The big sister I never had

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One of my good friends from my last company has been an invaluable support to me since before I even got pregnant and while I was on my IVF journey. She and her husband have graciously and generously given us literally a boatload of lightly used baby items, ranging from big, essential items such as our bassinet to our baby lounger to our car seat cozy to swaddle blankets. These are items that we have literally used every single day since the baby has come home. And instead of getting us a baby gift, she and her husband gifted Chris and me a delicious food delivery order from a food startup that tries to support refugees and spreads the word about their diverse cultures represented in New York City.

On top of that, she has given me a ton of reassurance every step of the way. For example, two days after the baby was born, I noticed that there were hard lumps on both of my breasts, and I immediately just assumed that I was experiencing clogged milk ducts. I freaked out a little bit, took a bunch of sunflower lecithin pills, and proceeded to massage them out with heat. It actually hurt, too. I told Chris, and of course he was sympathetic and tried to tend to the baby as much as possible while I kept on massaging my breasts. I was already getting scared that I was going to get mastitis, and I texted her to tell her. She told me that given it was so close after giving birth, there was no way that I could already have a clogged milk duct. The lumps that I was experiencing were likely just signs of my milk coming in, as that often times is what it feels like. It can also feel like your breasts are just getting rock hard. These are all good signs, she insisted to me. Your milk is coming in! I was immediately relieved and got really excited. I really wanted to be able to breast-feed my child and know for a fact that she was actually getting milk when she was at my breast.

Last week, she knew that I was feeling overwhelmed with Chris back at work, so she offered to come over to help relieve me by helping with bottle feeds and anything else that I might need help with. She proactively offered to do everything, from chopping vegetables to even cleaning my apartment. There was no way I was going to let her clean my apartment, so I asked if she could help with bottle feeding the baby. She knew that I was missing my Asian greens, so she went to Flushing the morning she came over and picked up four different types of Asian vegetables just for me, on top of stopping by one of my absolute favorite Chinese restaurants to get me some shengjianbao, or fried Shanghainese dumplings, as well as HK style noodles. I felt really overwhelmed by her generosity and kindness. It was like she was trying to take care of me when she knew that I was feeling inadequate and in need of some TLC. When she came over, we caught up and talked about a lot of things, mostly around motherhood, balancing child care and having a child in general with having an actual life. I often times look at her like the big sister I never had; I am so grateful that I have her.

First visit from my cousin, his wife, and son

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I had been dreading my cousin and his family coming over. They live fairly close, just right across the park on the Upper East Side, but his entire marriage and the way he and his wife have raised their son just screams dysfunctional. She blames him for everything, and he blames her for everything. Each sees themselves as a victim and the other as the reason for their misery. It’s truly a match made in hell, and you wonder how these two people even got married and had a kid together. There is very little joy in meeting up with them. The last time I had seen them, I went to help them move from their old apartment on the Upper West Side to the new place on the east side. Every time my cousin asked his wife a question, she would ignore him. When I would ask her something or tell her something, she’d immediately respond. Well, nothing had changed, as this same situation repeated itself when they showed up today. It was made even more awkward by the fact that their son was with them, and he is not totally all there. The baby was clearly with me, and he asked where the baby was. He had no interest in seeing or really interacting with my child at all even though he claimed he did when he walked in. And his mother was constantly grabbing and holding him even though he’s almost 10 years old. All of them kept their masks on the entire time, and seemingly were too scared to touch anything in our apartment in fear that we would likely give them COVID. They wouldn’t even take a glass of water from us to drink. My cousin barely even looked at my child and was on his phone almost the entire time.

So yeah, that was a fun and riveting visit. At least they dropped off two brand new play mats for my baby.

Baby’s first bath by mama

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If you can believe it or not, tonight was the very first time I bathed my baby. My baby is over two months old, and since the day she was born, we have had a night nurse come about four nights a week who has taken care of her baths. Because of that, I have actually never bathed her. For the first week of her life, her umbilical cord was still intact, and you are not supposed to bathe your baby or submerge her body in water when the cord is still intact. Instead, you are supposed to give the baby sponge baths and avoid getting water around her belly button, which could get infected. Our night nurse took care of all of this, and so we never had to worry about her belly button getting infected.  Our night nurse Cheryl is leaving us to go to her next client who booked her far in advance, and so tonight was her very last night with us. On her last night, she suggested that I bathe the baby and that she watch. And so, I bathed my baby for the very first time.

 Kaia loves her baths. The very first bath she had after her umbilical cord fell off, she was really pissy and hated it. She screamed and yelled and cried from the beginning until the end. Her second bath was much more pleasant with just a little bit of crying. And her third bath onward, she loved it as though it was a luxurious spa experience. Her little bathtub came with a newborn sling, as well as two additional accessories: one bottle with little holes in it to drizzle water all over her, as well as a little whale with tiny holes in it to sprinkle water over her body as entertainment. She absolutely loves her tiny little whale and having water sprinkled all over her head. This is probably her favorite part of the bath, as she really just laps it up and has endless smiles.

So I bathed Kaia this evening, and while I enjoyed it, I realized that I felt a little bit disabled because my hands hurt while keeping her body upright and especially when turning her over to get her back. It was hard for me to have a good grip on her body especially, while flipping her over to wash her back. It would have been easier to have two people do this. Since that experience, our new night nurse Annie has given a couple of tips in terms of making sure that the grip is strong on her body when flipping her over while she’s wet: use a dry washcloth on her chest when you flip her over so that your hand is gripping the washcloth instead of her slippery body. And then, keep the wet washcloth on her back. This will ensure a grip on both sides so that you don’t accidentally dropped the baby or lose grip.

These night nurses know everything.

Visits to meet our baby while she is being nursed

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Last weekend, a friend and his wife came over to visit Kaia for the first time. Given she feeds so often, as in every three hours, and I nurse her during the day, I am pretty open about the fact that my breasts will be out, and no, I will not cover them up. I’m in my own damn house, so I need to be comfortable. So I tend to preface all visitors with this message: Just giving you the head’s up that my nipples will be out, so hope you’ll be comfortable with that!

So they came and visited for a short duration while I nursed Kaia on one breast and had my Haakaa breast pump that pumped and caught milk drops on the other breast. I felt totally comfortable during this while we chatted. But afterwards, Chris said that they were both extremely awkward; my friend was doing his very best to look away from the direction of my breasts, and his wife was trying hard to be extremely polite, staring straight ahead as though actively avoiding my view.

I wish that as a culture, we could be more open minded and “normal” about breast/chest feeding. It’s really not that big of a deal. This is how animals feed their children. There is absolutely nothing sexual or inappropriate or questionable about seeing a person breast/chest feeding their baby in the presence of other people. If I saw them staring at my breasts while I fed my baby, I really would not care. This is human and animal nature and thus is natural. Americans need to stop being so prudish about something that is just natural: feeding one’s child.

Multi-tasking while pumping milk

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It’s often been said that mothers are the best multi-taskers on earth. Why is that the case? Well, it’s because they don’t have the choice of multi-tasking; they MUST multitask simply to survive and ensure their children’s survival and comfort. This is also the only way shit gets done in the house.

Here is a list of things I’ve completed while connected to my Spectra S1 breast pump. I’m pretty proud of myself, if I can say that, given that this Spectra pump, even with its built-in battery, is basically like carrying around a mini bowling ball everywhere that’s connected to both my nipples.

Cutting vegetables and fruit

Preparing toast

Mashing up avocado

Preparing morning oatmeal

Eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Brushing my teeth (I do not recommend this; this was ominous!)

Flossing my teeth

Entertaining baby in Baby Bjorn bouncer chair

Double boiling and heat aerating Chai

Whisking matcha

Disinfecting kitchen counters and bathroom sink

Scrubbing toilet bowls

Preparing breast milk and formula bottles

Wiping up baby spit up on floor

Washing dishes

Writing blog posts, responding to emails

Listening to and reading the news

Phone calls with friends/family

Answering the door when food delivery comes (yes, I really did this)

Voice to text dictation for this blog

Sitz baths for postpartum healing

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Before I had gotten discharged from the hospital, the nurse packed me a sitz bath to bring home to use in order to heal my rectum and vagina. A sitz bath is essentially a bath for your nether regions: you set it up on top of your toilet after lifting the lid and the seat up. You fill the shallow bath with warm water along with Epsom salts and mix it up. Then, you takeoff your pants and underwear and sit on top of it for about 5 to 15 minutes. The Epson salts as well as the heat of the water are supposed to help heal your rectum and vagina from all of the trauma that you experienced during childbirth. I had read about sitz baths leading up to giving birth, but I wasn’t set on buying a sitz bath for myself, so lucky me, I got one for free at the hospital… Or, you can also say that nothing is free at any U.S. private hospital in reality because the raw cost of giving birth at Lenox Hill, when you combine the costs for both you and your baby (because yes, your baby does get a separate bill as soon as she pops out) is over $80,000. But that’s another story for another day.

Anyway, this was part of the many things that were packed for us to take home after giving birth. I did not get around to actually using it until about one week postpartum. I finally took a little bit of time during  one evening to do a sitz bath for myself. I considered it part of my self care and healing. So I would set myself up in the second bathroom, fill the sitz bath with warm water and lavender Epsom salts that Chris’s brother bought me for Christmas, and then just sit there. I would have my phone away and literally just sit in stillness for 10-15 minutes. It was a short, sweet time every day almost every day for about 3-4 weeks when I would just meditate in silence by myself and have warmth enveloping my nether regions. And I could not believe how good it felt the very first time, and every subsequent time. I felt an immediate “ahhhhhhh.”

I pretty much got hooked on doing this. It especially felt good when the few stitches I had inside my vagina started to heal, which tends to cause itchiness. As soon as my bottom hit that warm water and salt, it was as though all the itchiness just dissipated just like that. And even though the time that I spent on top of that sitz bath was short, it was a really calming time, and I looked forward to it every evening.

One of the fun things about the sitz bath is that it has the slits in it to allow the water to drain. That way, if you overfill it by accident and you put your bottom on it, the water will just drain directly into the toilet bowl. But if you think about it, the sound of the water dripping into the toilet bowl is going to sound just like urine dripping into the toilet. And so, one day, Chris decided to carry the baby into the bathroom to come check up on what I was doing. And he looked at me, then looked at the baby, and kind of smiled. 

“It sounds like you are peeing!”

“You are really loving that thing!” 

“How long are you going to be using that vag bath?”

I thought that I would no longer need it anymore at this point of my postpartum state.  But then, out of nowhere while peeing one day recently, I started getting a burning sensation in my vagina after wiping. So, it looks like I may not be retiring my sitz bath as soon as I thought.

Baby’s first skill: sticking out her tongue

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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.

Dreaming of an angioplasty

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I haven’t been able to remember most of my dreams since our baby was born, but the dream I had last night really stood out and definitely highlights all my focus around my milk supply for baby and how I obsess over it.

In my dream, I was at the doctor’s office going over some test results because of some chest pain I told the doctor I was experiencing, and she informed me that I had a blocked artery that she was concerned about. The only way to address and resolve this would be to schedule an angioplasty for me, which is a procedure to restore blood flow to the heart without open heart surgery. It’s considered a minor surgery… but definitely NOT something commonly done on someone of my age.

My immediate reaction was not to be concerned about my own health or the fact that this was a sign of heart disease. Instead, my response was… is there any way we can reschedule this procedure so that I can do this after I’ve weaned my baby off breast milk? If I have this procedure done, I’ll be off my pumping schedule, and I won’t be able to pump on the day of the surgery or during the weeks after that due to recovery, and that will ruin my milk supply and possibly even cause me to dry up, and I NEED to give my baby as much breast milk as possible! Can we wait until she’s at least a year old?

My doctor looked at me like I was absolutely insane… which I was with the response I had. We were talking potentially about life or death for me, and I was only thinking about… my baby getting my breast milk…?!

Almost skipped a MOTN (middle of the night) pump

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It was Valentine’s morning this morning, and oddly enough, I had a full five hours of continuous sleep, which is the longest stretch of sleep I have had since the day before my baby was born.

You would think that I would have been happy about this, but instead when I woke up on my own at around 4:20 AM this morning, I was in a panic because I realized that I had hit “off” on my alarm for 2:20 AM to wake up to pump. I usually will hit snooze, but in my sleep deprived and exhausted state, I hit “off“ instead, resulting in my continuing to sleep for an additional two hours. I had had dreams, or nightmares rather, of missing my middle of the night pump multiple times, so clearly this was a source of potential anxiety for me. In my dreams, I miss my middle of the night pump completely and of course panic about my milk supply dropping. If you follow any exclusive pumping blogs and websites, they all warn you to never skip your middle of the night pump up until the time that your supply regulates, which is around the 12-week postpartum mark, otherwise you could severely torpedo your milk supply for after your supply regulates.

I’d had at least a dozen dreams of missing my MOTN pump. In real life, I would wake up in a panic at around 5 or 5:30 AM, to see the milk I had expressed during my 2:30 AM pump sitting and cooling in the fridge where it usually is. This time, I literally jumped out of bed to go into the kitchen to get my pump ready. And well, it was not the end of the world because I actually expressed almost an ounce of additional milk more than I normally do during my 2:30 AM pump. So at least that made me happy.

I feel like my entire waking and subconscious thoughts surround themselves around my milk supply, my output, and how much breastmilk I am producing for my baby to drink and whether I will have enough for her. Granted, I recognize I do not have enough to 100% cover her needs every single day, but if I am able to get to about 75 to 80% of her needs and cover the rest with formula, I will be comfortable. That is not ideal, as I would love to be able to provide her 100% of her needs with a little to put away for a freezer stash, but I am not sure or confident that that is in the cards for me.

Baby laundry: not dryer safe

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Before having a baby, I was warned by many other parents about how much laundry I would end up doing. It wasn’t necessarily that babies need a lot of clothes or that they get that dirty that often. It was more that they will spit up a lot on their own clothes as well as on yours. It is also that they are unpredictable when it comes to how many blowouts they will have. You may also have situations when you are taking off one of their dirty diapers, and then, you accidentally get some of their pee or poop on their clothes. Then, the baby can no longer wear that onesie or shirt anymore, and you have to soak it and get it ready for the wash. Or, another situation that may arise during a diaper change when you are changing them: they suddenly decide, oftentimes reflexively, that they want to take one of their little feet or hands and shove it right into the dirty diaper. Then, while you are trying to block them from getting into that dirty diaper, the smear ends up happening. Voila: there, you have another situation of yet another piece of dirty clothing that you have to wash.

Also, when other parents warned me about how much laundry I was going to be doing as a parent, no one warned me that baby clothes and baby cloth items cannot be washed in the same way that I wash my own clothes. What I mean by that is, these items often times will say, wash in cold water only, wash on delicate cycle, do not tumble dry, do not put in dryer; not dryer safe. Why is this the case? Well, for the clothes, it’s because the baby clothes will shrink. They are already so small. For the other items? I have no freaking clue. These baby companies need to get their crap together and actually make their cloth items washer and dryer safe. Stat. 

So what the hell are you supposed to do? You’re just supposed to air dry everything? When did having a baby and her clothes become so unbelievably high maintenance? I don’t even do this for over 99% of my own clothes! And I am an adult! 

Not everyone has the luxury of having an outdoor space with clean, crisp air where they can just line dry clothes and hang them up in the midst of sun and nature. Some of us actually live in urban areas where we dwell in apartments and cannot line dry our clothes and have them be nice and soft and fluffy once they are dry. We don’t even have a rack to hang clothes to dry. When we have the occasional item that needs to be air dried, I will usually hang it on a clothing hanger and then put it on the shower rod in the bathroom. But I can’t really do that with the baby’s clothes because they are so small and would just fall off. So what we have ended up doing is just putting all of her wet clothes out of the washer all around the dining room table and chairs to dry. And sadly, once they are dry, they are not soft and fluffy. Some of them are actually a little bit rough, as sad as that sounds. It depends on the material of the item, but some of them really are just not soft… At all. And that makes me sad given the original state the clothing item was in. Luckily, most of those items, after a few days in her drawers, get a little bit softer by the time she wears it. So in the end, it’s not so bad. But it is definitely not in its original baby soft condition.

So yes, you can add this to the list of things that I was not anticipating when becoming a new parent. No one warned me how high maintenance baby clothes and baby cloth items would be to wash. And don’t even get me started on the lounger covers and how hard they are to take on and off, not to mention baby chair covers. Those items also need to be air dried. How riveting and fun for new, tired, sleep-deprived parents.