This isn't a vacation..

Do you remember when I was freaked out when Ching mentioned a 3rd child?  I was thinking about this stage with Laurel..this entry comes in two parts and was written right after Laurel was born..this is called:  This isn't a vacation..

This isn’t a vacation…

Leading up to maternity leave, I had a false sense of glee. The glee came from thinking that this time away from work would be like taking a vacation-a long vacation. I can’t remember not working for 12 straight weeks. I have been working year around either part-time or full-time since I was 16.

I was very wrong about my “glee”. I never worked harder in my life. I was absolutely not prepared for this.
(Maternity leave for me was divided into two parts-with Ching and without Ching.) With Ching:

Maternity leave started for us on Monday, February 6. We were surprised when Laurel arrived. She came 10 days before the due date. When I left work on February 3, I had no idea that I wasn’t returning until May 1.
I had an odd sense of efficiency that I had Laurel on a Sunday. My leave started cleanly on a Monday as did Ching’s two week paternity leave. While I was the size of a house, I tried to compliment myself any way that I could.

Ching and I got home with Laurel in tow on a late Wednesday afternoon. As I walked into the door, I was immediately overwhelmed. Holy crap, I have a child with me. Just a few days ago, there were only two people living in this condo.

The only thing I thought to do was to sit (gently) on the couch and hold Laurel. Ching immediately went into an uber-father mode. He wanted to order dinner right away since a couple of hours had gone by and I hadn’t eaten anything. Breastmilk—we just wanted to produce breastmilk. I didn’t want to eat. I was too tired but Ching fed me by hand (that’s right, like he was wooing me) while I held Laurel. I was also forced to consume so much water (it was probably just one glass) and I hate drinking water.

I don’t recall the next few hours. I could have dozed off. I do specifically remember not wanting the night to come. I was scared to death about what Laurel’s first night home would be like. Months prior to Laurel’s arrival, we made the decision that we wouldn’t use pacifiers. By 11:00, I was digging some out that were gifts from those who knew better. We then were trying to figure out if she should sleep in her crib and Ching and I would sleep in our room? Or should she be with me in our bed while Ching slept downstairs? Or should she sleep in her crib and Ching would sleep on the floor of her room? This debate seemed too complicated for 11:00 and my mindset. I really didn’t care. She was awake, I wanted her asleep.

You will also notice in this debate that Ching always got the shitty end of the stick. He was either sleeping on the floor or the couch. I always got the bed. Because I gave birth to Laurel, my needs seemed to be taken care of first and quite frankly I wasn’t going to turn that thought down.

The only other memory of that night was the realization of how loud Laurel’s cry was. It seemed to bounce off the walls in her room. I thought the whole neighborhood could hear her and were kept awake as well. I just wanted to get her asleep so I could sleep too.

I don’t recall the rest of the night. The next memory I have is waking up around 9:00 and hearing Ching doing some sort of chore downstairs. Laurel was asleep because she liked sleeping during the day. A nanny candidate came to interview. So there I was just sitting with my boob hanging out trying to feed Laurel and trying to think of questions I wanted to ask this woman. Unfortunately, I was not in the right mindset to choose a nanny. We hired this woman and it was a mistake but that is another subject, another essay.

We were off to Laurel’s first doctor’s appointment. Ching kept us right on schedule. If he wasn’t there, I would not have made it to the appointment. The thought of getting Laurel ready, out the door, and driving to the doctor’s office, on time, was just too overwhelming for me to do.

Even before the appointment, Ching and I noticed that Laurel was kind of a yellow/orange hue. At first I thought we were imagining things but in fact, she was jaundice and lost too much weight during her first four days. She had to be re-admitted to her birth hospital for a 24 hour stay under the blue lights. While I would never want Laurel to be sick, I was excited to be going back to the hospital. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing and now the nurses would take care of her during the night while I could sleep. During this stay, we started using formula along with breast milk. This was the only time I cried post-partum: I couldn’t believe that I couldn’t feed my own child.

But I was still determined to breastfeed, a lactation consultant came to our house a day after we left the hospital for the second time. The premise seemed weird. This woman was paid $100 an hour to show me how the breastfeed—diagrams, nipple shields and massaging galore. Five days into my maternity leave and I had been reduced to having a complete stranger (that was getting paid $100 an hour) massage my boob to get the milk flowing. No one told me how hard this whole being-a-new-mom-thing was going to be. I was pissed, overwhelmed and the most tired I had ever been.

While I complain about the cost of the consultant, the time she spent with us was completely worth it. She showed us other things that scared the bejesus out of the both of us: bathing, cutting fingernails and cleaning ears. She also told us about buying the right size diaper. (We thought that level 1 was the same size as newborn—not so much. Ching and I were standing there feeling like assholes because we couldn’t even buy the right- sized diaper.)

Also during this time, my physical condition didn’t help. I still couldn’t walk all that comfortably. Roy, the
hemorrhoid had come back, my girly bits were torn apart and sewn back together and I was incontinent. I never thought I was going to be able to cross my legs again. Why didn’t I take the pain killers that hospital offered? This is about the time my sister, who was a new mom of 4 months, called me to see how I was doing. I whimpered how hard it was. “The breastfeeding?” she asked. “Everything”, I whined.

On Saturday, as Laurel was six days old, Ching finally crashed and got some sleep. All week, he was working incredibly hard and putting his basic needs third to Laurel’s and mine. While we never spoke of this, I think he was trying to overcompensate for the fact that he didn’t give birth or have to have a kid attached to his nipples.

During this time, we truly worked as a team and our project was Laurel. I really liked working with him to care for our daughter. We were exhausted but we loved our little girl. There was a part of me that fell in love with him all over again. I am not overly sentimental and there are times when Ching has to beg for any physical affection. My admission was surprising to me too.

Having Ching at home allowed me to do simple tasks at anytime. I could brush my teeth , shower, eat and go to the bathroom whenever I wanted to because he was always there to get Laurel. I took this for granted and didn’t realize how important this was until after he left for work. We got each other’s opinion about what to do—is she hungry, wet, tired, etc? Having two people scrounge for any instinctual thought was much better than being that lone person doubting every move made.

Sunday arrived and Laurel was officially 1 week old (at 7:32 pm). The second week would be better. Ching and I worked together as hard as we could and took one day at a time. It was only the two of us for the first two weeks—we had no overnight guests trying to help out.

The second week didn’t end on a great note. Laurel’s jaundice was back and she still wasn’t gaining enough weight. I can’t even describe what a failure I was as a mother. I couldn’t get my child to gain weight with breast milk and formula?

Laurel had to go under the blue lamp again but not in the birth hospital nursery like the first round. We stayed at another hospital affiliated with our pediatrician. I hated this hospital. The nurses were reading directions in front of Ching and me about how to set up the blue light. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this staff. And sometimes (Ching and I) got conflicting information or recommendations on Laurel’s care.

Rather than stay in the nursery, Laurel stayed in a hospital room with me. She hated the blue light. She hated the goggles that protected her eyes and she screamed for most of the night. Ching had to leave the room. I needed to stay even though her crying tore my heart out. We also fed her just formula every 2 hours. Because she would eat so fast, some didn’t stay down. I felt like the worse mother in the world and blamed myself (that Laurel) had to be there.

Hour by hour she got used to the light and the goggles. Friday turned to Saturday which led to a corner turned on Sunday. She gained enough weight to be discharged. Thankfully she never lost any weight again. And the breast feeding thing seemed to catch on for the both of us.

Sigh of relief..but the next day was Monday and Ching had to go back to work. And I was alone with my daughter.