Sitting the Month, Mommy Thumb, and Massages

So I thought it might be good to give a quick update on what I've been up to these past 12 weeks!

In one of my earlier posts, I hinted at "confinement," which is a concept in traditional Chinese medicine whereby a woman generally does not leave the house for a month post-partum.  The phrase in Chinese literally translates to "sitting the month," which is a hint at what women are expected to do: nothing.  The idea, essentially, is that there is a lot of "cold" which can enter your body right after you've just given birth, when your bones and muscles are still "open" and susceptible to chill.

For those who adhere to the rules stringently, you're not supposed to exercise, exert yourself or really do anything except lie in bed and rest.  To make it even more excruciating, you're not even supposed to exert your eyes, meaning look at phones, computers or TVs.  There are also rules about not showering or washing your hair for the entire period, although I think this is going a bit far and is likely based on customs from the old days before there was central heating, hair dryers or, you know, insulation.

In retrospect, I found this to be really hard.  It was difficult enough to deal with a newborn, the complete loss of personal time , and the shocking changes to my body - these additional restrictions put on my diet and autonomy really did not help.  I did everything necessary to maintain my personal hygiene and continued to read and use my phone a lot, but once we got home from the hospital, I stayed in my apartment through the end of the year, except to go out for the one doctor's appointment.  I didn't eat anything that wasn't prepared by my confinement nanny, and  I had no cold beverages or foods.  The purchase and consumption of ginger (a key ingredient in promoting "heat") in my household skyrocketed. 

Michael thought all of this was bogus.  I am not sure how I feel about it all, though overall I believe it more than I don't believe it, if that makes sense.  I do, however, think that the psychological impact of not leaving the house for days on end is huge and is more of a negative than positive, especially if you live in a 900 square foot apartment...

Here are some of the foods that I ate/have been eating during my recovery.  Some of it looks really weird and probably downright scary, but I think my confinement nanny is a good cook and everything was pretty tasty.  My palate has become accustomed to considerably lighter dishes as  I have generally avoided fatty, sweet, acidic, and spicy foods.

 

 

 This is abalone, raw and fresh and still moving.

 This is how it looks after it has been cleaned and steamed.

This is sea cucumber stuffed with ground pork, which I realize does not look appetizing, however, sea cucumber is one of those items that tick a Chinese confinement's "must eat" list.  Just in case you were wondering, a sea cucumber has nothing to do with a cucumber - it is a marine animal with a leathery skin that lives on the bottom of the ocean floor.   Delicious, right?  Hah!  Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners are of the belief that this is a very nourishing food.  Michael was horrified when he saw these on our dining room table (they look a bit like dried fat slugs) but they taste fine.  The texture is probably the hardest thing to handle, because it's both slippery and chewy.

Otherwise, the diet consists of a lot of soups, fish, green vegetables and protein in the form of chicken and lean stir-fried pork.  Almost all of the ingredients serve a purpose - whether it boosts milk supply, reduces "heat," or eliminates "chill."  The soups are chock full of ingredients that are meant to bolster my health.

The portions are also considerably larger than I'm used to, but, unlike in pregnancy where I never really tried to eat for two, now, while breastfeeding, I really do feel like I am eating for more!  My hunger and thirst reach pretty insatiable levels sometimes, particularly in the middle of the night.  I have read and heard from others that breastfeeding helps them shed weight fast, but I have not found that to be the case for me.  Whatever fat I'm losing through milk production is likely being gained through my huge new appetite!

I started getting shooting pains in my left arm and wrist about a month and a half ago.  It turns out the official name is de Quervain's but the symptom is commonly known as "Mommy's thumb" because it presents so frequently and consistently in new moms.  I wasn't cautious enough in the beginning with my posture in picking up Lola and during feedings, and ended up putting a ton of pressure on the inside of my wrist.  Now apparently the sheaths in my wrist are inflamed and irritated.  This has been a huge cramp in my lifestyle - I can't put weight on it so I can't do yoga and even spinning is uncomfortable.  And the most random, simple tasks, such as putting on a shirt or tying my hair, hurts.  And of course it hurts most when I try to pick up Lola.  Unfortunately, I also can't really let the affected area rest and heal, because that would basically require that I not use my thumb.  Do you know how hard it is not to use your thumb on a daily basis??  Normally my answer to anything like the above would be massage - but it turns out that in this particular case massage is one of the worst things you can do, because it will only inflame the wrist even more.   The imperfect solution has been athletic tape and a thumb and wrist splint.

Wrist aside, I continue to indulge my love for massage.  About a month ago, I purchased a folding massage table on Taobao and since then I have tried to have a masseuse come to my apartment once a week or once every two weeks.  This is an amazing service that is feasible in Hong Kong because massages are, while not quite at the rock bottom prices found in Thailand, still more manageable than those in the US.  What a luxury, and why didn't I do this sooner?

The masseuse helps me work out the knots in my neck, shoulders, upper back, lower back, legs, arms, feet... I guess I have knots every where!  The only place she avoids is my left wrist.  And she is very thorough and does an amazing job.  She reads my body so well that she always locates where I hurt or where I am tired without my needing to say anything - often, she surprises me by hitting a "spot" that I didn't even realize was sore.  I would be lying if I said that the massage was relaxing or comfortable - it is deep tissue massage after all!  But afterward, I feel so relaxed, like a limp noodle (if a noodle could sleep for a very long time).

This is the folding massage table that I got - very professional looking, it is light, comes in a carrying case and fits under the bed.  Best of all, it shipped here in 3 days!

 

In sum, I am so immensely grateful for all of the resources and help that I've had these past months, and on the eve of Lola's third month milestone, I am now able to look back on that first month and shake my head in wonder at how we did it, sleepless nights, reflux, and all.  She gets cuter and cuter every day, and we have now found a routine that works.  While not everything is running like clockwork, at least we feel a little more settled as a family of three! 

Park Outing and a Birdie Friend

Last week, we took Lola out to the park for a little walk.

Here she is, wide eyed and awake in her car seat.  Big change from when we took her home from the hospital, am I right?  What a difference 11 weeks makes!

 She couldn't stop craning her neck to look up at the birds/clouds/tree branches/whatever new thing had caught her fancy.  The world is just chock-a-full of fascinating, new objects and colors and experiences for this little one.  Her curiosity is refreshing and it's impossible not to feel the same sense of wonder about everything around you when you're with her because, as Michael says, "she's so alive."

 

 Here, father and daughter play their favorite game - where Michael tries to get Lola to bop him on the nose -- and she complies.

 

We got her this little light up birdie from Skiphop, and she loves it.  She loves birds in general.  On our way to the park the other day, we saw a woman with a beautiful white parakeet perched on her arm, and Lola's eyes nearly popped out of her head as she goggled the beautiful, fluffy, snowy creature.  It was hilarious and adorable at the same time.  From the woman's smiles, we could tell no one had yet stopped to appreciate her pet to quite the same degree.

My Little Munchkin/Sweetie Pie/Dearest Little One/[Insert endearment here]

Ah, sometimes this little one drives me crazy.  Other times, I am just flooded with overwhelming love for her!  She is so cute and so perfect to me, down to each of her tiny little fingers and peanut toes.

Lest you think it's all smooth sailing here, last night she had a pretty terrible case of FOMO and would not go to sleep even though she very clearly needed to sleep - I thought our eardrums would bleed out as she sobbed her little heart out.  It was so heart-wrenching and none of our increasingly desperate strategies worked - not the stroller, not the bouncer, not a pacifier, not being held, not being put down... at one point I was sure our neighbors would come knocking on our door. 

But like Michael and I are finding, these moments quickly become survival stories that are bandied about, but ultimately forgotten (or at least forgiven) when contrasted with the moments of pure, piercing joy that she brings us. 

Here she is, enjoying "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" being read to her by Jovie.  She really likes story time!  Her attention span is impressive for a 2.5 month old.  The outfit was a gift from her Nonna and Pops.

This weekend we also went to a friend's baby shower, which was conveniently held in our building (yes!) and we got to introduce Lola to a few friends there.  (In fact, the pink and blue balloons from the picture above are actually the balloons for the party.)  We put her in a little blue dress with a white cardigan, and little pink socks with butterflies on them.  Tres cute!

 She was a little fussy for a bit, but overall she really likes crowds and parties.  She also had no qualms about being held by my friend for a good five minutes or more - no fear of strangers here (yet)!

I had a few moments where I played the knowledgeable mother, passing on my newfound knowledge.  Ha ha, I wish!  We are all just doing the best we can, right mamas?

 All the noise did make Lola sleepy...but of course once we got back upstairs she was wide eyed and playful and refused to sleep.  Of course.

Happy Chinese New Year! Happy Year of the Dog

Happy Chinese New Year!  Everything is shuttered here for four days starting Thursday night (New Years' Eve) through Monday, and work and normal life will resume on Tuesday.  The upcoming year is the year of the dog.  Last year was the year of the chicken.

 

For the second year in a row we find ourselves staying put in Hong Kong and celebrating the holiday here.  The weather today was phenomenal - sunny and a high of 70 degrees.  Guess our cold spell here is over?  "Winter" has been getting shorter and shorter here every year.

We took advantage of it and wandered out for a mid afternoon stroll, heading to our favorite outdoor spot, Sun Yat Sen park, where we saw a ton of other families with small children, all camped out on picnic blankets with the same stroller (we have the babyzen yoyo+) parked alongside.  Guess this is the demographic that skips the airport and travel madness!

The park is one of the few areas near us with a huge swath of grass that you can step on and lie down on (GASP), and it has a phenomenal view of the harbor, to boot.  Most parks here are concrete with benches and chairs built in, no grass, but a lot of potted trees and plants, so SYS park is definitely special.

We headed out with the sunglasses on Lola.

She also had on her super cute teddy bear hoodie (why are baby clothes made 100x cuter when ears are attached?) and managed to stay awake in her stroller the entire walk to the park, where as soon as I wrestled her into the Ergobaby she zonked out.

On our walk back, we managed to get a few pictures outside, to memorialize Lola's first lunar new year!

Japan and Vietnam Bound!

So, do you guys remember how we were considering where to bring the baby on a trip during my maternity leave?  At the time, we were really thinking about one long trip, and New Zealand was at the top of our list.  We have finally decided where we're going, and it's going to be two trips instead of one.

We are headed to Niseko, northern Japan, for a week in the village of Hirafu in mid-March, followed by a four day trip to the beachside resort town of Da Nang, central Vietnam, in the first week of April.  Michael's parents will be in Hong Kong and join us on the trip to Da Nang.  This will give us the best of both worlds, cold and hot!  Also, while traveling is stressful, and doing it twice in such short order with an infant may be a bit daunting, I couldn't help but feel more stressed when contemplating what to do in one place for three weeks.  Packing for a longer trip somehow felt more stressful to me.  In addition, neither of these flights are too long, which also helped me breathe easier.

We nixed Europe pretty quickly because the flights were long and we didn't feel ready to deal with baby jetlag (let's save that for the U.S., shall we?  Joy!).  Plus, the weather didn't seem that promising in late March/early April - just cold enough to be uncomfortable and just warm enough to mean no snow.  Finally, it's really hard to take our helper with us because the visa process for Europe is a bit of a nightmare.

After a lot of deliberation, we nixed New Zealand as well, because the flights were long and we didn't feel like we would actually get to enjoy as much of the outdoor activities as we would have liked at this point.  While a visa for our helper would have been easier than Europe, it was not as straightforward as Japan (and we don't need a visa for our helper for Vietnam).  Hopefully a trip to En Zed will be in our near future.

We have been to Niseko before, and love it.  Sure, it'll be really cold, and we'll have to get our tropical baby a whole set of snow gear, but we will be enjoying a beautiful apartment with fireplace and soaking tub, and expansive views of Mt. Yotei and the surrounding birch forest covered in a dense blanket of snow. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, I really don't expect to be outside that much.  Ideally, Michael gets to fit in a few runs on the slopes, while I get to eat (I'm already dreaming of the sushi, ramen, and crab hotpot) and soak in an onsen.  One can hope!  Fingers crossed.

And while we haven't been to Da Nang before, it's a place I've wanted to check out for a while now. It's barely 2 hours from Hong Kong by direct flight.  We found a beautiful villa in the Hyatt Regency complex with its own swimming pool.  The resort is an easy 15 minutes away from the airport.  The weather will be sunny and hot, with lows in the 60s and 70s and highs in the 80s and 90s.  I would also like to take a day to visit the neighboring city of Hoi An, a charming, well preserved UNESCO site with lots of good shopping and eating.

In both places we plan to have a car rental, so that we can travel on our own time and not be at the mercy of the hotel shuttles.  After Da Nang, my maternity leave will have come to an end.  I hope these travels help ease the sting of the return, although I suspect it will just leave me moony eyed for more fun times with Lola!

Sun's Out, Shades Out -- and a Brunch Fail

This past weekend, we got some sunglasses for Lola, and to our delight they fit her now.  Here she is modeling them while snacking. I can only imagine what she thought when her world suddenly went dark.  I'm guessing she really didn't care, as she continued to suck down her milk with steely single-minded focus!

What a cool cat

 On Sunday, we tried to take advantage of the beautiful sunshine  and ventured out to brunch at The Winery, a restaurant near our apartment.   We opted to go there mainly because we wouldn't have to wrangle the stroller uphill (ah, the considerations of new parents)!

 

But it was such a disappointment - we arrived at 1:40pm to find that they had no seats on their main floor or second floor - so we had to carry Lola up three flights of stairs to squeeze ourselves into the last remaining open table under their booming speakers.  Then, over an hour later, we were still sitting there, starving, with an increasingly fussy infant, with no food in sight.  The entire restaurant was being staffed by a handful of beleaguered employees who clearly could not keep up with the Sunday demand.

Don't be fooled by the airy decor

Finally, we left cash enough to cover Michael's coffee and a generous tip to our beleaguered waitress, and left!  It was such a fail.  It was really no fault of the waitstaff, who seemed stressed, but we also couldn't continue to wait.  Michael and I ruefully admitted on our walk home that gone are the leisurely four hour brunches where we sit down and spend a long time perusing the menu and deciding what we want to eat.  We need kitchens that churn out food, pronto!

The Passports Process

Here is Lola's hilarious passport picture - just too good not to share!  Michael and I think she looks like a member of the mafia here.  Something about the double chin, the white ribbed tank top underneath... all she needs is a gold chain!

It turns out getting a passport picture that meets U.S. immigration requirements is nigh impossible for a newborn (white, smooth background, open eyes, both ears, forward facing, bright light and no shadows) and we finally settled for this picture after the photographer took at least 60 or 70 shots.

It was a rather tiring ordeal because we took her to get her picture taken right after she had fed and decided that that afternoon (of course) would be the day she would sleep like the dead.  No matter what I did (tickling, blowing raspberries, kissing, stroking her feet, changing her diaper, calling her name, rubbing a cold towel on her neck), I could not wake her up.  So we grimly sat in a cafe and waited for the little one to wake up.  Two hours later, she finally decided to emerge from her slumber (but of course she woke up because was hungry... and cranky)!

The trick here is that I held her in my lap with my hand behind her head, and the photographer whitewashed my hand out of the photo.  I blame this photo for the onset (or acceleration) of my currently excruciating "Mommy's thumb" in my left hand.  For some odd inexplicable reason, the photographer had me unzip her cute, colorful onesie, to reveal her tank top underneath.  So much for the cute outfit I had planned!

We opted to get her U.S. passport first.  It was annoying in that we had to make an appointment and get to the embassy, then wait as the paperwork got reviewed and submitted, but Lola was on her best (sleepiest) behavior.  They insist that Lola be there in person for the consular officer to see her.  Even though they quoted us 4-5 weeks for the passport process, we ended up getting a notification and getting all of the paperwork in 2 weeks!

Then the H.K. passport process was pretty smooth also.  We also had to make an appointment and go to the immigration department, then wait as the paperwork got reviewed and submitted.  I ran into a little trouble with one of the immigration officers because they insisted I signed the form incorrectly (but I had to insist that they told me to sign it that way)!  Thankfully it was all smoothed out in quick order and now we are waiting to pick up her passport on March 1.  Lola was also on great behavior, only waking up briefly to give the immigration officer a few inquisitive stares.

We dressed her up nicely for her interview with immigration in her little navy peacoat:

The government offices of Hong Kong are located pretty close to our apartment, so I could walk over with her stroller.  On the way home, we took the scenic route by the water.  It was brisk and cold, but very sunny.

The Fourth Trimester

As for me, I'm on the mend, slowly but surely.  I had a smooth delivery overall and nothing went wrong, but this part of the process has felt at times like an unpleasant slog out of quicksand, or a very dark, deep well.  I guess there is a reason people refer to this as the fourth trimester.  Pregnancy was nowhere as bad as I expected, but postpartum recovery has been much more challenging.

I was pretty emotional and teary in the first two or three weeks, but I think I was able to gain my equilibrium after that.  And I really didn't take into account the mental and emotional impact that I would feel going from a lifestyle that was firmly in my control, action packed with activities and tasks planned with ruthless efficiency, to one that meandered and was at the will and whim of an infant with whom I could not quite communicate.

I didn't have much swelling while pregnant but had quite a bit of water retention, especially in my hands and feet and legs, after birth.  Breastfeeding is also really hard and really tiring - easier for some people, harder for others, impossible for still others, but definitely not easy or simple.  Then there's the unprecedented sleep deprivation.  Then there are all the stresses and worries of a first time parent (the number of times we have googled some variation of, "is [this] normal for my newborn")!

It's also very hard to be patient enough to allow my body to recover and to have faith that all the jiggly parts will go away. 

But now we're pretty much past all of those issues.  Other than my self-consciousness over my stretch marks and belly, and my aching wrists and thumbs, each day sees marked progress.  I have been to the physical therapist and work on my exercises as much as possible.  I try to get out of the house every day to run errands, or else just to go for a stroll.  One of the nicest excursions was when I took Lola for a walk last week to our nearby park on a particularly sunny day.  The power of fresh (well, in Hong Kong, it's debatable) air and sunshine is remarkable.

I still have a confinement lady who comes to cook my meals and help with Lola during the day, but now that my first 30 days post-partum are over, I am venturing outside and also starting to do some light exercise.

I did the Chinese confinement partly because I believe in some of its principles (it emphasizes rest for the mother, and lots of nourishing soups and foods that encourage the production of breast milk) but probably more because my parents were so fanatical about it.  Call me a dutiful daughter but I just knew that I could not NOT do this.  As it is my confinement was way less radical than the "traditional" methods of not showering ever, or letting your bare feet be exposed.

Happy Two Months!