Category Archives: family

First Mother’s Day

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Everywhere on social media and in mom’s groups, people post in the days leading up to Mother’s Day what plans they have, how their spouses plan to pamper them, what cute things their kids will be making/doing for them. While it’s kind of cute that the day is hyped up, I always thought that it was overhyped. Why should there just be one day a year when mom is not expected to do all the house chores and take care of the kids? It always infuriated me and made me think that was like the one day of the year when moms didn’t have to do all the domestic and emotional work in a household.

On my first Mother’s Day, I still cleaned the toilet. I made my own breakfast and lunch. I spent five hours connected to a breast pump. These are all things I just do. The highlight of the day was going to the dentist with the baby in tow. That was fun for the dentists since they were excited to have a baby in their office, but it was just practical for us.

What I thought more about today was how I felt this time last year when I was pregnant, but then I wasn’t 100 percent certain that my pregnancy would end with a baby. I had a lot of doubt and fear, and I wasn’t sure when I was going to get comfortable with being pregnant. Now on Mother’s Day, I really feel for those women — the ones who have been trying to conceive but haven’t been successful; the women who had gotten pregnant but suffered losses, are pregnant again but fearful it will all unravel; the ones going through fertility treatments ranging from IUI to IVF who still remain hopeful. Mother’s Day can be a really painful day for a lot of people.

I wish we didn’t even have a need for days like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, though, that we could actually appreciate and be more grateful for the hard work that parents do more regularly than just once a year. I don’t think flowers for mom or the stereotypical watch or toolset or tie for dad on those days is really enough to say “thanks for all the sacrifices you’ve made as my mom/mother of my child.” We live in a world that is generally lacking of daily thanks and gratitude. We might be happier with a little bit more of that in our lives.

infant Tylenol in the US has high fructose corn syrup

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One of the reasons that formula always made me angry, particularly in this country, is that many formulas are made with high fructose corn syrup. There is absolutely no reason that high fructose corn syrup, or any type of sweetener for that matter, should be added to infant formula. That serves as a cheap, empty caloric way to fatten up a baby, and that is just garbage to me. And what grossed me out further is that in a follow up appointment with the nurse practitioner/lactation consultant at the doctor’s office, When we learned that the baby was not gaining weight, she actually recommended a formula that had high fructose corn syrup in it… This specific formula was supposed to be easy on tummies and provide “total comfort.” 

We used it for a short time, given it was a sample, and when we finished it, I refused to continue buying it out of principle. I was very unhappy that we fed our baby infant formula that had high fructose corn syrup in it at all. And I told myself that there was no way moving forward that I would let her have any other formula that had this crap in it.

 Well, I was true to my word. We have not given her formula that had high fructose corn syrup in it since. But what we discovered today, to my complete disgust once again, is that the infant Tylenol that we have been giving her when she has had teething pains has high fructose corn syrup in it! Chris found out by accident. He wasn’t even looking at the ingredients. Then he realized that the sweetener in the Tylenol was high fructose corn syrup. This is infant Tylenol, the branded pain killer! What the hell is wrong with this stupid ass country?? I cannot even trust that basic over the counter medication that I feed my baby, who is not even one year old, will not have high fructose corn syrup in it! This country has 5 million problems, and one of them is that we just want to feed our children with empty calories just because of some bullshit corn subsidies that make it cheaper to sweeten things. And we wonder to ourselves… How do young people get fat and obese so soon and so early? Well, it starts with things like this. The fact that I didn’t even bother to check the ingredients list on the infant Tylenol before buying it… I didn’t even think I had to. I always check ingredients list on food and packaged items, and especially all of the infant formula that we have considered and/or purchased. But now I feel bad that I didn’t even check the medication ingredient list for my baby. In a perfect world, or rather in a country that actually cares about its young people, particularly its babies, I would not even have to check the medication ingredients list to ensure that this crap was not in it. But apparently, in this country, I do. And that is just so sad.

Happy baby pose

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Last week when a friend came over to visit, she pointed out how our baby was doing the happy baby yoga pose. In this pose, a person is on her back with her legs bent in, and her hands are outstretched to reach her ankles or feet.

“The baby is doing the happy baby pose!” my friend squealed with delight. “It’s real! Babies DO do the happy baby pose! It’s sooo cute!”

Our baby is discovering all parts of her body. She’s stretching her arms and legs out everywhere. She’s navigating how to use her different fingers. She turns and stretches her head and neck to see one of us. Her development is the sweetest thing to observe and witness. I hope she continues to always be a happy baby and tiny human.

respect for stay-at-home moms

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I grew up having the utmost respect for working moms, as in, moms who not only take care of the house and kids but also have a paid job outside the home. My mom instilled in me from a really young age that I needed to stand on my own two feet and not depend on a man for money, that it didn’t matter how much money my future husband would make because if he left me, or God forbid, died, I’d be left with nothing or little and would need to rebuild whatever career I would have left. And there’s actually data to prove this: women who leave the workforce to care for their children and return a few years later re-enter at a lower position, lower salary, and have to work *that* much harder to get back to where they left off, if they are even lucky enough to get back there. I also heard a lot of negative comments from other kids or moms against “working moms” — working moms supposedly don’t care or aren’t as invested in their children as stay-at-home moms; working moms only think about their own careers and not raising their children. There are certainly flipped arguments here that you could use against stay-at-home moms, but either way, I heard more disparaging comments about working moms growing up. And what is not even in any of these debates is… what about “working dads” or the rare stay-at-home dad? Why don’t dads ever pit themselves against each other in these regards? Moms of all types have to argue with each other and prove who is the best. It’s so tiring.

But it goes without saying that in this generation, it’s a privilege to even *think* about being a stay-at-home parent. For most of us who live in major metropolitan areas with a high cost of living, it’s pretty much untenable to NOT have both parents working. Childcare is expensive regardless of whether it’s a daycare center or a nanny. Unless you have nearby grandparents or a very loving and selfless relative nearby who wants to help for free, there’s no getting around high childcare expenses. And being a mom now, I have thought a lot more about what life would be like from a stay-at-home mom’s standpoint, and I’ve actually learned to really admire them. For those moms who had a budding or happy career or job, they chose the selfless path to play the primary role in child-rearing and gave up their careers for their children. They felt they could be the best caregiver there was for their child, and so they pushed money and “status” aside to do that. They wanted to be there for their children’s “firsts” and be there for all the moments their babies needed encouragement and love immediately. They made that decision believing it was the best choice for their child and family, and so they became a different type of “working mom” — the working mom who works full time and gets paid zero dollars to help their child grow and flourish.

Our world we live in has little to no respect for caregivers, whether they are for the very young or the very old. We devalue childcare and elderly care. But why do we do this when our babies will eventually become the people running the world in the next couple decades, or when the elderly have given their all to society when they were in their prime?

When baby learns new skills

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My baby has slowly but surely been improving on her motor skills. She has been trying to grab and hold things for quite a while, but she has still not quite mastered it yet. She is certainly making progress each day, though. This week, I was using her grape teether which has a stem on it to put into her mouth to soothe her gums, which I knew were bothering her from pre-teething. She actually held the stem with a strong grip and started moving the grape teether around. She held the grape teether out quite far from her and just stared at it for a while, as though marveling at the fact that she had finally learned to hold and grasp something strongly. And then, as though to see if she was capable of doing this, she slowly moved the teether from one hand to the next hand. And then with the second hand, she held the grape up and just stared at it for a while with wide eyes. It was the cutest and sweetest thing to witness. 

For the last couple of weeks, I have been trying to teach her how to hold things. I open her palm and rub the base of it with my finger to get her to keep it open. Then, I wrap her fingers around an object, and then move her hand around so that she can get used to what it feels like to open her hand, close her hand, and then wrap her fingers around something with a firm grip. I was reading about baby development, and these types of activities help to strengthen their muscle memory. Even if they are not doing it themselves, just the mere feeling of their hands opening and closing, even if you are doing it for them, teaches them what it feels like if they were to do it themselves. I have also been doing the same with trying to teach her to roll over fully. She is almost there, but not quite. I think she needs to do more tummy time to get a stronger core in order to fully complete the roll. 

I never thought that I would be so fascinated with baby development. But here I am, completely absorbed in each of the skills that my baby is learning to do. If you think about it, it’s really just about learning to appreciate the little things in life. Every day, we hold things, we touch things, and we’re all completely jaded and don’t think anything about it. It’s like breathing. What is there to think about for us as adults? But for a baby, to hold something for the very first time, just to feel a new texture on her fingertips or hands, is like a revelation. It’s literally learning what the rest of the world is like… At her fingertips.

Cherishing the last days before returning to work

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I only have three more business days before I have to return to work. Granted, “returning to work“ just means getting on my computer in the second bedroom and being stuck in front of a screen all day, but it still means that I will have to work and not be in front of my daughter all day the way I’ve been used to. The last 20 weeks have flown by so quickly. It makes me sad that I have to go back to work and not spend every minute with her anymore, but I actually don’t feel as bad about it as I did a few weeks ago. I have come to accept it, especially since we just hired a nanny. My friend was right: she told me that I would get more comfortable with going back to work once we secured childcare. And that’s kind of what happened.

We have had a lot of visitors in the last week before I return to work. I had friends come over on Monday. A friend/former colleague came to visit us after work on Tuesday. I went out to lunch with a friend today and took the baby. On Friday, we also have a friend visiting who will meet the baby for the first time. I have also been very intentional about getting out of the apartment at least once a day with the baby, particularly when the weather is good. It’s what I originally wanted to do when it started warming up, but it’s just that there have been a lot of cold days, and I don’t really want her outside when it’s too cold. I want her to have some fresh air, even if it’s “fresh air” by city standards. She clearly hates the wind. Every time we have been on the roof and it has been windy, she makes this shuddering breathing sound that doesn’t sounds good.

I took her to a bakery on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, we ate outdoors with my friend. Even the baby ate outdoors as I gave her a bottle while sitting outside. I am planning to take her to Central Park tomorrow, perhaps to Sheep’s Meadow for some fun time on the grass and among the cherry blossoms. A nanny that I interviewed told me that babies just need to take in every little thing, but that requires us to expose them to all of those little things. All of the things that we as adults take for granted, like staring up at a blue cloudless sky, hearing the rustling of the trees, birds chirping, and the sight of full blooms are all things that are brand new experiences to babies. It is up to us to expose them to all of these beautiful things. It was a good reminder to me. I am looking forward to seeing the baby’s reaction when I put her feet on grass for the first time. I want to be there to witness as many of her “firsts” as possible.

Eyes that still bulge when they see the boobies

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Many weeks ago, I stopped nursing the baby before her bottle. Chris suggested it since it would make the feedings more efficient. And while it made me sad to stop, I knew that it was for the best. It would make the day smoother. She would get her main food faster. And I would nurse her only when she got fussy perhaps due to pre-teething or when she needed a little extra after a bottle feed. I was still technically breast-feeding her because I was still pumping as much milk as I could, but I just wasn’t having as much direct breast to mouth contact anymore. The main time that I would nurse her would be before bedtime for the night after her last feed, when she needed an “aperitif” as Chris calls it. I would put her on my boob until she was satisfied, whether that was from the extra milk or just being soothed from being on the breast. I look forward to this time every night when it’s just the two of us in the bedroom together, and she is on my boob and I am caressing her hair and her face and relishing these quiet moments of just the two of us together in the darkness and peace. 

Although I will always be sad that I was never able to successfully nurse her exclusively, it will always make me smile when I think about how much she loves my boobs. In the morning when I get up and say good morning to her while she is in the bassinet for her morning nap after her first feed, I usually have the straps on my nursing top undone, so my breasts are exposed to get ready for my first morning pump. And it is the cutest and most hilarious thing when I poke my head into her bassinet to say good morning, and she immediately makes eye contact with me and smiles. And predictably, her eyes move down from my face directly to my breasts, and it’s like her eyes almost bulge out with excitement. Her mouth opens wide and she is just nearly jumping out of her skin. She starts kicking her legs and flailing her arms as though she is trying to say, get me on those boobies right now! She just loves the boobs. If she had it her way, she would be on my boob all day and all night. And this thought always makes me smile and feel happy. My baby loves me. My baby needs me. And even if she isn’t able to get her nourishment directly from my breast, she still loves spending time on my breast. She loves being with me. She is soothed from being on my boobs. And at this point in time, I have made peace with it. I am still her mother. I am still able to soothe and take care of her. I am still able to provide her food from my breasts, pumped into a bottle. And these are all amazing things. These are all things that I am constantly grateful for.

Pregnancy wistfulness and mom thoughts

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I went to visit my neighbor yesterday to drop off a few baby related things that were either brand new that I never got to use, as well as a few lightly used baby items. She is 37 weeks pregnant, also from IVF, and she is expecting her first, which is a girl. She is 40 years old, and her husband is 51. She told me that she is very well aware that even though she has two more embryos that are frozen, that those may not ever make it. So this could be her one and only child. She told me that even though she was excited to meet her baby soon, she was really sad that her pregnancy was ending. It wasn’t that she wanted her pregnancy to last forever, but time just passed way too quickly. She wanted to relish the little moments more and more. Similar to me, she had a very smooth and straightforward pregnancy after IVF. She has loved every moment of being pregnant and has been incredibly grateful that IVF worked out and that she was pregnant, though at a much later age than she had hoped. She and her husband had been trying for over eight years to conceive naturally, and it just never worked. It wasn’t until last year that they finally tried IVF.

I relate a lot to her sadness about her pregnancy ending. Towards the end of my pregnancy, I also felt a little bit sad, though obviously I was at the same time very excited. I also have a similar sentiment as she does when it comes to that thought that this could be her only child. It seems that only other moms can relate to this feeling of sadness. Many parts of pregnancy as well as new motherhood and motherhood in general are difficult, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t love it and enjoy it. As far as I know, there has been no deeper meaning in life to me than raising my baby and growing her in my womb. As much as I have tried to relish every moment of pregnancy as well as new motherhood, it all just felt like it’s going too fast. Even today, it is going far too quickly for me. Our baby is growing well, but I just can’t believe that she is already four months old. I told my neighbor my feelings around this, and I told her that those complicated emotions of happiness and sadness  at your baby progressing and growing are just going to continue. Because obviously as mothers, while we want our babies to grow, we all wish that we could just freeze time so that they didn’t grow too fast. I tried to explain this to Chris, and his response was, she’s not growing too fast! She’s right on the curve! …Well, that is not what I mean. I do not literally mean that she is growing too fast. What I mean is that these moments are all passing me by too quickly, and before I know it, she is not going to need me to feed her or to get her from place to place. She’s going to be an independent woman before we even know it. And that is just crazy to me.

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.