When your mom starts getting nervous

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Okay, to be fair, my mom is pretty much always nervous. In fact, I think it’s her default state to be nervous. Part of that is because of all the turmoil and terror she experienced living in a poor, rural village in Vietnam, then being there for the war, then entering the U.S. and being treated like crap by her mother-in-law and her new family she married into. But part of it, sometimes, feels like she just looks for things to be nervous or anxious about. We’re currently in week 35 of my pregnancy, and she said she’s getting anxiety about my going into labor. She kept asking questions today about whether we had everything ready – safe place for baby to sleep, diapers, changing area. She asked if there was food for us to eat in our freezer. She expressed remorse again that she wouldn’t be here to help prepare nourishing postpartum foods for me. She asked again (maybe because she inherently thinks men are useless… since that seems to be a favorite topic of hers concerning my dad in the last nine months regarding the two babies she birthed) to confirm that Chris was, in fact, planning to take time off in the beginning to help. She said she’s basically on standby waiting to hear news about when I will pop. And it’s highly unlikely that when this does happen that I’m going to call her between contractions to announce, “Hi, Mommy! Guess what — I’m in LABOR!”

Baking as nesting

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This afternoon, since I had some free time, I started making cookie dough for alfajores, those delightfully buttery, flaky South American sandwich cookies that I’m totally obsessed with. I think alfajores are likely one of the most perfect little cookies on the planet, as they are rich, indulgent, flaky, not too sweet, but sweetened with a delicious and sticky caramel filling. The dough is a bit hard to work with, as it’s super delicate and usually made from a mixture of corn or tapioca starch, a tiny bit of regular all purpose flour, and bound with butter and egg yolks, but it’s always so gratifying when the cookie cut outs are made. Alfajores were on my list of things “to make” before the baby came as a small indulgence to myself, both as an activity and as a treat to enjoy.

A lot of people like to make comments that if they had all the money in the world, they would just outsource tasks like cooking certain dishes or baking certain desserts so that they could just enjoy. But to me, it wouldn’t matter if money meant nothing and if I had Jeff Bezos’s wealth because baking and cooking are basically part of my identity and what makes me happy. If you took away cooking and baking from me, I’d probably feel weird and incomplete. I’m partly making these cookies for fun and as a treat for myself before Pookie Bear arrives, but also because I want to share them with my friends who are coming over for brunch this weekend. Food is meant to be eaten and shared and enjoyed, and this will be the very first time we’ve hosted anyone over for a meal since pre-pandemic, so I want to make sure it’s delicious.

Hand expressing during pregnancy

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Chris and I were on a Google Hangout chat with his cousin and wife on Saturday night and discussing pregnancy and breast feeding. His cousin’s wife, who is a midwife/nurse, told me that it’s becoming more recommended in Australia to begin hand expressing milk before the baby is born, after 35 weeks of gestation. While I’d heard of women experiencing colustrum leakage in the weeks leading up to birth, I’d never heard of women actually expressing and pumping milk before baby arrives. She said that since it may cause labor to begin, it’s safest to begin this process after 35 weeks. According to the Haakaa manual pump site, they suggest doing it after 37 weeks to be safe. You basically manually warm and squeeze your breasts to try to express the thick colustrum (first breast milk, which is usually really thick unlike later breast milk) out. Only a little comes out at a time, so it’s collected via a sterilized syringe and then stored in the fridge or freezer so that when baby is born, she will have food to immediately eat. Plus, this also expedites your body producing milk instead of waiting 3+ days for regular milk to come after birth since your breasts operate on a demand cycle; the more you express and feed, the more milk your body will produce.

This totally made sense to me, but I had no idea why no one had mentioned this to me before. My doctors never mentioned it, and neither did my doulas. I’m apprehensive about labor before 37 weeks, though, so I’m going to wait until week 37 to try this out. It’s supposed to be frustrating and have a big learning curve, but I’m definitely willing to do it, especially to prevent my baby from having these disgusting American infant formulas that have corn syrup and sugar in them.

Friends for nearly a quarter of a century

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Tonight, I was on a Zoom chat with two of my close friends. The conversation mostly revolved around my pregnancy and little baby coming soon, as well as my friend having her in-laws come for about two months after a very long pandemic period of not seeing each other, as well as random other family topics.

When we were growing up, we used to talk about how fun it would be if we all had kids around the same time so that we could become moms together and raise our children together. They’d have play dates and become good friends. We’d spend all this family/friend time together. I guess that isn’t really happening since I decided to move away. One of the three of us is never planning to have kids. So that picture we used to have in our minds isn’t really happening. It makes me wonder what kind of connection, if any, our kids will have to each other: will they remember seeing each other after long periods of time not seeing each other? Or will they just be some random distant person who is easily forgotten?

Regardless of what happens, I’m still grateful for their friendships and for how far I’ve gotten in this pregnancy to date. It still feels unreal that I’m almost 35 weeks into this pregnancy, and Pookie Bear still appears to be thriving. I feel extremely lucky.

Diversity of food in NYC

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It was Saturday today, so we were out and about yet again for another food crawl, this time around the Fordham / Arthur Avenue area in the Bronx. Unfortunately for me, I felt especially heavy and slow today, and it seems like during longer walks, my Braxton Hicks contractions keep going a little out of control. Walking up stairs now gets me far more winded than it used to, and so I am definitely a lot slower than even just a few weeks ago. I guess we’re in the home stretch, so I can manage this for just another month or so before totally going nuts.

It may only be in New York where you can get access to authentic Dominican and Puerto Rican cuisine and amazing Italian cuisine within blocks of each other. We made stops at some old staples we found last year, like Cuchifritos for mango juice, chicharron, and alcapurrias, Gino’s Pastry Shop for my favorite NYC cannoli, and also at the Calabria Pork Store for freshly made sausage (this time, I chose sweet Italian with fennel). We also discovered some new spots, like Borgatti’s for fresh pasta (we got fresh tagliatelle egg noodles and ricotta/porcini ravioli), and Casa Della Mozzarella, which had quite the line out its door. They are famous for being on multiple lists for making the very best mozzarella in New York City. Our main sit down meal was at Antonio’s, where we had magherita pizza with some of the best mozzarella on pizza we’d ever had, and Chris actually had a glass of Italian red (“super Tuscan”) that was for once, very fruity, tasty, and satisfying.

During food treks like these, on the way home, I always feel very grateful to live in such a diverse and delicious city. To have access to foods of this quality just a subway ride away is a real privilege and blessing. I hope my little Pookie Bear is able to embrace all of this deliciousness, too, when she arrives.

34-week appointment

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The Braxton Hicks contractions felt really strong this morning right before I left for my doctor’s appointment. They made me feel lethargic and a bit miserable, but I knew I had to go in for my appointment, so I hauled myself together and got out of the house. At my appointment, my doctor did a quick scan of the baby and reported that all looks good: she has plenty of amniotic fluid surrounding her, and her growth is still on track. As of today, she’s just over 5 pounds in weight approximately, and her heart rate is healthy. Oh, and my weight? I’m now at 140 lb. I never thought I’d see the day when the scale measured that high for my weight!! That means I have now gained about 23 pounds from pregnancy. All general measures say that a woman of average weight should gain between 25-35 pounds during pregnancy, so this seems okay. And luckily, she is still head down, as she has been since week 28, but she’s facing the front to my left side, and we want her facing my back for the easiest, speediest birth. So it’s likely I will need to do some forward leaning inversions to encourage her to get into the right position. All the things we must do to ensure baby and body are ready for labor…

Belly attention from a little boy

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I got into the elevator this morning to go down to the gym for my workout session, and my belly was clearly on full display. We’re at a point of the pregnancy now where it’s pretty hard to hide my pregnant stomach. And keep in mind that most of my workout tops are pretty loose fitted, yet despite that, the belly is *still* sticking out. In the elevator when I got in was a dad and his young son, who I later learned was 3.5 years old. As soon as the little boy saw me (or, well, my stomach), he broke out into a huge smile (that I could notice even with his mask on), and he immediately started patting my belly and hugging it with his short little arms. He then started repeating, “baby, baby,” and put his face into my stomach.

I thought this was the cutest, most adorable thing in the world. Granted, yes, there is something to be said about learning that touching a stranger, especially someone’s stomach, is kind of inappropriate, and this kid likely needs to learn about physical space and boundaries. But I couldn’t help but find this completely endearing and amusing. It was so heart warming. The dad was immediately mortified as you’d expect, and he lightly scolded the boy in Japanese to stop and to get away from me, which the boy reluctantly complied with. The dad then explained that the boy’s mom was pregnant with their second child, and that the boy really loved patting and holding the pregnant belly, so he was likely excited because of that when he saw my belly sticking out.

Oh, kids. They just do the darndest things.

Come from Away

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Tonight, my friend and I went to see the Broadway musical Come from Away, which is set during the week following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and tells the story of what happened when 38 planes were ordered to land unexpectedly in the small town of Gander in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada due to U.S. airspace being shut down as part of Operation Yellow Ribbon. Those 38 planes consisted of over 7,000 passengers plus 19 animals in cargo, which doubled the population of the small town. That is really mind boggling to think of now.

My memory of what happened and the media reports around September 11, 2001, are quite hazy. It was the beginning of my sophomore year of high school. I understood that a terrorist attack had happened, but I didn’t quite understand the background and all the events that led up to it. I only really started paying attention and reading news regularly that year. But given what others have shared, it sounds like for the most part and based on what I remember, the vast majority of the reporting was on what happened with the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon from the reports to the photographs, and relatively little was highlighted around these planes making emergency landings in Gander. But honestly, I wish I had known more about it then instead of learning about it 20 years later.

The musical showcases how everyday citizens of Gander welcomed these people from all over the world on these planes into their homes for meals, showers, and warmth simply because of the worldwide emergency that had erupted, just because of the kindness of their hearts. And it was just so heart warming to see this musical and see it on full display. And having visited Newfoundland and Labrador, I can definitely attest to the fact that it’s a beautiful Canadian province with warm, kind humans who do seem a bit different from other Canadians in accent and demeanor, but actually seem like better humans than the average American. I’m not really sure what would have happened if planes had diverted and landed somewhere in the U.S. Who knows how that would have ended up. But I think all these people who ended up in Gander were better off there than anywhere in U.S. territory.

the growing list of things to make before baby

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While many expectant moms are busy decorating their nurseries and organizing all their future baby’s clothes in the right sizes and categories and textures, I… haven’t really been doing that. Yes, Pookie Bear does have some clothes ready and they have been organized by size, and yes, I do have to wash some of the newborn onesies and sleepers in preparation for her arrival, but honestly, I think I’ve been focusing more on all the things I want to make and bake before she arrives. Some of them will be consumed after her arrival assuming our freezer can make the space.

The scallion milk bread from yesterday was on the list, so that’s been checked off. So was the invisible gateau/apple cake I made last weekend. Today, I made another batch of homemade, toasted garam masala, so that’s been replenished. We also have a jar of chili oil that is ready for dumplings anytime. I have a number of different pumpkin desserts I want to make, including pumpkin apricot bread (more like cake), pumpkin mochi muffins, and maybe even pumpkin streusel muffins. Cream puffs were something I wanted to make, but they are a bit finicky and Chris seemed unenthused by them, so it’s unlikely I will be making them before Pookie arrives. I also want to make the browned butter miso chocolate chip cookies that have long been on my list to make, not to mention finally make use of the tinned passion fruit pulp I have to make a cake, but that will wait until two weekends from now when my friend and her husband come visit. A round cake, at least in our house, seems to only make sense when we have guests to entertain.

Baking bread during my day off

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I’ve been enjoying my four-day weekend, with my day off I pre-planned on Friday, plus my Wellness Day company wide today. I knew I wanted to accomplish a few things today: I wanted to bake scallion milk bread, and I also wanted to start stocking up on some pre-made items for our freezer for when Pookie Bear arrives. I started the morning with some Bloom Method workouts via the free trial I started with them that focuses on pelvic and core strength. Then I went on to prepare and knead the milk bread dough before getting ready to leave for Flushing. Who knows, I thought, as I left the apartment. This may be the last time I go to Flushing before baby arrives. And most of Flushing’s best food is on the street and not super friendly to a stroller, so I just need to stock up on what I can when I can now.

So I picked up a bunch of things, enjoyed a duck jianbing and a Happy Lemon salted cheese, fresh strawberry, and jasmine tea drink, and went back home to knead and shape my scallion rolls. The bread didn’t brown as much as I wanted on top, but it was still therapeutic to knead and shape the bread. Baking bread is very calming and meditative for me. I hope I will still be able to find the time and energy to do this even after Pookie Bear arrives.

Who knows – maybe she will learn to love the process as much as I do, and then we can do it together!