Category Archives: Health

Hands-free bra for hands-on pumping…? Come again?

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I was gifted two pumping/nursing bras off the baby registry that I really didn’t think I’d be using until I went back to work, which is when I was hoping to use my breast pump regularly. I certainly didn’t imagine having to use my breast pump as soon as I left the hospital, so alas, I’ve been getting acquainted with my Spectra S1 pump settings and the two different pumping bras I have.

The Spectra S1 is considered a hospital-grade breast pump, with the addition of a battery, which means I do not have to be stuck to a wall or outlet every time I pump (health insurance doesn’t think you should be mobile while you pump, though, and so I had to pay a $75 co-pay just for the addition of the stupid battery). However, while it’s a very popular and respected breast pump, it’s basically a mini bowling ball in that it’s round and you really need to be careful when walking around with it. I have managed to make oatmeal, measure ingredients and formula, cut fruit and vegetables, and even brush my teeth with it hooked up. But you really need to be SUPER careful that you don’t knock it over or even worse, spill all your milk, which is literally like liquid gold. My night nurse told me that there’s a big black market for breast milk, and on average, people are charging $18 per oz (30 ml) for breast milk!!

Despite having a hands-free pumping bra and using it while pumping, it’s kind of ridiculous to think that a best practice of pumping is to actually be “hands on” — so to do breast compressions while you are actually using the breast pump to pump milk. Multiple studies have been done about this that have shown that doing breast compressions while pumping (meaning squeezing/pushing on your breasts) will increase your output and ensure that you are actually draining your breasts properly, which then signals to your body to make more milk and will also prevent clogged ducts. And logically, this makes sense: during nursing, a baby is not only sucking the milk out, but she’s gently compressing your breasts to push the milk out, as well. Even the most sophisticated breast pump is only capable of the sucking part of that combination, sadly. So, the only way to do this is with a hands-free pumping bra so that you don’t need to hold the flanges in place where your nipples are. But.. if you think about it, doesn’t that seem counterintuitive: I got a hands-free pumping bra so that I can.. do HANDS ON breast compressions?? You see all these ads for pumping bras showing women at their computers typing away or reading a book leisurely while a machine pumps out their milk, but if you are actually draining effectively, that’s not really how the picture should look.

You would think that at this point in time, we would have come up with better solutions or technology for this, and that there would be more science than art around nursing and breastfeeding. What a journey, and I’m only at the beginning of it…

Thankful

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It’s Christmas day today and Chris’s 40th birthday. One year ago today, it was just the two of us in our New York City apartment, not drinking alcohol in preparation to begin our IVF cycle a few days later. I had a lot of uncertainty then, yet I was filled with hope that IVF would get us one step closer to starting the family I’d been dreaming about for over two years. I had no idea then how IVF would turn out, and yet, one year later, here we are with the greatest gift I’ve ever received: my little baby Kaia (jam). It has been 15 days of a total lack of sleep and self care, 15 days of breastfeeding tears, anxiety around her weight increasing, and being uncertain if I was really doing my best as her mama. Yet at the same time, it’s also been 15 days of the most love I’ve ever experienced, both for my baby Kaia and my Chris. I have never been more grateful to be alive and here to raise my little daughter, nor have I ever been more grateful to have Chris as my life partner, who has been a rock through IVF, pregnancy, and now raising our daughter together. He has kept calm and cool through all my worries and tears this whole time. I have never felt more sure of myself in choosing him as my favorite human than in the days since Kaia has arrived. I can’t wait to see what life brings us a year from today in the future as a family of three.

Postpartum boob life

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I always imagined that postpartum home life would mean a lot of my boobs sticking out all the time, but I never really thought much about how that would actually feel. Why would I have my breasts out all the time, you ask? Well, if you are nursing and/or pumping milk, your breasts and your nipples are going to be sorer than sore, and they will need to be aired out to prevent any cracking or additional discomfort. In between feeds and pumps, I try to air my nipples out as much as possible, which means I am either walking around topless or with my nursing tanks half down. But I’m cold sensitive, and even with the heat on, I need to at least have a hoodie on to keep the rest of me warm. When you’ve either got your nipples constantly being suckled on by a teeny tiny human, while also in between feeds having a breast pump suck milk out of your breasts at a hospital-grade rate, your breasts in the postpartum period are in for the workout of their life! And yes, this DOES burn calories whether you are nursing or pumping – wee!

I’m lucky so far in that I haven’t experienced cracked nipples, and given multiple lactation consultants and nurses have complimented Kaia on her “perfect” and “beautiful” latch, I haven’t really hurt at all, so I’m thankful for that. Occasionally, though, when she is finished eating on the breast, she will try to chew my nipple at the end as sort of a “send off,” which is not particularly nice. It’s a chew in a “twist” kind of fashion, and boy, is it NOT pleasant AT ALL. But I love nursing her; I love the closeness I feel to her, I love being able to stroke her hair and head and feel her warmth against me. I love the smell of her coming off of me, her mouth covered in my breast milk. I love the fact that my body is able (well, sort of, given the weight gain issue) to nourish my little baby. I’m hell bent on making sure that she has as much breast milk as possible, so if it cannot be directly from my breasts, I’m trying to pump as much milk as possible.

So yeah, I get why a lot of moms postpartum don’t want that many visitors over in the several weeks or even months post birth. How can you have visitors over if you constantly have your nipples sticking out everywhere? You need to prioritize comfort postpartum, and having your nipples covered would be uncomfortable. And if you don’t take care of your nipples and breasts, your nipples will be pissed at you and give you all kinds of issues, ranging from thrush (fungal infection on nipple that also affects the baby) to blebs (milk blisters) to the worst of the worst — mastitis (clogged milk ducts that go untreated and result in inflammation and breast infection requiring antibiotics – NOOOO).

So word from the wise: take care of your boobs.

Dumb shit that people will say to you postpartum

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It doesn’t seem to matter what point in your life you are at with trying to conceive, being pregnant, or being postpartum — people will always manage to say stupid shit to you that is insensitive, stupid, uneducated/ignorant, and/or not helpful or supportive. Some of these comments are well meaning, but they really just do not help at all, nor do they make you feel good or better about your current situation.

After learning that I had given birth vaginally, my mom raved over how “easy” and “simple” I had it since I didn’t have to go through a c-section or a c-section recovery. “You are SO lucky,” my mom said, partly happy for me and partly resentful about the two c-sections she had. She kept saying this over and over on pretty much every single call as though I didn’t hear it the first time she said it. Seriously? Just because I had a vaginal birth does NOT mean my labor was “easy” or “simple,” nor does it mean that I won’t have pain postpartum. What the fuck? I was in labor for TWENTY FIVE hours, and NINE of those hours I had nearly non stop contractions. Who is she to tell me that I had it “easy”??

Then, my mother-in-law made similar dumb comments. She called my birth “easy” because it was vaginal and said multiple times that I would forget the pain from labor because of the sweet bundle I brought home. Okay, let’s all not be delusional here: while I am extremely grateful and feel blessed that my baby was born healthy and is home now, I have NOT forgotten how intense and painful labor was, nor will I ever forget the extreme agony I was in. Then, she continues to make comments about how she hopes that the two of us are getting “plenty of rest” or sleep given we hired a night nurse.

Yes, it’s true that we are getting more sleep on average with help via a night nurse. That does NOT mean I am getting adequate or “plenty” of sleep… because what parents of a newborn in this world are getting plenty of sleep unless they have chosen to 100 percent formula feed their baby and hand them off to help, whether that is by a family member or hired help???

I’ve also gotten comments from some friends regarding whether I regretted having an unmedicated birth. Given I was mobile within two hours of giving birth and have been able to do most things around the house unassisted, why the hell would I have WANTED an epidural in hindsight, which would have prolonged my overall recovery?? And given I am more mobile, that also means Chris needs to help me with fewer things, so he’s likely happy that I went unmedicated in the end, as well!

Chinese medicine and more mother criticism

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“Why haven’t you made the soup I told you to make? You won’t heal properly from giving birth and you won’t make enough milk for baby to eat unless you have this soup! This is why you are so tired; if you have this soup, you won’t be tired anymore!”

My mom is referring to the traditional Chinese medicine soup known as ji jiu tang, literally translated as “chicken wine soup,” which is a well known postpartum Chinese soup that Chinese mothers drink regularly after giving birth to help their bodies recuperate, which also supposedly helps with milk production. There is obviously no science or data to back up any of these claims, but hey, what postpartum mom is going to reject having a tasty, nourishing chicken-based soup?

My aunt was so kind and sweet that she actually priority-mail sent me all the ingredients (minus the chicken and ginger, obviously) to make the soup. She told me over text how to make it with very very detailed instructions (e.g. “a little of this,” “a handful of that,” “not too much of this but just enough”). I just hadn’t gotten around to making it just yet.

I insisted to my mom that I was tired and sleep deprived, that I’m eating plenty of other healthy things (oatmeal every morning with flaxseed, greens, etc.), that I will get around to making the soup soon when I could. She then asked that if I can’t make the soup, why can’t Chris make the soup? Yeah, like THAT is going happen.

“Well, what else is Chris doing? He’s not doing anything to help,” she said out of nowhere.

I really got pissed at this comment; she has absolutely NO idea how helpful Chris has been since the baby was born. I told her he was doing literally everything else around the house other than breastfeeding, and she retorted back, “Yeah? Like what? What IS he doing?”

To even respond to that would, as usual, be useless, so I just told her she had no idea what she was talking about and told her I was tired and needed to go, and hung up. That’s the nice thing about having distance; you can just hang up and not deal with an overbearing, unrealistic mom who thinks that some random Chinese soup is going to be a replacement for actual SLEEP.

Hovering mother and outdated parenting best practices

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My mom has been ecstatic ever since Kaia was born, but what that has also meant is that she is also trying to call 3-4 times every single day, which has driven me crazy and also meant that I now just have to ignore most of her calls. She was so happy when I called from the hospital last Friday to let her know Kaia was born that she cried happy tears; my mom NEVER cries happy tears.

Given she was a parent of a previous generation, obviously parenting “best practices” were very different then vs. now. So of course, she has something critical to say about literally every photo I send:

“Why are you wrapping her so tight (referring to her swaddle)? She will suffocate and won’t be able to breathe!”

“Why is her chest exposed (break from skin to skin)? She will catch a cold and get sick!”

“Why doesn’t she have any blankets in her bed (bassinet)? Give her some blankets for sleeping! Why don’t you have any blankets for her?? You should at LEAST cover her feet!”

Trying to explain to my mom that “rules” have changed for how to take care of a baby is completely futile because she will always insist that she is right, has more experience, and has more wisdom. Let’s just ignore that one of her children is now dead. Of course, she fought with me on all my rebuttal points for the above inane comments, and I just shut her down by telling her that I don’t have time to listen to her outdated criticisms. I am this child’s mom and I will parent as I see fit. And part of that means making sure the baby has safe sleep and does NOT have blankets in her sleep space.

When you are starving your child and don’t realize it

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When a baby is born, within the first 24 hours, she will typically lose up to 10 percent of her body weight (due to water), and this is considered normal. Kaia lost about 7 percent of her weight at discharge, so all looked pretty good. However, babies are also supposed to regain that weight within the first two weeks of life. We had our follow-up pediatrician appointment today, just about a week after her birth, where we found out that not only did she not even begin to regain her weight, but she pretty much had totally flatlined… meaning she was not eating enough.

What could be wrong? I thought to myself. She’s clearly not eating enough, which means she’s not getting enough milk from my breasts. Is something wrong with my supply? Why is there something wrong with my milk supply if supply is the issue; I’m a new mom. Isn’t it basically supposed to be gushing in now? Does she need more formula?

Pediatrician appointments in the first few months of a baby’s life basically feel like a scorecard for you as a parent: you are essentially getting judged on how well you are raising and growing your child whether you like it or are aware of it or not. I felt pretty shitty leaving this appointment, thinking I was starving my child without even being aware of it, and now I need to be more open to giving her formula whether I like it or not. Because.. this isn’t just about me, right? Her health is of the utmost concern, and she needs to grow to be healthy and get stronger.

What postpartum really looks like

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All the nurses really emphasized not only making sure that baby was well taken care of and fed, but that mom was prioritizing mom and mom’s recovery. I really had the best care with nurses at Lenox Hill and am so grateful for all their kindness and support, in addition to their hoarding endless supplies for me to take home (which is apparently against official hospital policy, but like I care?). They advised me to do sitz baths to take care of my healing vagina and rectum, to apply heat pads to my breasts before breast feeding, as well as to my stomach during and after breast feeding since feeding baby would cause my uterus to contract. This was actually a good thing, as this meant that breast feeding would “tell” my uterus to contract and reduce down to pre-pregnancy size. The bad news here, though, is that those contractions would feel like menstrual contractions, and thus would likely be painful. They also suggested using nipple butter, shea butter, or lanolin on my nipples post feeding and pumping, and to walk around with my breasts out to “air” out my nipples to prevent cracking or pain.

And that rectum pain can be felt in ways I didn’t even think about. In the days after baby’s birth, it hurt down there every time I coughed, sneezed, or laughed. The sneezing caused the worst pain; I wasn’t sure if something was going to come out of my anus, whether it was poop or something else! I hoped this wouldn’t last too long.

Postpartum is not sexy. It does not look Instagram or social media ready at all and is anything but glamorous. So, Chris took a photo of me post feeding the baby, and this is basically what it looks like: heat pads on both breasts and my stomach, as well as my sitting on that inflatable butt cushion the nurses gave me and on top of the couch. A filled to the top water bottle is on a stool next to me. The baby is on the side of me in her lounger. This is definitely what postpartum looks like.

The first poop and pee post birth – for me, not the baby.

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Everyone warned me that the first pee and poop post giving birth would be brutal. A small number of moms had told me that their first poop was more excruciating than labor, which absolutely terrified me. I even heard one nightmarish story of a woman who pooped not just actual poop… but a part of her UTERUS. And she almost tried to pull it out!!

I hoped for the best, though, as I felt quite good after birthing Kaia and was able to get up on my feet within a couple hours of pushing her out. I was also more optimistic about it since I had taken no medication, as I was told an epidural would have made the poop/pee even more challenging for me. All of the nurses were shocked when they heard I hadn’t had any medication at all and no epidural. It was like a feat, they said, and congratulated me for how brave and strong I was. They were initially weirded out when they saw how mobile I was, bending down and walking around without assistance, so it made more sense when they heard I had no meds.

So when I finally braved out the bathroom trip, of course it was a pee for me. The nurse gave me a peri spray bottle and told me to fill it with warm water and to spray it on myself as I peed as well as after. It would remove any stinging and make any pain more tolerable, she said. I went to the bathroom with the peri bottle and did my thing. Well… at least, I tried. It took me at least 10-15 minutes to finally get the pee out. And it came out slowly, initially as a drip, and finally as a general spray. It was SCARY. I was like, is just pee coming out, or is anything ELSE going to come out, as well…?! I knew I just had to be patient with myself and not rush any bathroom trips, as if I did, it could mean hemorrhaging or other postpartum complications.

This is the crap no one really tells you openly about child birth – exactly how long it takes to recover not just in your vagina/urethra area, but also your rectum. My rectum was sorer than sore, and sitting down really hurt after. It just feels like a massive bruise, ALL OVER down there. Luckily, the nurses packed an insane amount of stuff (this stuffed a carry-on luggage, my Lo and Sons bag, and two massive shopping bags to the brim!) to take care of both baby and me, even including a sitz bath to place on top of the toilet to help my nether region healing, as well as an inflatable butt cushion to put everywhere I sat. And I would put both to very good use.

A child is born

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It’s all a bit of a blurred whirlwind now, but on the day baby Kaia was born, I couldn’t believe how relieved and happy I was — so relieved that she was born happy and healthy, that she could breathe completely fine on her own and that her heart had no issues. Potential heart issues had been in the back of my mind since I was admitted into the hospital in November for a night of continuous fetal monitoring, so I was hoping that wouldn’t be an issue again during laboring in the hospital as well as after she was out of my uterus. In later videos that Tina had recorded of us post birth, I could hear the hospital staff noting her time of birth, that she was a Well Baby newborn and not a NICU newborn, and the number she would be tracked by and have on her little hand and ankles until hospital discharge. Her little tag read: Wong, GIRL Yvonne; age: 00 days.

After we had some immediate skin to skin time once she was born, I was excited to see her immediately latch onto my right nipple and suckle quite a bit. Thank god, I thought. We don’t have issues latching, as a proper latch was something that was emphasized in all my breastfeeding research and the course I took. It wasn’t painful at all, as it just felt like a like suckle on my breasts. Just the feeling of her teeny tiny mouth suckling my nipple and her warm little body against my bare chest was likely sending oxytocin through me.

On the day of her birth, she went through many tests, a few immunizations, and we had a number of blissful moments of cuddling and breastfeeding. The first day out of the womb, babies tend to want to sleep A LOT, so parents could erroneously assume their babies are total angels. I knew not to think this. The amazing nursing staff at Lenox Hill helped with positioning the baby around my chest and nipples, ensuring comfort for both me and the baby and making sure she was sucking, swallowing, and latching properly. Another nurse helped show me how to change her diaper for the very first time, and it was as expected: full of black, sticky, slimy meconium, which is baby’s first poop based on food she “ate” through the placenta while still in the womb. It was the first time I’d ever changed a diaper in my life.

There were some concerns about her jaundice level after she was examined by a pediatrician, but after some further blood tests, they concluded her jaundice level would not prevent her from being discharged on time, so on Saturday afternoon. But because she still had not peed, they strongly suggested we give her some formula and take some home to supplement her to get her more hydrated. I wasn’t thrilled with this, as my goal was to exclusively breast feed her, but I relented; this wasn’t about me. This was about the health and well being of my child. This also made me worried; I wasn’t sure how much colostrum my breasts were producing, as when I squeezed my breasts and the lactation consultant at the hospital squeezed, we couldn’t see anything come out. The LC did say she knew my right breast was producing it because she could see some glistening, so at least that made me feel better. In addition, we had to wait until my milk came in before we’d know for sure that she was getting enough from my breasts. That would take anywhere from 2-14 days, so I was hoping the milk would come in sooner rather than later.

And we took her home on the afternoon of the 11th as originally planned. I’m not sure how we were trusted to take our baby home, never having taken care of any babies or children ever before, but hey, here we were on our way with no choice. At least we had the help of our night nurse, who would be with us our first two nights home with baby Kaia.