her spitting up and pre-teething pain, I always remembered in the back of my head just how lucky I was to even be dealing with her fussiness; I have a baby who needs me. She’s healthy and growing. She’s my baby. It makes me sad to think that she could be my first and only child, that this could be my one and only time ever experiencing raising a newborn, doing tummy time with a baby, breastfeeding a baby. It all seems to be coming and going too quickly. Even in the frustrating moments noted previously or when having the inevitable argument with Chris about something baby related, I’ve still felt so thankful to have her. I’ve never been more grateful for anything in my life than having her as my baby, than being able to call myself a mother. It’s not like anything I’ve done is unique or novel given that obviously, women have been giving birth since the beginning of time, but I really do mean it: I have never felt so amazed at what my body has been capable of doing, in growing this tiny human, and giving me the greatest gift of my life.

Baby wearing 

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In a city that is as populated and dense as New York City, sometimes, taking around a stroller is not necessarily the most convenient thing. It is annoying to take a stroller up and down stairs, particularly in Subway stations. Not all of the station entrances are accessible, and when I say that, what I really mean is, most are not. Stations usually have signs that tell you where the wheelchair accessible entrances are (assuming there is one at all…) and they are usually annoying to get to. And don’t even get me started on the fact that many of the elevators for the stations smell like pee mostly because of the homeless people who use them. Then, there are stores like Trader Joe’s that tend to have all of their items packed into small aisles along with large customer bases. That also makes it less convenient to push the stroller around. Given that this is the situation, sometimes, if you need to take your baby to a certain place, it’s just easier not to take the stroller at all and instead, to wear the baby.

We got gifted four different baby wearing carriers: the Hana Baby, the baby K’Tan, the KeaBabies wrap carrier I picked out for our registry, and the automatic Ergobaby carrier. All of these except the one that I picked out for our registry were hand-me downs that my friend had given me. She said that all of them were way too complicated for her to figure out, and she got very frustrated right away, and so she thought that I might have better luck. Well, after trying to use the Hana baby just once, I immediately gave up on it and gave it to another friend who is expecting her first in May. That was basically just like a long piece of cloth… And I did not feel very confident in securely carrying my baby around in it. The Baby K’Tan was a little better. I took Kaia out in it a few times to Whole Foods, but the second time that I did it, her butt got a little bit loose on the bottom, so I ended up having to hold her on the bottom just in case because I was getting paranoid. The Ergobaby carrier seemed like it was too big for her. But it wasn’t until another friend showed me how to use it that I actually realized that if we adjusted some of the settings on it, she would actually be just right for it. This baby carrier is supposed to grow with your baby, just that you have to know how to adjust the settings. 

And so that leaves me with the KeaBabies wrap. It seemed really straightforward when I watch the video when choosing a wrap to put on our registry. And when I put the baby in it for the very first time, she felt very snug and secure. I felt comfortable walking around with her in it. However, as with all of these baby wraps, all of these take some getting used to an understanding the most optimal way to get your baby into it. You really have to be careful and make sure that the baby’s bottom is always supported, and that their head is okay and she can breathe. With the KeaBabies wrap, the baby’s butt has to go directly into the bottom of the X shape that you cross the wrap in. Then, there is an additional piece of cloth that keeps her even more secure and supported that you pull up. We used this for the second time with our baby this weekend to take her to Queens for the very first time. It was also the very first time that we took her on the subway. Chris did not want to deal with pushing around a stroller, especially given that the birthday party location was so close to the subway station in forest hills, so he carried the car seat just in case she needed a place to sleep or we needed to take a car back, and I wore the baby in the wrap to and from. 

She didn’t seem to mind the noise or the commotion of the train. She was not always that comfortable in the wrap because we didn’t have it put on correctly the first time. But after some moving around, she eventually fell asleep and she got very comfortable. Seeing that I was clearly wearing a baby on me, people on the train were very kind and kept on offering the receipt to me. I actually didn’t need a seat for a lot of the train trip to Queens because she just wanted the movement, which was why I kept on walking up and down the car. But it’s nice to know that people actually do care and want to help. It reminded me of when I was pregnant and people were always offering their seats to me. As I have always said to people who do not live in New York City, New Yorkers really do care about each other. They actually do look out for each other, and when they see something, they do say something. It’s always why I have thought that New Yorkers have a bad rap when it comes to this stereotype that they are supposedly rude.

I think I probably just need more practice using the wrap and putting her into it. Baby wearing is definitely a lot more convenient than pushing a stroller around, especially in New York City.

Getting ready for baby’s bedtime

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Kaia’s last feed of the day is at 8pm now. Chris feeds and burps her, and then he hands her off to me so that I can sing and rock her to sleep. Occasionally, she needs my boob as a “finisher” before she falls asleep. Since I don’t nurse her a lot anymore unless it’s to soothe or calm her, I look forward to this quiet evening time when it’s just the two of us in the bedroom together.

The last few nights, I’ve felt sad… sad that I know I’ll have to go back to work in less than a month, sad that the last four months have flown by so quickly, sad that she’s growing so fast right before my eyes and that all these little quiet moments with her will soon become a distant memory, only able to be revisited via videos and photos that I take. I hold her tight before putting her down in her bassinet each night and remind her how much I love her. I whisper in her little ear that mommy and daddy love her so, so much. I’m happy to see her growing and now actually starting to outgrow her 0-3 month clothes, but sad that it feels like she’s just growing too fast. Sometimes, I just want to freeze time and savor this moment of her, right here and now. My baby is just growing so fast, too fast.

First nanny trial

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Today was the first nanny trial, and it was… not good. She is NOT someone I would entrust caring for my baby, even in the next room. Here are the notes:

  1. Not comfortable with mixing formula – she was a deer with headlights when I asked if she’d done this before.
  2. Forgot to change diaper before 5pm feed until I asked her.
  3. Did not read signs of fatigue to put down for nap; she actually refused to let the baby nap when she was clearly showing signs that she was tired!
  4. Confused spit up for throw up. These are NOT the same thing.
  5. Too much holding and not enough engagement
  6. Did not read signs of pre-teething to soothe even though she was warned
  7. Bath was too cold and not enough water
  8. Did not write meticulous notes on feeds, poops and pees as I requested; forgot the amounts she fed baby and asked ME how much the baby ate.

Out-of-town visitors

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We had my friend, her husband, and their baby come visit us this weekend. I also got to catch up with my friend one on one over tea, and that was nice and relaxing. It was also just nice to get out of the apartment and dress up a little bit while also just not being completely baby focused… Or focused on finding a nanny. I honestly never really thought about how time-consuming finding a nanny would be, but alas, here I am. Finding a nanny is nearly a full-time job in itself.

It’s funny when you think about how the dynamics change once you have kids. I always knew about this and was aware about this in theory, but in practice, it’s definitely something that you have to get used to. When my friend originally booked this trip, she said that she and her husband could have done so many things without the baby if she had left the baby at home with her mom… But she really wanted her baby to come to meet my baby. She wanted to do things like Broadway shows, museums, afternoon tea… We compromised and we did afternoon tea and left the babies with our husbands. But the Broadway show was never going to happen because her baby gets stranger danger, so even when I offered to babysit, she said that there was no way her baby was going to let that happen. My friend is also someone who rarely checks luggage unless she is traveling internationally and plans to buy a lot of things, but on this trip, they checked a bag because of all of the things that they have to take with them because of their baby.

While all of this can be annoying and at times frustrating, as my former night nurse always said… All of these things last for a finite time, and then they eventually end. So while we can be frustrated at not being able to see a show or have a tasting menu when we have our baby with us, our baby is only going to be a baby for a set amount of time. And that time will eventually end. I am already looking at videos and pictures of my baby when she was a newborn and comparing them to how big she is now. And it already makes me a little bit sad to see how quickly she has grown as well as how quickly time has flown. She was once this teeny tiny baby in my arms (or, really, HANDS at that point!) who barely weighed 6 pounds. Now, she is definitely double that weight. I am trying to cherish every moment as much as I possibly can. Soon, she will no longer be a baby I can hold in my arms.

the dilemma of being a working mom

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I always imagined being a working mom. Being a stay at home mom was never something I envisioned for myself for multiple reasons: my mom always said it was important to stand on my own two feet and to not rely on a man for money. That’s why she always worked after she had Ed and me. And she’s right for multiple reasons: if your husband is an asshole and tyrannizes you about spending because he earns the money and you do the unpaid work that he doesn’t value, well, that doesn’t put you in a good position. But the other “in case of emergency” situation people think less about can happen: men die earlier than women on average, and so if your working husband randomly drops dead of a heart attack and you have been out of the workforce for, what, 3-5 years, it’s going to be THAT much harder for you to re-enter the workforce to support your kids and yourself. I also want to set the example to my child that women can work outside of the home and do things other that what is stereotypically considered “women’s work.”

Now that I’m in the situation where I am about to return to work, though, I’m definitely feeling all kinds of emotions. My first thought was: I’m going to hire a nanny, and eventually a daycare center, to witness all my child’s developmental milestones before I do?? I am going to go back to work in order to pay a lot of money to a random stranger to care for my child? It was a bit of a mind fuck: really? Most of my earnings are going towards THAT as an expense?? Something just didn’t feel right about this.

I hate that this is even a feeling I am having. I have to go back to work after about 20 weeks of leave, which is way way more than the average American woman gets. But it’s far, far less than what working moms in other western countries get: my friend in the U.K. had 13 months off, and she didn’t think it was enough. Another friend had her first child in Amsterdam and had seven months of leave. Moms in Australia get a full 12 months. It just didn’t feel right, and I’m trying to accept this as my reality. I never thought it would be this hard to mentally wrap my head around this before I became a mom. It’s not that I don’t want to go back to work or ever seriously considered being a stay-at-home mom. I do want to go back to work to have something to focus on other than my child. I also don’t really want to get tyrannized for not making money from my husband or anyone else; even jokes would be half-jokes because guess what… we live in a world that devalues childcare as well as work that doesn’t bring dollars in. It just makes me sad and a bit emotional to think I have to leave my baby with someone else during the majority of the week, even when I will be working at home in the next room.

But having these thoughts and emotions makes me feel even more for stay-at-home moms who give up their paid work and careers to raise their children, to be there for them every step of the way. Even when society devalues them, even when their parents or in-laws or spouses talk down to them because they don’t value the actual work they do, they still give their all to their babies. It’s a hard life regardless of whether you are a working mom or an unpaid working mom. The demands of motherhood never end regardless of which path you choose.

The nanny search

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We decided we would hire a full time nanny for when I go back to work as opposed to putting our baby in daycare. Given that I work from home at my current company, the transition to going back to work would be less painful for me given that I could still see the baby throughout the day between meetings if we had a nanny looking after her. And that was important to me given my remote work situation. If I didn’t have to go to an office, then why not have a nanny be here with her during the day?

The search was looking up initially. I had two solid leads and one “okay” lead that we had trial dates scheduled for. But then, out of nowhere, one of them bailed and said that she couldn’t start at the end of April. The second one, within a couple days later, told me she accepted a position with a family that she had done a trial with two weeks before that she didn’t think she’d hear back from. And then I was left with my third choice, which I wasn’t that enthused by given these first two didn’t work out. So I sunk into a hole and wondered if I’d ever find the right fit for my baby.

Chris found a site called Mommy Bites where parents can pay to recommend and list their nannies who are ending with them, so I used that site and ended up finding a lot of solid leads. Around the same time, I got a new lead from the Upper West Side Moms group. Now, we have about six potential nanny candidates who all seem to fit what we are looking for: passionate about babies, interested in baby learning and development, and generally easy going and relaxed. If you can believe it, one used to be a chef in Belize, but when she immigrated here, it wasn’t that easy for her to find a job in food. So she decided that because she loved kids that she would become a nanny. All her references have raved about her energy and interaction with their kids, and they even said that she cooked for the kids AND the families. She’d whip up gourmet meals out of scraps in their fridge. And when I scheduled the trial date with her, she asked if we could leave chicken and vegetables in the fridge so she could cook for us.

Guess who I am partial to?

When six pumps a day becomes five

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Today is my fourth day doing five pumps a day, and I really wasn’t expecting to be reducing it down to five pumps a day this soon. My original goal was to get down to five pumps a day before I went back to work, with my sixth pump dropped from the middle of the night, ultimately allowing me to sleep at least 6 to 7 hours straight at night. I know there would have been no way for me to survive working full-time while also caring for my baby without a full night’s sleep, and so this was what I decided to do for myself.  Given that my supply actually went up when I went down to six pumps per day from seven, I decided to start weaning myself sooner rather than later off of my sixth pump. And after about a week and a half, I cut that sixth pump out. I was scared initially, particularly about getting yet another milk clog, but I made sure to take extra sunflower lecithin pills as well as massage my breasts thoroughly as soon as I woke up, as per the recommendation from my Cleo lactation consultant. And so far, so good. My supply has remained a similar, and if anything, it has actually increased slightly.

I feel really good at five pumps per day now. I hope to be doing this now until at least 7 to 8 months postpartum. My original goal was six months, but given how balanced I feel right now and how less overwhelmed I feel with pumping at five pumps per day, I think I can keep this up for longer. I hope I can be giving my baby breastmilk until she is one year old. I am anticipating my supply dropping once my period comes back as it does with most breastfeeding moms, but that’s okay. I have made peace with all of that.

I actually felt a little bit sad as I dropped my sixth pump, as strange as that sounds. You would think that given I had such a love-hate relationship with pumping that I would be really excited every single time I dropped another pump. But instead, it actually made me feel a little bit empty and emotional. Because as I continue to drop pumps, I will get closer and closer to the stage when my baby no longer needs breastmilk and will be eating solids 100 percent. And what this actually means is that she will be less reliant on me. There is an inner joy and comfort that I feel knowing that my body is producing food for my baby to eat. I am providing her with essential nutrients and more. And to know that eventually, this journey will come to an end makes me a little bit sad; her reliance on my body for food will eventually come to an end. One day, she is not going to need me to comfort her by having her suckle on my boob. One day, she is not going to need me to carry her around anymore. One day, she is not really going to want to bury her face in my chest or be soothed simply from the sound of my voice speaking or singing. All of these moments are going to come to an end at some point. It’s a little sad to think about it that way. All of these little moments that I love and cherish are eventually going to end.

Every day, as she gets older, she will be a little bit less reliant on me. Now, she has very good neck strength and needs just a little bit of neck support. Next, she will no longer need us to carry her around because she will be able to walk. Then, she will be able to talk. And eventually, she will be going around the city on her own and doing her own thing. She will gradually become more and more independent and less dependent on us as her parents. And this is all a journey. This is all part of raising a child and giving life. There is a time for everything, and each of those times eventually ends. I just want to sit in each of these moments a little bit longer and cherish it because it really does all go way too fast. I still can’t even believe this is her sixteenth week of life. It all just passes us by too quickly.

One year anniversary of the embryo transfer

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Today marks one year since I had my frozen embryo transfer. That tiny little embryo, that little bundle of cells that were expanding, ended up being a little baby that I gave birth to in December and now call my sweet baby Kaia. I got the photo memory on my phone this morning, and I smiled to myself while looking at it at the gym. I had a lot of hope and a lot of fear that morning when I went into the clinic for my transfer. During the transfer, per my request, they played Lady Gaga songs to inspire me. And when I went home that night, Chris and my friend who was staying with us at the time tried to send good vibes and declared me “pupo”: pregnant until proven otherwise. And so for the next week and a half, I was just that: I was Pupo. And about a week in, I started feeling a strange warmth almost like a light fire creeping up on my hips. And that was when I suspected that the embryo transfer was successful, that I was actually pregnant. And nine days after the transfer happened, I went into the clinic for my very first beta , and at just before noon that day, the nurse called with the good news that I was four weeks pregnant. I was so happy and so shocked that I immediately got choked up and started crying. It felt like an eternity – trying to get pregnant, constantly failing, going to the clinic constantly for endless appointments and endless blood tests and endless uterine scans … And finally this one bit of good news was more than I could handle.

The photo of me that came up on my phone was of me on the evening after the embryo transfer. I have a photo that the clinic gave me of my embryo and expanding as you can clearly see in the picture. I have it placed right at my belly and I’m smiling in the photo. When I took that photo, I wasn’t sure what would come next. I wasn’t sure if I would continue to get good news in the upcoming appointments. Every time I went to the bathroom, I was terrified that I was going to see blood , which would indicate that I’d had a miscarriage. It took me a really long time to not get nervous going to the bathroom. But eventually, my nerves were calmed, and I started getting more comfortable with being pregnant. It’s amazing to think how quickly time flies because those scary and uncertain times feel like they were just yesterday.

 And now today, I am still on maternity leave caring for my sweet baby. Every day, I look at her constantly obviously, and I never forget how much uncertainty and fear I had during this journey in conceiving and giving birth to her. I never for a second forget how scary that process was, and I never take for granted what I have; I know I am extremely lucky. There are endless women out there who are trying to get pregnant and not able to, and they would love to have just one chance to conceive successfully.  I feel for them every day. I know their pain intimately. So even when my baby is screaming and crying because of her pre-teething pain, even when it has made me sad that she has not been successful at eating directly from my boob, even when she blows out yet another diaper and I have to pre-soak more of her onesies, even when I get pissed at my pumping schedule, and even when Chris and I are disagreeing and arguing about something baby related, I remember that what I have today is truly a blessing, a gift for which I will forever be grateful. My baby is truly the center of my world, and there is nothing else that I am more grateful for in this life than her. Sometimes I look at her, and I think, fuck everything else. She is literally everything to me and nothing else matters. My sweet little Kaia jam.