As a mother of a newborn baby, I guard my baby like a mama bear guards a baby bear. My hope is to nourish my baby with milk that I produce. And so, you can imagine my absolute horror when I find out that I was actually potentially poisoning my own baby.

It happened the third night we were home after coming back from the hospital. We had asked our night nurse to come the first two nights. The first night was because it would be our very first night with the baby home (duh), and Chris thought it would be a good idea for her to also come on the second night because he had heard that babies can be a bit fussy on the second night. Well, the baby was not fussy on the first or the second night. On the first night, she was super sleepy. On the second night, she was similar. On the third night, during the early evening, she started crying like crazy and neither of us could figure out what was wrong. She did not seem that hungry, and her diaper was not dirty. She was not running a fever, nor did she seem too hot or too cold. We just didn’t understand what was going on. And so, we proceeded to take turns holding her and cradling her to calm her down.  And while she was eating from my breast, she just did not seem happy, and I was super confused. The next day, we told our Night Nurse about how upset she was, as it continued and happened on the fourth night, as well, when the night nurse returned. We also noticed that she got really upset after having some breast milk that I had expressed earlier in the day. So the night nurse suggested that it may have been something that I had eaten that had upset the baby through the breast milk. We talked through all the things that I had eaten that were new on Sunday and Monday that I had not eaten on Friday or Saturday: we concluded that it was actually the spicy dal that I had made.

The Night Nurse said that at this early age, the baby could be fussy at multiple types of food, including but not limited to: dairy, leafy greens like cabbage or chard, and beans. This made me pretty upset because I really love dal and enjoy making it. It is probably one of the most enjoyable ways on earth to eat beans, which as an added bonus is just super healthy. And the funny thing is, beans are supposed to be a galactagogue and ultimately help produce more breastmilk. So this was not really great news if this was truly the case. We decided that to be safe, Chris would finish the rest of the dal I had made and I would eat the other food we had.

For the next day or so, we had to give the baby more formula and even toss out the breastmilk I had expressed in fear that the beans in the breastmilk were upsetting her. Our night nurse tried to bring the baby to me once or twice during the middle of the night on the fourth night, but each time, the baby would immediately reject me after latching, screaming and crying, perhaps immediately smelling and sensing the dal residue in my milk. I was so devastated at her rejection, as I was not prepared for it, that the second time it happened, I just burst into tears. I never thought that I would get so upset at my baby rejecting me. But it really hurt. It was likely all of the postpartum hormones running through my body in addition to my complete lack of understanding of how babies can react to different foods that a mother eats while breast-feeding. In addition to that, even though I was able to sleep more that night  because  the night Nurse was not bringing the baby to my breast throughout the night, it made me feel sad and empty because even though it had only been a few nights, I had gotten used to having her at my breast multiple times throughout the night. I missed her. You would think I would’ve been happy to sleep more, but it actually made me upset and feel like I messed up. I was poisoning my baby without realizing it. 

Now, I had spoken with my doulas, two different lactation consultants, and a couple of doctor friends about this afterwards. All of them do not believe that this had anything to do with the dal I had eaten. In fact, they also said that around day 3 to 4 Of a baby’s life, most parents report that fussiness randomly appears out of nowhere if the baby was not already fussy. So, I felt a little bit better about that because I was really upset with myself for making my baby’s stomach upset if that is actually what happened. Granted, I was an inexperienced parent and so I had no idea what I was doing. But Chris insists to this day that it was the dal because he said that it was far spicier than I had probably made it before, and that even for him, it was quite potent. So, to be safe, I have laid off on the spicy dal since that incident and will try to make dal again eventually, but perhaps less spicy, at maybe about the two month mark. The Night Nurse said to introduce foods like that more gradually and when the baby is a tad bit older since her stomach is still developing. So, it’s not that I’m going to be avoiding beans or spicy dal for the entire time that I am breast-feeding, but rather that I will slowly introduce foods like these that could upset a tiny tummy too young. So, that’s good news for me.

“The first breast-feeding tears,“ Chris said, while patting me on my back while I cried. He was trying to console me, but I still felt terrible. At least we potentially knew it was wrong so this would not happen again. This is the life of two new parents navigating the world of raising a child. And this is the guilt of a new mother.

When you become a new parent, one of the things that you will likely learn or be told you should learn is how to swaddle. Swaddling is a technique that is used to wrap up your baby while she is sleeping. The idea behind it is that you wrap her nice and snug so that it mimics the same snugness she had while in your uterus. And of course, it has the added bonus of keeping her warm, and so it’s kind of like a wrap and a blanket at the same time. While to a grown adult it may seem tight and uncomfortable, or even like a stray jacket, for a newborn baby, it is very comforting and helps them sleep better.

Apparently though, it is not a technique that was always used. In fact, my mom looks at the photos of our baby while swaddled and insists that it is too tight and that it will suffocate her to death. So, this is not a technique that has been used across generations. Our baby loves being swaddled, and she sleeps the best when she is swaddled. We know this because during the daytime when she has had longer blocks of being awake, we try to have her sleep without being swaddled, yet she is distracted. But as soon as we swaddle her, she gets to sleep faster and longer. And as you might know, Newborn babies need a lot of sleep, like somewhere between 15 to 17 hours per day. That basically means that the other times that they are awake, they need to eat, be burped, bathed, have their diapers changed, and have a very tiny bit of stimulation from us adults. 

Anyway, Swaddled babies just look super cute. They are essentially like little burritos with their hands and arms tight against their body and their legs all nice and wrapped up. There really could not be any cuter way of photographing your newborn baby. 

There are many techniques on how to swaddle your baby, and most require you to have a swaddle blanket that is laid out in the shape of a diamond with the pointed part closest to you. You then fold the top part of the diamond just a tad so that it forms a triangle, and then you wrap your baby. But unfortunately, while I practiced this technique on my Pooh bear stuffed animal before our baby arrived, I realized that it was not snug enough for a real tiny human and she would constantly get loose. But thankfully, our Night Nurse has a great technique that starts with the swaddle blanket folded in half into a triangle shape that has kept our baby comfortable and snug. We have both practiced this a number of times, and now I am pretty comfortable doing it myself and making sure that baby is nice and tight and won’t break out. Chris is still not super comfortable with it at this point and still relies on me to do this. While there are shortcut auto-swaddles that you can buy that we also have a few of, honestly, I get satisfaction out of knowing that I am swaddling my baby with an old-fashioned technique. And it just looks cuter. and, if you can maximize the cuteness of your newborn, then why not?

One of the joys of becoming a parent is having the absolute pleasure of sucking snot out of your baby’s nose. In today’s modern age, there are tools that have been built to make this process very simple and easy. But, if you do not have a snot sucker from a mainstream brand like Frida Baby, you can certainly create a makeshift snot sucker by using a straw that is skinny enough. Just make sure that the diameter of the straw will fit your baby’s tiny little nostrils, otherwise it may not work as well, or it may irritate your baby’s delicate nose.

While holding my baby this morning and admiring her beautiful and cute little face, I suddenly noticed that she had a booger stuck in one of her nostrils. And I remembered that we had a snot sucker that was part of a baby care kit that we received as a gift from our baby registry.

 So of course, I got excited to use one of the little baby tools that we were gifted, and I immediately pulled it out. I put the different pieces together, and I laid my baby down on a mat on our bed and proceeded to suck the snot out of her nose with my mouth. Initially, she did not seem to mind. She kind of just closed her eyes and grimaced a little. But gradually, she realized that this was uncomfortable, and she started pulling away and moving her face from me, and also started crying a little. Luckily, the booger was closer to the front of her nostril, so it did not take too much time to dislodge. And, I am not going to lie: I got a bit of satisfaction in doing this, knowing that I was clearing the nasal passages of my baby and making it easier for her to breathe. I am her mother, and I was taking care of her. I was accomplishing a parental duty.

Chris kind of rolled his eyes at me and laughed, saying that I am “always picking,” so of course, I would enjoy doing such an activity on our child. That is just some thing that you would like doing, he said. And well, I guess it is true: I enjoy knowing that I am helping our baby be more comfortable and snot free. I also enjoy seeing my work completed… As in, the snot removed from her nose and now visibly in the tube. I mean, what mother would not want this?

Human babies have one way to communicate, and that is by crying. Human babies are obviously not born being able to speak, so the only way they can communicate that they need something is by crying. This can mean that they are hungry, they have a dirty diaper that needs changing, something has disturbed them, such as a sudden sound or gust of wind, or they may be too hot or too cold. So when you think about this, it makes sense that babies crying is just a normal and expected thing.

When we first brought our baby home, I was surprised because her cry really was not that loud. But, as the weeks have passed and of course our baby has gotten bigger and grown older, her cry has also gotten stronger and louder. She has cries that mean different things that we have learned to interpret: she has a cry for hunger another cry for attention, and what Chris calls a fake hunger cry, which means that she is not really hungry but just wants to pacify on a nipple. That could mean a bottle nipple or my own nipple, but nevertheless she wants to have her mouth on a nipple to soothe herself.

Often times when people complain about having a baby, they talk about how frustrating it is when babies cry. But when you are a parent, crying is just a normal sound in the same way that sirens in New York City are a normal thing that you hear while you live here. So Chris was talking about this the other day, and he said that crying doesn’t really bother or disturb him anymore, that it’s just another sound in the background for him. And I would tend to agree… Except when it’s in the middle of the night and your baby is hungry but she needs a diaper change first, and you just want to go back to sleep. In those moments, the crying pierces my ears and almost feels deafening. And it’s funny that I am even saying this because I know based on what our night nurse has said that our baby is very easy compared to most babies. So while I am grateful for this, sometimes the screaming really can be frustrating. I am just so thankful that our baby is not colicky because I have no idea how I would ever be able to manage that and still remain sane.

If you told me during my pregnancy that I would have to do a triple feed program on my baby, a) I would have had zero idea what you were referring to, and b) I’d probably respond with something ignorant like, “but I’m planning to breastfeed!” I didn’t realize that “combo feeding,” or breastfeeding *and* formula feeding, was a thing; I just thought you chose one path or the other. I had no idea that “exclusive pumpers” or moms who pump milk and feed it to their babies via a bottle was a thing. I always just thought people pumped milk for their babies when they could not physically be there (as in, they’re going back to work). I didn’t know that “breastfeeding” referred to both nursing *as well as* bottle feeding breast milk. I really didn’t know much about any of this stuff at all despite having taken an online breastfeeding course from a reputable source, as well as reading endless articles and blogs on breastfeeding. I thought “latch” was the key to ensuring breastfeeding success; I had no idea what poor milk transfer meant. I had no idea that inadequate milk removal, either via a baby’s sucking or a breast pump, could torpedo your milk supply, nor did I fully understand the “supply and demand” process that a new mom’s milk supply would be determined by.

I really didn’t understand any of this, and I’m scrambling to read and learn more about it all now, which may be too late to recover my milk supply. I have no idea. But I guess that’s what it means to be a mom: always doubting yourself, always feeling like you’re failing or that you are inadequate, always feeling like you can do more. There are social media memes for pumping moms, saying that you shouldn’t measure your love in ounces (of milk), but somehow, that’s how I’m feeling about myself and my crappy output via this breast pump I feel like I am a slave to.

The job of a mother never ends; it doesn’t end when you shut down your computer for the day or close out Slack or put your phone on silent. It literally goes on 24 hours a day with no break. It feels like the little “me” time I have is in the shower, massaging or stretching my arms and hands, and even looking out the window to take deep breaths and remind myself that I’m doing the best job I can despite the little sleep I am getting. I hate pumping, but pumping is the only way I can ensure my baby gets breast milk, so the pumping journey continues.

A few days after giving birth to Kaia, my aunt messaged to say that she was putting together a care package of dried ingredients to send to me. This was so that I could make the ji jiu tang, or chicken wine soup that is a well known and popular Chinese postpartum soup. She said that I likely didn’t have time to go down to Chinatown to buy all the ingredients, so she wanted to save me some time and effort and send them over. She obviously could not send over the chicken or the Chinese rice wine, but she sent all the dried ingredients: dried shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, lily buds, and Chinese red dates. In addition to these, she also sent some chocolate, a random bag of dried lentils (that my mom apparently asked her to pack me… don’t ask), and a carefully double bagged ziplock bag of thinly sliced ginger soaked in Chinese sweet black vinegar. She messaged and called several times to let me know how sorry she was that she couldn’t be here in person to make this as well as other Chinese postpartum dishes for me, but she hoped that I could make the soup myself with the ingredients she sent. “Don’t forget the ginger!” she said. Ginger, if you didn’t already know, is in pretty much EVERY Chinese postpartum dish. The black vinegar-soaked ginger is in place of the Chinese black vinegar/pork knuckle soup that is a well known Cantonese postpartum dish that moms or grandmas will make for their female family members after giving birth. She told me to eat a few pieces of the soaked ginger each day to help my body recover.

Other than the chicken, the only thing I needed to run out and buy was rice wine, so I went to a local wine shop to pick some up. Unfortunately, they didn’t have Chinese wine and only had Japanese rice wine, so I got a bottle of that (after texting my aunt to confirm this wouldn’t change the flavor or essence), soaked all the dried ingredients to rehydrate them, and dumped them into my Dutch oven to prepare. She was right: it really was easy to prepare and didn’t need too much precision. And when the soup was simmering over the stove, a very familiar savory, warming scent wafted through the apartment, and I realized that I’d had this soup many times growing up. When I took a taste of it, it was like I was immediately transported home into my grandma’s kitchen: she made some of the most delicious Chinese soups, many of which required hours and hours of simmering chicken and pork bones down to nothing. I immediately felt comforted and knew I would enjoy every spoonful of this. Chris enjoyed the soup, as well.

In my family, food is basically a love language, but I suppose that’s like most Asian families. Most of the time, they won’t tell you that they love you or care about you, but you know they care about you when they ask if you’ve eaten (then constantly add food to your plate until you are stuffed to the brim), and when they remember your favorite foods and ensure you have them when you come over to their home (or order them when out at a restaurant). You also know they love you when they prepare delicious, nourishing soups like this one for you, or when they so painstakingly soak hand cut and peeled ginger for hours for you and have it Priority-Mail shipped to get to you ASAP after giving birth, or when they insist that you have this soup for yourself and apologize endlessly for not being there in person to nourish you themselves in your delicate postpartum state. I felt so loved when I received the care package from my aunt, and I made sure to send her photos to get her seal of approval once I finished making the soup, as well.

“Smart girl!” she texted me back. “The soup looks very good! Now I’m going to make a big pot of it to eat, too!”