12 weeks old

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“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.

A continued weak suck and a second clogged duct 

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Two nights ago, it was just me and Chris with the baby at home. Usually when it’s just Chris and me, I will do the baby’s last feed of the night at around 10 PM. Afterwards, I will do my last pump for the night and go to sleep for approximately three hours. Then, I’ll wake up around 3 AM to do my middle of the night pump. However, I have noticed that the baby tends to be a little bit more feisty on the nights when I have her. That night, she had about 3/4 of her bottle when she started falling asleep. I figured that this was a sign that she was full, so I burped her, held her upright for an additional 10 minutes, and then started to swaddle her to bring her to her bassinet. She was totally fine throughout this entire process… Until I started swaddling her, and she started crying for more food. So I said OK, I can give you more food. I fed her about 20 mL more breastmilk, and then, she started falling asleep yet again. This time, I went through the exact same process as I did above, and then at the exact point when I started swaddling her, she started crying…  again. I was like, seriously?! You need to go to bed and make up your mind and stop grazing! This is your last meal of the night, and it is not a buffet spread that you can just graze at and pick at little bit of foods with on tiny toothpicks!

I gave her about 10 mL more breastmilk until she started falling asleep again. Then, for the third time, I started swaddling her, and she started crying. This is when my patience really wore thin. I continued swaddling her and then picked her up, rocked her, and sang her a song. I told her that this time, she was not getting any more food, and I did not care how much she was going to cry. I needed to pump, and then I needed to go to sleep. She needed to sleep right then and there.

She eventually complied and started falling asleep. I put her in her bassinet and immediately went to set up my pump. I did my last evening pump, and then I went to sleep. I looked at the clock, and it was just a couple minutes past midnight. That was so frustrating. I needed to wake up in three hours to do my middle of the night pump, and the thought made me miserable. I told myself OK, maybe I’ll give myself an extra hour of sleep and get up to pump at 4am. One additional hour of sleep felt very nice and luxurious, and I was going to give it to myself.

Well, I woke up after my alarm went off, and Chris asked if I was going to get up to pump. He was up waiting for the baby to stir so that she could have her middle of the night feed. I immediately felt a weird lumpy sensation in my right breast, in addition to the same tingly sensation on both my boobs, telling me I needed to pump ASAP or risk engorgement. I started massaging both of my breasts as I normally do before a pump, but I noticed that there were two lumps on the top of my right breast… and I was not happy. Seriously? I gave myself one extra hour of sleep, just four consecutive hours, and my punishment is milk duct clogs?? 

I went to do my pump and got a good amount of milk, more than I normally do around this time of night. I actively massaged out both lumps to see if I could loosen them. One of them seemed to have gone away, but one of them still remained. It was strange that my milk output was higher than usual despite having these lumps, because most of the time when you have clogs, they actually block the milk from flowing. That ends up reducing your output from what you normally get. When I finished my pump, I went back to sleep and woke up again in about three hours to do my first morning pump. And this was when I realized that the clog was not going away unless I manually got rid of it: my right breast produced just half of what my left breast produced this time. The unevenness in both of the bottles that I was pumping really unnerved to me. I knew I had to get this clog out, and get it out ASAP.

I went up to the hot tub on the roof and actively massaged the clog. I used the Haakaa and Epsom salt hack with warm water, and soaked my nipple in it about four times throughout the day. I also applied my Theragun on the clog and pushed it down towards towards my nipple. I made sure to be prepared, as I put a bottle under my nipple, and thankfully I did: milk sprayed everywhere when I did this, and I even got it all over my shirt. I am stingy with breastmilk as an under supplier, and there was no way that I was just going to let the milk spray everywhere and lose it if I could control it. I tried massaging the clog out in the shower, and I also noticed milk spraying. I took sunflower lecithin pills throughout the day, which are supposed to loosen fatty milk and prevent clogged ducts.

Finally that evening, I did more Theragun massage, as painful as that was, and did a last Haakaa and Epsom salt nipple soak for the night. this resulted in the clog finally loosening in a way that looked promising: in the Epsom salt soak, which was colored purple because of the lavender in the Epsom salt mixture, I saw a big, slow gush of white fluid in the Haakaa breast pump that eventually spilled out. While it made me sad to lose this milk, it made me really happy to actually see this Haakaa hack in action and actually working. I continued to massage the clog and gradually felt that it was getting smaller and flatter. Then, I thought that it would be a good measure to get into another hot shower, use a hot wet hand towel, and continue to apply pressure to ensure that the clog was gone while bending over to let gravity help me. I used the heel of my hand as my friend suggested and more milk sprayed out. Did I finally get it all?

I did my 8:30 PM pump, and my right breast produced just over 10 mL… That was miserable to see. And unfortunately, I did not see milk spraying out of the milk ducts that I know this clog is associated with on the top of my breast. I didn’t think the clog was fully out. When I massaged the top part of my breast, I still felt a lump, though it was much flatter and smaller than it was before. However, it looked like my left breast wanted to over compensate for my right breast, and it actually produced the difference of what I normally produce for both breasts during this evening pump, which made me a little happy.

This morning, I took another hot shower after the gym and used the hot towel, the power of the heel of my hand, and bent over to get the clog out further. And this time, there was no doubt about it: The milk just gushed out of my right nipple. It started as long, fast sprays, and then it progressed into huge gushes of milk. I felt one part relief and one part sadness… I felt relief knowing that I was actually making progress to get rid of the clog, but I felt really sad because I was literally seeing my precious breast milk going down the drain and ultimately getting wasted.

 The day before, I had finally, in the last 12 weeks, reached over 20 ounces of breast milk output in a single day. I was proud of myself and my progress, as I had worked so hard to get my milk supply up. But then, as though to punish me and laugh at me, my body gave me a clog the day after. What the actual fuck?! It was like mother nature playing some cruel trick on me.

My mom friend told me that my baby would be able to help me get my clog out, as her baby had always helped her get her clogs out. They always say that a breast pump is never as efficient as a baby at the breast. Well, that is having the assumption that your baby is actually an efficient eater. Well, I knew that that was not going to be the case for me because my baby was not an efficient eater at the boob. And my suspicions were correct: when I placed her on the right side at my breast, she lasted about seven minutes tops before she started wailing loudly. And then this morning, she lasted just four minutes and kept on unlatching and cried yet again. This baby was not going to help me unclog myself at all… I can only hope that this laziness and weakness is not indicative of the person she will grow up to be.

The morale of the story is: take sunflower lecithin pills to prevent clogs. Don’t sleep too long between pumps otherwise your body will punish you. Don’t get too excited about your increased milk supply because your body may come back and bite you in the ass… or in my case, in the boob. MILK CLOGS HURT.

A weak and lazy suck

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When you are a new parent, of course, you’ll think that your baby is cute. You may even think that your baby is the cutest baby on earth, and who could blame you? Every day of my baby‘s life, she gets a little bit older, bigger, and is constantly changing. Every day, I marvel over how cute and sweet she is, and all I want to do is eat her little face. Her face is taking shape, her skin tone is morphing, and she is slowly developing little rolls in her neck. Her cheeks have filled out so that they are super pinch-able. But one thing that doesn’t seem to be changing that the pediatrician and my mom friends around me have encouraged me about is her suck. Most of them were optimistic, and they said that as the baby got older, she would also get stronger. This would mean that her sucking would likely also become stronger. And while she does have some good days on my breast, other days, it’s just as though she is just as weak and lazy on the boob as she was in the first couple of weeks of her life. Sometimes, it honestly just feels like she is licking my nipple, and I am not sure that achieves anything. Who even knows if that counts as “nipple stimulation“ to help my milk supply? I told Chris this, and he said that this was simply foreplay on my breast, and this was not a good use of time for anyone!

A friend suggested that I look into a nipple shield, as nipple shields are supposed to help babies with a weak suck, as it is evidence-based from babies in the NICU, most of whom are premature. The idea is that the babies do not have as much bucal fat in their mouths to be able to properly suck because they are so small, so they need something firmer like a nipple shield to grip their mouths on. My Cleo LC also suggested that I look into this, as well. I was even further encouraged by this when I read a promising story by someone who posted in the breastfeeding group on Reddit, who said that she had a baby who also had poor milk transfer and a weak suck. By using a nipple shield on and off while nursing up until week 13, she was able to get her baby to transfer enough milk so that baby started rejecting all of her bottles that were offered after nursing because she was full. Throughout this period, she maintained her milk supply by pumping milk around the clock, similar to what I have been doing. The crappy thing about the story though, is that she had to go back to work at that point, so she just had to continue pumping milk (this stupid fucking country). But she was still able to nurse her baby successfully in the evenings until her baby was full. 

Well, I spent the five dollars it cost to get a fitted nipple shield for my nipples, and I tried using the nipple shield on and off on one breast while nursing my baby for about two weeks. In the beginning, it actually seems like it was working. She was sucking harder, and when she switched to the other breast, she actually seemed like she was working harder to suck the milk out. But then, there were other sessions when it seemed like it just stressed her out too much, and she would start fighting with the nipple shield. It upset me to see her so stressed, and I didn’t want to make every nursing session this stressful, even if I only used a nipple shield on one breast. And on and off, to make things worse, she was just as lazy as she was before I introduced the nipple shield. So in the end, after about 2 1/2 weeks, I gave up on the nipple shield. Granted, I only spent about five dollars on the nipple shield, so I didn’t feel that bad about it.  I still just really wanted nursing to work, and after using the nipple shield as a last ditch effort, I finally accepted the fact that this is not going to be part of our path forward in nourishing my baby. Pumping was going to be how I would continue to primarily feed her. At least, as long as my sanity was intact, I would continue doing this. My goal is to get to a minimum six months of her diet mostly being breastmilk. Ideally, I would still be providing some breastmilk until she is one year old.  And honestly, I also rationalize this because of the co-pay I paid for my Spectra S1 pump, as well as the new portable pump I just bought, the Baby Buddha, along with the Legendairy milk cups that make it a wearable pump. Well, can you blame me? I’m trying to get the biggest ROI possible out of my investments. And these are all investments in my baby’s health, so I don’t think that there is anything bad about this decision or goal.

When Chris picks out his daily outfit while on family leave

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Ever since the day I went into labor and through our family leave time, Chris has worn pretty much the same outfit every single day. He has worn his Qantas pajama tops through and through. He has somewhere between 30 to 40 Qantas pajama tops that he has received while flying in business class on Qantas over the last number of years. All of them are grey with the Qantas kangaroo logo in black on them. There are also some Qantas top exceptions that are navy blue and less obviously Qantas, as these are the pajama tops that you get while flying Qantas first class. His rationale for wearing them so often, particularly while on leave, is that they are just an everyday long sleeved shirt  that are a little bit loose, comfortable, and no one would know that they are actually a pajama top unless they flew Qantas. This way, he also doesn’t have to think about what to wear. It’s basically like his daily uniform. 

He is certainly correct in all of the above, but it is more comical to me that he literally has an entire dresser drawer full of the exact same top, all neatly folded and rolled into rows, waiting for him to pick out for the next day. Every time we do laundry, there is an entire pile of Qantas pajama tops in their usual grey color, all waiting to be folded and rolled up and put back into the same dresser drawer, one after the other.

This morning, he came back from the pool and took a shower. Our night nurse was still here, and so since his dresser drawer is in the second bedroom where the baby is on night nurse nights, he didn’t want to go in half naked to go grab another shirt. So he asked me to go grab him a shirt from the third drawer. And then he said, “Make sure that it is in the third drawer and in the fourth row on the bottom that you grab the shirt. I need to make sure that I am wearing them in the same order, from oldest to newest (regarding the wash).”

“Uh-huh,” I said in response, rolling my eyes. “I had no idea what shirt you were going to wear today.”

Finally going maskless in the building

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This morning, I was at my computer when I received an email notification from our building management company. Throughout the pandemic, they have sent out notifications around mask mandates, expectations around common areas, and thoughts about the pandemic and pandemic living in general. It’s been nice to see that our management company has been proactive in sending out these updates, particularly since I know other people who also live in buildings overseen by a management company, and they really have not done anything to be proactive about keeping their residents safe during COVID-19. The latest update from management was that finally, after almost 2 years, the mask mandate in the building common areas would be removed to align with the mask mandate being removed across New York City. I honestly could not believe it when I read it: we have been wearing masks in common areas in this building on and off pretty much since April 2020. That is almost two years of never seeing anyone’s full face in our building. It is such a change and something that I really was not anticipating anytime soon… Not because the rates of Covid have been increasing because they have not in New York, but rather because wearing masks has been a new normal for us. I just expected that we would be wearing masks pretty much forever, particularly since there have constantly been new variants of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

When I went downstairs to chat with our building manager, it was almost like a revelation: both of us were talking in a building common area and seeing each other’s full faces. Neither of us was wearing a mask. We both commented on the fact that we could actually see both of our full faces for the very first time, since she started here during the pandemic, and how amazing and ridiculous it was all at the same time. I wonder how long this will last. It felt pretty good, but at the same time, it also felt a little bit scary… Because who the heck knows if not wearing a mask will make us more susceptible to getting this freaking virus?!

Organized baby drawers

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Our night nurse Cheryl was scheduled to start with a new client in the middle of February. Because of this, we knew that our time with her was coming to an end, and so we decided that we would continue to have a Night Nurse come a few nights a week until the baby was sleeping through the night. She told us that her new client is going to be a new type of client for her: it was her first gay couple who is having a baby via a surrogate. One of them had given his sperm for this child and used the egg of their surrogate.  The baby’s due date was February 17, but as we all know, babies rarely come exactly on time, so she was on standby. She also said that with this couple, they had hired her for 24–7 support for a full month. Given that they are a gay couple, she said, and her words, “They are two men. They have zero maternal instinct. So I  need to give them all the help they can get.”

We asked her if she had any referrals for a Night Nurse who could continue in her place until the baby was sleeping through the night, and she gave us a couple of names, one of whom we ended up moving forward with. Her name is Annie , and we tentatively told her that we would like her support through mid April. She started with us this week, and I had a feeling that it was probably going to be good, but just different than what we were used to. We fully trusted Cheryl taking care of our baby. We knew that she knew exactly what she was doing and she taught us so much. With Annie, we trusted her because of the fact that Cheryl had referred her, and we knew that we could trust Cheryl‘s word.  

When Annie came, she was completely different than Cheryl: Cheryl tends to keep to herself and not talk a ton. Annie is super talkative, outgoing, and extremely friendly. She is very proactive about giving advice about the baby and how to manage her as she grows. She also loves talking to the baby and engaging with her. I had a feeling that this would be a good fit at this stage, particularly since the baby is approaching the non-newborn status, meaning that she would actually need a lot more interaction and stimulation. While we were hiring her for overnight support, she also said that she would be open to daytime support if and when needed. And when she came, she was proactive about things that we were not used to: one of them included organizing the baby’s drawers. She offered to take out the baby’s garbage via her diaper pail. She even wanted to get all of her things organized in advance such as her massive Costco box of wet wipes. It was very sweet that she was so proactive, but I wasn’t sure that she was actually going to do these things until yesterday, when I opened one of the baby’s drawers to find everything organized and neatly folded in easy to identify piles. To give you some context, the baby’s set of drawers is not like a regular dresser. The drawers open like doors outwards, as opposed to being pulled out. Because of this, I have always been frustrated organizing clothing in these drawers. But somehow, Annie found a way to organize everything. She had all of the onesies organized, all of the bibs, washers,  towels, even the socks. I could not believe how beautiful and neat the inside of these drawers looked. It was such a pleasant surprise because she didn’t actually tell me before she left that she did all of this. I just felt so happy and grateful to see that this was done, as she really did not have to do this. So I texted her and thanked her for going out of her way and taking care of this. And she said in response, it’s my pleasure! Happy to do it. Just want you to relax. That’s why I am here.

We are so lucky to have found two night nurses to support us who have been great to us and our baby. I had heard some nightmarish stories about hired help for childcare who have fallen asleep while on duty and ignored a crying baby, so in the back of my mind, I was never quite sure what to expect. I just hoped for the best. And well, we really lucked out so far.

First night out since giving birth

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Last night, Chris and I went out together for the first time since Kaia’s birth. He had gone out a few times during the day to meet up with friends and colleagues, and we’d had visitors come over to see the baby, but we had not gone out to do anything fun at all since her arrival. Months ago, Chris had booked us tickets to see the comedian Hasan Minhaj at Radio City Music Hall for tonight. He said that he thought this time frame for going out would be good in terms of getting our routine settled with the baby, and in the end, he was right: we were in a routine and did feel pretty comfortable with her. Plus, we just had a new night nurse start with us who was referred from our last night nurse, who had to leave for another booked client, and she agreed to come a few hours early to watch and care for the baby.

Chris asked if I had any separation anxiety, and I immediately said no. I mean, we were only going to be out for a few hours, and so it didn’t really feel like true “separation” just yet. I think it would be a harder thing and really feel like separation if I were away from our baby for the full day at an office, or worse, on an overnight or multiple night work trip.

The night was amazing as expected: Hasan even talked about some things that hit close to home, such as infertility, starting a family, sucking snot of his baby girl’s nose, and protectiveness over his family. It felt really good to get out of the house and out of the feeding/pumping schedule we’ve been locked into and actually do something fun, something we always did before the baby came. We may end up having this be a semi-regular thing assuming we can find help, as well.

When your husband trolls your parents

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Since my parents found out I was pregnant, they have been insanely overprotective and obnoxious about pretty much everything. They are not shy at all about criticizing me and my decisions, or about telling me when they disagree. One of my mom’s favorite things is to tell me she has more wisdom than me, so I should do what she says…. right. When I went to get the Covid vaccine last May, they both admonished me and said that I was being selfish, only thinking about myself being able to go out to eat and socialize as opposed to thinking about my unborn baby (it was actually the opposite, but hey, they have more wisdom than me!). When I got the COVID-19 booster shot, my mom got even more pissed, saying that I had no idea what risk I was putting my baby in just weeks before labor and delivery. And when I was in San Francisco back in August, Chris was holding back and trying to be very patient when my mother was fussing over me about literally everything: she got mad when I leaned over the dining table to get a dish during dinner, she did not want me bending down, and she obsessed over me eating cold foods. This was all annoying, but I expected it. And since we were only in San Francisco for one week, I put up with it. If I actually lived in the same city with her and had to deal with her fussing over me this much, I probably would’ve told her to take a hike and learn science. 

So, since the baby has arrived, I have tried to communicate to my mother that I’m not going to deal with her ridiculous nonsense. I stopped responding to all of her 5 million daily calls, and I tell them constantly to stop freaking out and that I’m doing what I’m going to do, and I am not going to listen to them. Chris particularly likes to egg them on by trolling them. He takes pleasure in getting reactions out of them because they are that predictable.

The latest episode of this was when one morning, Chris woke up to check on the baby before a feed to see that she had broken out of the swaddle that he had done in the middle of the night. It honestly looked like she was stuck in a big bag and trying to wiggle her way out. He thought this was absolutely hilarious, so he decided to take a video of it, completely aware that this was something that would totally piss off my parents and make them think that we were irresponsible parents to their grandchild. He immediately uploaded it as an unlisted video to YouTube, and that afternoon, he sent it via our group text that he created facetiously among my mom, dad, him and myself.  He laughed evilly and was just waiting for a reaction. 

Well, I took a nap after nursing the baby that early evening for just an hour. And when I woke up, I looked at my phone to see that there were two missed calls, one from my mom and one from my dad. There were also two voice messages, again, one from my mom and one from my dad. In addition to that, my mom sent me a direct text outside of the group text, asking me why I had covered up the baby’s face… She would not be able to breathe. I did not bother listening to the voice messages from both of my parents as I knew that they would be accusatory and irrational. Instead, I quickly looked at the audio transcript on my phone to see that both parents had accused me of suffocating my child – entirely predictable. The funny thing was, the way that my dad started the message was, “Yvonne: there is a video showing that the baby has her face covered.“ Well, considering that it was uploaded to my account, doesn’t he think that… I would know that the video existed?! Granted, they did not know that Chris used my phone to send them this video link, but considering that this is my YouTube account, why does he make it sound like there is a random video out there showing that our grandchild is about to suffocate that I would not be aware of? It’s as though this was news or something that we had no idea about, and that just seemed senseless.

I responded to my mom’s direct text with my usual sentiment: stop freaking out. And then, I ignored both the voice messages as well as the missed calls. On top of that, the next day, I refrained from sharing any photos or videos with them. I cannot deal with their nonsense.

And the more that I think about it, the more ridiculous my dad‘s involvement in this is. To give you some context, my dad has not called me directly probably since September of last year. Even after the baby arrived, he never had any direct voice contact with me until this call. He has only sent me these basic 1 to 2 sentence emails. He has also sent me a handful of texts, but mostly in response to videos and photos that I sent of the baby. The most substantial text he has sent is, “Nice,” or “interesting,” or “very good.” So as you can see, he is not particularly interactive or talkative or… Really involved. 

And when I really, really think about it, it’s ridiculous that he even has these responses considering the fact that he was not really even actively involved in my life while I was a child or my brother’s life except to criticize us. Sure, he paid the bills and made sure we had a roof over our head, but in terms of day-to-day interaction, there was a little to none unless it was a put down. When I think back to my childhood, there was never a time when my dad spent any quality one on one time with either my brother or me. He really did not know us, our interests or hobbies, nor did he make any attempt to show he wanted to build a bond with us or be interested in our lives and development. In fact, he spent more quality one on one time with my pet parakeet. Every night, when he would get home from work, he would spend about 30 minutes to one hour downstairs in the bird’s room, talking to Willie my parakeet, playing with him, and having one on one time with his favorite child… my parakeet Willie.  He never did that with Ed or me. In fact, he barely even said anything to either of us when we were at the dinner table. How does this even make any sense? So now, fast forward to 36 to 43 years later, and he suddenly has all kinds of opinions about my child, his grandchild! And that, when I think about it, is very infuriating. 

So no, I’m not going to put up with them.  And no, I am not going to deal with the fact that they have zero sense of humor and are stuck in their ways, and think that their parenting is the best. Because as you can see from the above, it is clear that their parenting is not the best.

Morning neediness

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Each morning for the last couple of weeks since we’ve been stretching Kaia’s sleep, I’ve began the morning with my usual oatmeal and tea, and Chris will prop Kaia up in her Baby Bjorn chair. I will sit with her, talk to her, sing songs to her, makes faces to her, and “exercise” with her by moving around her arms and legs. I will do this all while connected to my pump for my daily morning power pump, when I’m essentially connected to my breast pump on and off for about an hour and fifteen minutes. She’s always been very alert during this time and very much seemed to absorb all the interactions, closely studying my facial expressions and movements. I’ve really enjoyed this time, especially since she is full, so she doesn’t usually need more food, and I can enjoy time with her while also simultaneously pumping milk for her. So it’s kind of like a two-in-one benefit time.

However, I’ve noticed that as she’s gotten older, she’s gotten a bit needier. Most of the time, she’s fine to babble to herself and wiggle around on her lounger on her own, but while in the chair during these mornings, the minute I leave to go double boil my chai, reheat my tea, or go to the bathroom, she will start yelling out or wailing. Sometimes, even when I break my eye contact with her and look down at my breasts to do breast compressions while pumping, she will even scream at me! I feel sad when she does this because I know she wants the interaction and attention, but at the same time… Mama has got to get shit done and cannot always be attentive with her every second!

Hot tub time

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Since the baby has been born, Chris has been insistent that we do little things to indulge ourselves and relax. One of those things is to make sure that our freezer always has ice cream in it. For him, it means going to the pool regularly to have his morning swim. He started this probably about the time when he went back to work. For me, it has meant occasionally making time to go up to our roof to enjoy the Jacuzzi, or going to the gym to do a 30 minute workout between nursing and pumping after my six-week postpartum checkup.

Today, I went up to the roof to enjoy a quick 15 minutes of the Jacuzzi. And, if I understand the way that hot tubs work, it is normal and expected to have the jets going. That means that there is plenty of water pressure for aching muscles and for relaxation. Having them on always feels good, especially given I have had achy muscles from gradually returning to the gym and working out. My hips have felt strange, and my core and thigh muscles are definitely feeling the transition into working out again. So you can imagine how surprised and weirded out I was when an older woman was in the Jacuzzi without the jets going, and I turned them on when I went in. The jets were going for about 10 minutes when she said to me that she wanted to turn them off for just about five minutes and then she would leave. She said that she just wanted to relax and that the jets were not relaxing.

I gave her a strange look and said it was fine  since I had to leave soon anyway, but in my mind, I was thinking: if you find the jets of a jacuzzi stressful, I really wonder what the hell kind of life you have led? 

This woman, along with her roommate, who is also an older woman, are often times up on the roof enjoying the pool and the Jacuzzi. Our handyman who is also our friend told us that the two of them were formerly doctors before they got retired and as friends, they decided that they would live together and rent an apartment together for company. That sounds like a great way to ensure that they are not lonely in their old age, but honestly, they are both a little neurotic and ridiculous. Yesterday, when I was up on the roof and trying to enjoy the Jacuzzi again, the same woman was in the Jacuzzi while her friend was getting out of the pool. The Jacuzzi has a setting where residents of this building can turn on and off the jets with a timer. The same woman was in the Jacuzzi without the jets and I turned the jets on and set the timer to 15 minutes. Her friend coming out of the pool got alarmed when I turned the jets on, and she looked at me with this crazed expression and asked if I had turned the temperature up on the Jacuzzi. I told her that it was not possible for us to control the temperature of the Jacuzzi and that instead, I had turned on the jets/timer. She was about to enter the Jacuzzi until we had this exchange, and even after I responded to her, she said to her friend/roommate that she was not comfortable getting into the Jacuzzi with the change I had made and would go immediately back to their apartment. I am not sure what the hell makes her think that any building would allow any resident to actually control the heat of a hot tub… Allowing residents to ultimately boil each other to death, but hey, it’s her neuroses that is preventing her from enjoying, and I really did not care.

So, while I do believe that it is cute that these two older women have decided in their golden years to become roommates, a la The Golden Girls, it is just unfortunate that they are both a bit psychotic and slightly spoiled my own relaxed time away from child care duties and pumping.