Letters to Luc: White Gold

Dear Luc,

Some days when I am trying hard to console you while you continue to scream no matter if I hold you, cuddle you, bounce you, swing you, rock you, sing to you, play with you, or try to put you to sleep, I think about how you will not end up remembering the hardest parts of bringing you up in your infancy. You won't remember the spurts of sleep I get, never to have a long and complete stretch again, setting alarms to nurse you and bring up your weight. You won't remember how I watched you sleep, letting the precious hours eek by--hours that used to be filled with meetings and cranking out tech manuals for important project deadlines--content just to marvel at how I made such a precious, growing boy. You won't remember how it broke my heart to hear you cry, or how it hurt me to watch you pricked with needles for your blood tests and inoculations despite the brave front I keep up to tell you to be strong. You won't remember how I plugged my nose and downed bitter, rank-smelling herbal teas in an effort to conceive you, or how I ate chicken soup seeped in the same herbal concoctions in hopes of bringing in my milk to feed you. Not those fenugreek or blessed thistle pills I hurriedly swallowed to bring up my supply before rushing back to you as you screamed to be picked up; not those lonely hours chained to the pump to make milk to freeze, or the late nights that I sat slouched over with sleepiness, working the manual pump to relieve engorgement. Not the few times in the day when I am back at work, pumping in a small room with my laptop next to me, striving to feed you for a whole year on breastmilk, thinking of you and missing you.

But maybe, just maybe, you will remember that when all else failed to console you, my milk usually would. My milk that took 4 days after you were born to come in while I cursed my body for being slow and incompetent, before marveling at just how much it's been through, and continues to go through, to provide for you. Maybe I will tell you about my pride, after having been able to give you the smallest drops of colostrum, to feel the white gold coursing through my breasts on the first day I was able to pump enough to fill a small bottle halfway.

I read about the benefits of breastmilk, its anti-viral capacities, the way it subtly morphs in enzymes to give you exactly what you ask for as you create a vacuum with your suckling and silently communicate your needs with the source. Higher fat content past the first few weeks so you could pack on those baby rolls. Elevated levels of melatonin at night as you cluster-feed to help you sleep. A magical something to help you fight off fevers and germs. It became an addiction to pump between your feedings to freeze and store.

I navigated different pump parts, hacked a fit with different sets of bottles, navigated different flange sizes for best output, baked and ate lactation muffins, and gradually increased the amount I was able to produce.

I thought I finally had it made with my supply until I decided to test-feed you one of the frozen batches of milk. Whereas before you gulped down what we gave to you from breast or from bottle without complaint, you fussed and spit out the milk and gagged. I discovered my frozen milk was too high of lipase, a enzyme in human milk that helps break down the fat. This causes some women detect a soapy smell from their milk; others say the milk smells metallic. I know it smells different from the milk you are used to, fresh and warm from me, and that is why you turn it away and dribble it out when your mouth fills with it. Almost 200 ounces of saved up milk, and you don't want to have anything to do with it. I had to get creative with how to feed it to you for when I'm back at work. I mixed ratios, first half frozen with half fresh, then a 1:3 ratio, frozen to fresh, which you seem to tolerate.

I read up on scalding the milk to neutralize the smell and watched YouTube tutorials on how to do it just right, turning the stove to 6/7 and watching as tiny bubbles formed on the surface.

Then the quick cool-down, pouring the milk into a glass jar--burning my fingers more than once from inexperience and bad aim--and dunking it into an ice bath before measuring and pouring it into milk storage bags, labeling, tallying the total stores, and tucking them away into freezer Ziploc bags.

I marked the bags from oldest to newest and the scalded batches, yet another step in my quest to keep you on breastmilk and not succumb to formula.

The top shelf of our Frigidaire freezer became stuffed with your milk stores. I sent a batch to Grandma after a few power outages taught me the value of insurance and not tucking all my eggs in one basket.

You still favor fresh milk as of today, lazily holding the bottle nipple in your mouth without sucking, a coy smile playing on your lips as you play a game of chicken to see who would outlast whom during the feeding game. These days I indulge you and top you off from the breast so that you'd gain weight from your measly 7th percentile ranking in growth.

All this you will not remember, how my dedication to you pours out in the form of this white liquid gold. As you grow up, we will be at odds more than once, when I will not let you have your way with toys, games, and social outings. You will be mad at me, thinking I am unfair to you, slamming your door and protesting dinner as you protest your meals now, playing a game of chicken. You will more often remember the injustice, the anger, the resentment. I know this because those are the searing memories that come to me now that I am grown, for all those times I thought my own parents were being unfair as they were raising me. But I hope that you will remember the love, too.

Transformation

I gained a total of 28 pounds in pregnancy, keeping up daily walks and going to the gym almost every weekday for light exercising up to the last few weeks. Here's the transformation across 9 months:

First Trimester

Second Trimester

Second Transitioning to Third

Third Trimester--Almost Time!

Labor Day! Induction on 1/6/16, 37 weeks + 3 days

What goes up must come down. Here's the progress after the birth. By March 1st, 7.5 weeks postpartum, I had dropped back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Exercise only includes daily walks with the stroller and the dog, and breastfeeding/pumping, which consumes 20 calories per ounce fed or pumped! Also hauling around the infant car seat + infant, which totally counts as weight lifting.

~1 Month Postpartum

~2 Months Postpartum

~3 Months Postpartum

As of 3/15, I was a pound below pre-pregnancy weight.

Letters to Luc: Courage and Fear (Month 2)

Dear Luc,

You turned 2 months this Monday, March 7. I put the 2-month sticker on your onesie and did the obligatory photo for  the collage I will make when you turn a year old.

 I haven't been your mommy for that long yet, but already you taught me so much. On your birthday, you taught me a special kind of love. In these first few months of your life, you redefined for me courage and fear.

It's different now that you are no longer a part of me, riding in my belly. I jumped at your cries the first few nights in the hospital, desperate to soothe your discomfort. I watched you get passed from family members to friends, feeling pride but also sometimes a sense of jealousy, that I must share you now that you are your own entity. I did not intend to co-sleep with you, sharing your father's and my king-sized bed as you have your own tasteful, expensive crib and a nursery furnished and decorated with care and love. But as it is the only way you'd fall asleep calmly, with minimal fussing, I succumbed. I got to know you 24x7 since you are constantly by my side, spending very few hours apart. It is not the way I envisioned raising my children, least of all a strong and independent, non-clingy son. I tried to crib-train you for naps. The first few days I put you in there and staggered back to my own bed for some much-needed sleep, I ended up laying there, curled into a ball, straining to hear if you'd cry, feeling the emptiness inside me where once you had filled me to such large proportions.

There are days when you'd cry inconsolably.

Colic, they say, but when your lips are stretched wide in a scream and your face turns red, I wonder what might be ailing you. I wonder if there's a hurt inside you I'm not aware of or can't fix. In my quest to do my best by you, I am bound to fail many times; I hope you'll forgive my mistakes, made from my best intentions. I think about your future, when you start crawling and then walking and then running; I won't possibly be able to keep you from inevitable injuries--your first splinter, scratch, bruise. I can't protect you from all the bad in the world--people who slander you, bullies, thieves. I can't enmesh your heart in iron and steel; the heart is glass, the heart can break. The girl who first holds its fragility in her hands and carelessly shatters it without a second thought is someone whom I cannot stop you from meeting and falling for.

There are days when you'd break into a smile.

A social smile, they say, not just a muscle reflex flashed as you are dreaming, but a gift given freely for my sleepless nights, my aching muscles. I am reminded of courage I forgot I possess. I will stand in the way of anyone who physically tries to hurt you. My body stretched for you; I bled for you; I'd fight for you. In a fickle world of inconstancy, one thing remains true: I am your mother, for now and for always. The world can be ugly, my son, but it is beautiful, too. One day I will show you. The searing heat of Viet Nam, its endearing people, its sweet, delicious fruits. The fresh, frigid air of a Canadian spring. The simplicity and colors of Mexico. The awe-inspiring architecture of England. The artwork and romance of France. The azure waters of French Polynesia. The diversity and freedom of the United States.

Mothers live in constant fear. They read stories of stillbirths and SIDS and hug their babes to their chest just a little harder. They strive to breastfeed but second-guess their ability. They map out a plan for how to raise their children and fail on Day 1. They think deeper about lost children, kidnappings, sex offenders, murderers. They give it their all and cry and cry when it's not enough. They are irrational, whiny, paranoid, downright crazy. They become afraid of everything. And they are the strongest and bravest people I know.