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?

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.

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.

“Why do you always kiss her every time you pick her up?” Chris asked me the other day. “You are smothering her!”

I told my night nurse and my friend this the other night when Chris was away at a hotel in his Covid bubble. My night nurse laughed and rolled her eyes. She responded, “She is your baby. You can kiss her however much you would like. There is no such thing as kissing your baby too much!!“

It’s true. I kiss Kaia every single time I pick her up. I tell her she’s my sweet baby as I give her multiple kisses, rock her, and hold her close to me. She’s my life’s greatest gift. Every time I look at her and hold her, I thank God for my sweet baby after all the trials and tribulations I went through to conceive of and give birth to her. I also remember that so many other families have spent longer periods of time trying to conceive and still have not succeeded, and I really feel for them. Not everyone is as lucky and blessed as I am. And with that, I always kiss my baby to remind myself and her of our good fortune.

Today, my baby turned 12 weeks old. It’s cliché, but I really cannot believe how quickly time flies. It feels like it was just yesterday when I had the most excruciating pain of my life being in labor with her, pushing her out of my body, and taking her tiny little self home in a huge car seat from the hospital. This time last year, I was mentally and physically getting ready for my embryo transfer with the one embryo that made it, the little embryo that could, as I liked to call her. While I had hoped and dreamed that this time this year, I would be able to have her in my arms, it has been surreal to think that this actually became my reality.

Motherhood has been full of ups and downs, but mostly ups. I have been blessed with a tiny little human who is a great eater and sleeper, who has easy-to-read signs and is slowly but surely showing bits of her personality. The biggest down, of course, has been pumping milk around the clock for her, as it has definitely tested my mental toughness as well as my physical ability in terms of keeping my nipples comfortable, but I see it as a temporary mother’s sacrifice for my sweet baby. I look forward to her every smile and hearing her laugh, as well as seeing all her other upcoming developmental milestones. But I love even just the little things: smelling her, rubbing my nose against hers, listening to her little grunts and squeals as she stirs before waking up, watching her sleep (she has the cutest little smiles while sleeping… not to mention her tiny night terrors). I love her more than words can express.

Our new morning routine has been to sit with baby Kaia in her Baby Bjorn bouncy chair and talk, sing, and play with her. Sometimes, I will read to her or show her “high contrast black and white images” courtesy of Lovevery. And of course, I am doing all this while I am pumping. She loves making eye contact, and she has been increasingly more observant not only of my facial expressions, but also her surroundings. Whenever I sing or talk to her, it’s almost like she’s studying what I am saying and trying to make sense of it. She coos and makes all kinds of babble sounds in response.

I read that babies as early as six weeks old can mimic what their parents do, whether that is facial expressions or motions with hands. But today, our baby, for the very first time, mimicked me sticking out her tongue. I had been doing it to her for a few days now to see if she would catch on, and she finally did it today… and I got it on camera! She did it multiple times, and I just got so excited. I felt so, so proud. It seems a bit funny to think about exactly how happy and proud I was, but I really was. It feels so good to see that she is responsive to us and is just taking us all in, little by little. I almost melted into a puddle and just wanted to eat her cute, chubby face then and there. My little, sweet, smart baby. I just love her to no end.