One Month and counting

You are one month old today. How can the world change so much in such a short amount of time? How have you impacted our lives?

1. When you’re falling asleep at night, if I’m not next to you when your eyes flicker open, you start to cry. Having your father next to you trying to soothe you doesn’t seem to be enough. I have to finish feeding you, put you into your co-sleeper (Dman and Singer gave us an in-bed cosleeper), and then remain next to you until you’re in deep sleep before using the bathroom, brushing my teeth or running down stairs to refill my water bottle. It’s a strange feeling to know that I’m someone’s magnetic north. I’m deeply humbled and awed when I think that I will define comfort, safety and home for you. I’m enjoying being that for you so far, but the ongoing implications are a bit daunting.
   
   
2. Over our 14 years of marriage, Jrex and I have journeyed from being each others’ best friends, to being co-habitating adversaries, then eventually making an emotionally charged journey back to being on the same team. My biggest fear in becoming parents was that we’d drift into different worlds and lose that sense of being in each others’ corner. Instead, as proved by how we’ve handled the Mom K visit, we’re definitely working well together. Our philosophical approach--that you’re important and valued, but you’re not in charge, we are--is the same. We agree on mostly trying to do a schedule and give you structure without being hardliners about it. Thank you for giving us the chance to parent you together.
3. You bring out your father’s silly side. He loves to tell you his plans for you: teaching you four-syllable words by the time you’re three, that you’re not allowed to have a Texas accent, that you’re going to be a north-easterner even if you’re being raised here and that you’ll treat your mother well (love that one!). Appa loves your dramatic hand gestures and makes up music or monologues to accompany them.
   
   
4. I’ve always thought that I’d be a mother someday and be good at it. There have been many times in the past 14 years when I feared that kids would never happen. That was the saddest thing I wrestled with as I waited, prayed and endured the hard times in this marriage. After a pregnancy where it was hard to believe we’d end up with a live, healthy kid, it’s been wonderful to discover that mothering you comes naturally. Sure, you’ve had your inconsolable days when I’ve had to put you down and walk away, but overall, we’re a good team.
   
   
5. Your poor Halmoni keeps asking us what we’re going to do for your one-month birthday and for Christmas. We’re obviously disappointing her when we say, “Nothing. He won’t remember what we do or don’t do at this point.” She shakes her head, “At least you do and take picture! It’s his first Christmas, you have to do something.” Hopefully, not having those pictures isn’t going to scar you forever...
   
   
   
6. You are a reminder that one can survive much suffering. Having your diaper changed appears to be almost as bad as having a finger cut off; yet you survive and smile soon after.
   
   

Race is in the eye of the beholder

Both OTRmama and my father have been clamoring for a blog post. I've had this one in mind for over two weeks now, but it's hard to find the head space to write. Having one's day cut up into two hour blocks with only an hour of free time within the two is more challenging than I thought.

Mom K is here through mid-November and it's hugely helpful that she takes care of Brex in-between feedings. I'd worried about so many things with her here for a month, but it's been good. She's letting me be the Mom (i.e., my bossy self) and follows my directions with Brex. Also, she's more than happy to hold him any time she can.

When OTRsis was here for the week after Brex's birth, we both thought Brex looked really Asian. This is a picture taken while she was here. (That onesie is for my father's benefit! Dad is Michigan born and bred)

We even had a conversation with Jrex where OTRsis insisted that Brex had black hair. We both shook our heads, No, definitely brown.

A week ago, a family we're friends with came for lunch (Jrex and Dman were at Hopkins together, they both work down here now). Dman and his wife, Singer are both ethnically Taiwanese and have two kids, Eager Girl and Mellow Boy.

Here's Muttola waiting to welcome the visitors...

While they were here, Singer exclaimed about how light Brex's hair is. "It's blonde!" Jrex and I laughed and shook our heads, "No, definitely brown." Yet, it was true that our Hapa boy looked more white when seen with Asian kids.

We've found out that the local public elementary school is an immersion program with bilingual English/Spanish classrooms. Two teachers, half the kids native English speakers and half native Spanish. We're excited for him to grow up at least bilingual, and if we can figure out a way to squeeze Korean in there, somewhat trilingual. Of course, in a Hispanic context, he may even look Latino!

With Mom K, every day she sees something different in him. One day he looks white to her, the next day, 'just like Jrex'. Brex definitely has his father's hands and feet (which makes me really happy), and his individual features look more like Jrex, but his face and expressions look just like my baby pictures.

I'm enjoying having this ever-morphing kid. It's going to be fun to watch others' perceptions of him and his perceptions of himself take shape.

Notes from the other side

For the past week, my fabulous sister has been here. Because of her know-how and ability to get Brex (Baby Rex--love it!) to go to sleep (as well as her willingness to change diapers!), I've felt like I have training wheels for this new parenting deal. She's also helped clean the house, make dinners and do dishes. Between her and Jrex, I've felt like all I have to do is figure out Brex. For the most part, I've been happily surprised by how the overwhelming love for the little one outweighs the exhaustion. Much of that however, is due to my sister taking Brex whenever he's been fussy and then getting him to go to sleep. If I try to get him to sleep, he's too busy rooting into my arm or shoulder to settle. I keep looking at him and mournfully asking, "Don't you like me for my personality?" Based on the scrunch-faced tears I get right after the question, I'm guessing the answer is no.


Throughout the pregnancy, I kept finding out that my theoretical hippie approach was outweighed by my pragmatic streak. The one area where I didn't plan to do the 'hippie' version was with the baby's sleeping habits. Knowing how much I need sleep, my plan was to give Brex a couple weeks, maybe a month sleeping in the co-sleeper that Jrex's sister gave us. Letting Brex sleep in the same room as us, but not our bed seemed like a fair compromise. Overall though, I was going to aim for a schedule and sleep in the nursery crib as soon as possible. As it turns out, if Brex is next to me, he eats/sleeps in four-hour blocks, if left in the co-sleeper, I'm lucky if he eats/sleeps in a three-hour cycle. Despite my theoretical pragmatist, it's so much easier to have the baby in bed and do easy feeding and sleep cycles. Definitely not our long-term plan, but for now, he's hard to resist.


OTRsis leaves Saturday and then it's just us for the next twelve days before Mom Kim comes. I think those days without outside help will be challenging, but good. My hormones finally dropped a bit today (I got very weepy when faced with a few challenges) so if that continues, then next week will be even more of an adventure. Jrex is planning to just do a couple hours each day in lab so that he can be around to help.

Before now, I've always called the first three months of a baby's life The Blob Phase. I just haven't found them all that interesting. Good thing biology kicks in and I find this particular Blob utterly fascinating. His facial expressions crack me up, even the way he warms up toward crying is amusing. Jrex seems similarly affected which is really fun to watch.

Mom K has asked for pictures, so I'm trying to send her a "Daily Brex" via text message. My sister pointed out that my Dad and brother might also enjoy that. I asked if she wanted one, too and she did. I guess that means that I've already become one of THOSE parents, huh?

More details than you really want!

Tuesday:

The doorbell is ringing and the mutt starts whining and barking. I’m upstairs and rush to change from pajamas to something presentable. Whoever is at the door keeps banging on the door and ringing the bell. The dog is in a frenzy. I hurry down the stairs and Muttola comes to meet me. We get entangled and I land on the floor on knees, elbow and dog. It didn’t feel like I hit my pregnant belly though my stomach muscles felt a little achy from the jostle. I answer the door to find one of the workmen who’ve been repairing our front porch.

The rest of the day I work from the couch with my feet up and ice packs for my knees. Throughout the day I feel the baby moving and have no cramps or discharge, so it doesn’t seem like anything happened. Phew!

I end up working until 2 AM to whip the presentation for Friday into shape so the team can review it.

Wednesday:
(the beginning of potentially too much detail...)

After my late night, I sleep in until 9:30, completely taking advantage of working west coast hours. I step into the shower at 10:20. While in the shower, it feels like I’m wetting myself, which is weird since I used the toilet just before getting in the shower. I finish cleaning up and use the toilet again. It still seems like pee. However, when I get up to put moisturizer on, there’s liquid trickling on my legs. Hmm...well, if it’s amniotic fluid, they have to get the baby out within 24 hours, so I put an overnight pad on, get dressed, head downstairs and upload the files I’ve been working on so that a coworker can take over the project. I email my teams that I’m heading to the hospital, call the doctor’s office, call Jrex, load the car and head out.

People had been warning us to have our bags packed. I’d sort-of done a bag for myself and one for the baby, but I was missing a bunch of stuff recommended in the birthing class (Depends diapers for one. Ugh.). Fortunately, I HAD installed the car seat base. So, my pioneer life/Amish pregnancy continued as I drove myself to the hospital. Since I wasn’t having any contractions, it was much less harrowing (or studly) than it sounds.

Jrex joined me in triage where they figured out it WAS my water breaking and admitted me. My fabulous OB met us in the room and inserted a device with meds that would help soften my cervix. There’s a scale for how inducible a woman is, they prefer to give Pitocin when she’s at 8 and I was at 2 (out of 10). The med would stay in for 12 hours and then, pending the result, they’d start the Pitocin at 4 AM. I started contractions around midnight: I could sleep around them, wake for them and then go back to sleep. By 4 AM I was 1 cm dilated, so a much better candidate for the induction.

I’d told the doctor I wanted to try natural, but I also knew that Pitocin induced labor would be fairly intense, so wasn’t holding natural childbirth too tightly.

With the Pitocin, at first I was able to geek out and use the contraction counter app on my phone to help. It was comforting to know I was at 30 seconds of the pain wave with only another 30-45 seconds to go. At first I lay in the hospital bed, but then they brought me a ‘birthing ball’ (i.e. a balance ball). It helped to be able to rock during the contraction. Of course, NEXT Monday was the birthing class on breathing, but I made something up that seemed to be helpful. Eventually the contractions were coming every 3 minutes for a minute long. I actually was falling completely asleep between each one, which was a little freaky given that I sat on a balance ball with my arms wrapped around a pillow on the bed. I had them switch the hospital bed to a birthing stool formation. Sitting in that meant that sleeping was easier between the contraction, but more painful during.

During the contraction, I kept thinking of things I wanted to tell Jrex, but then I’d fall asleep the instant the contraction finished. Eventually I was able to get out that if I was less than 4 cm when the Dr arrived to check me, I wanted drugs. I couldn’t imagine hours and hours of the pain wave.

Poor Dr N arrived to check me at 10:30 AM. He had to wait to do the check when I was between contractions. At that point, I had NO restraint in me and I exclaimed, “Ow, ow, OW!” the whole time he was checking me. When he was done he pronounced me completely effaced, but only two cm dilated. Without censor or care, I blurted out, “Fuck that! I want the epidural!” They all burst out laughing.

Within five minutes the doctor with his beautiful drugs rescued me and I fell asleep.

A few hours later, I was able to chat on the phone with my sister and send out text updates. A resident checked me at 3:30 PM and I was at 7 cm. Dr N arrived at 5 pm, found me at 10 cm and declared it was time to push. He left me with Jrex and our nurse. At 5:20 or so, they each grabbed a leg and helped coach me through pushing through the contraction. Jrex was awesome about having his arm completely behind my back and forcing me into a strong crunch position. I think it’s to his credit that after only an hour, Dr N and half the hospital were back in the room for the catch.

I believe my famous last words when I saw the purple cone-head child emerge were, “Look, Jrex, it’s a person!” The baby’s head was so big that his cone-head actually had a bend in it! They put him on me to say hello while Jrex cut the cord. Then the nurses and Jrex took the baby over to a warming station to clean him up while Dr N and a resident stitched up my 2nd degree tear (which was NOT bad for such a big headed baby).

When they brought the munchkin back and most people had cleared the room, I tried to nurse. Feeling a bit like a little kid who puts a doll to her chest, I went through the motions I’d seen in the videos, and to my shock, it seemed to work! He latched on really well and seemed to get a good drink from both sides.

We arrived upstairs at 7:30 pm. and the beginning of ‘your life will never be the same’ began!

It’s now Saturday morning and we’ll head home soon. My sister arrives this afternoon for a week (I’m very excited to hang out with her during this transitional week. She’s got lots of practical wisdom and is also a lot of fun. The next immediate adventure is introducing the baby to the dog!

How can you help? I need a name to use on the blog for the baby! Any suggestions?

Getting to know you

We went around the room doing introductions: a labor & delivery nurse, a stay-at-home Mom, a Mary Kay rep (and great-grandmother) in her 80's, a single woman who is a Counselor, a Grandma, a Mom/part-time finance person (with three adopted children), Counselor/Mom, Mom, Mom, and then our fearless leader. This group has met for years on Friday mornings: a tight-knit group who've mostly lived in Oak Cliff all their lives. I was invited to join them by a woman at Tyler Methodist.

I joined the study in the second week. They're going through a book by Beth Moore called "Jesus". It's a study of the book of Luke that takes 18 weeks. After a warm welcome, the group had a lot of questions for me:

"When are you due? Two weeks! My goodness, you're tiny. What are you having? Where is your house? How long have you been here. Are you working?"

"Where's your mother?" (this from the labor/delivery nurse). I answered, "She's been dead for 14 years." With a sympathetic shrug she continued, "Well, maybe it's a God thing you're in this group, we're all happy to help with baby stuff!"

Other women chimed in, "Yeah, I have a 14-year old and a 17-year old who love to babysit. Heck, I'm underemployed right now, I'll come babysit!" "Bring the baby to the group, we'll all love to take turns holding him."

After years of being one of the 'old married people' compared to many of the people in my small groups, being in a group of women that includes a great-grandmother (with fiesty red hair) is wonderful. I also loved that the discussion was very earthy and authentic. It didn't feel like 'Southern Hospitality' where there's a facade of warmth, but then people are stuck with masks (stereotype, I know!).

-------------
One of the other things we did with Mom K was to go to a neighborhood bbq in the next block. The hosts were a lesbian couple with twins (one has my first name, the other has a variation on my middle name. Easy to remember!). We sat across the circle of chairs from them and Mom K kept thinking that the guy sitting next to the couple was the Dad. It must have taken 10 variations of me or Jrex saying, "No, it's the two women in the red baseball hats. They're the parents." She also thought there were a lot of housemates there, she didn't realize they were all gay couples.

One of the older gentlemen at the event is actually Santa Claus. He drives a red car with a vanity plate and does dozens of gigs each season. Apparently he really decks out his house, too.

We found out a ton of gossip about our house. They called the guy two owners ago "Na zi Ni ck"; I didn't find out why because his mother was chatting with another group nearby, but I'd met her and she's a really interesting woman who's originally from Germany. I HOPE the name isn't a reference to her heritage, cause that would be really lame. Especially since the woman who was telling me was also going on and on about the super-organic day care that she runs. She called the most recent owner "Daddy War bucks" because he was bald and poured so much money into this house. When we explained which house we'd bought, many of them exclaimed, "Oh! You bought Big Brown!"

I guess this is the joy and the craziness of a "real" neighborhood, huh? People have been here for years and know each others' histories. I wonder what nicknames we'll end up getting? Probably "The Slackers"! We were informed that our street goes nuts with Hallowe'en decorations and Christmas--we've NEVER been good with that. The guy across the street from us does a hearse filled with dry ice, people drop off car loads of children to trick-or-treat our street. I think that this year we have a valid out due to the baby, but I guess we'll be in trouble if we opt out in the future. Guess we still had better stock up on candy, huh? Mom K will be back with us for Halloween this year. Should be fun (and very amusing).

It was strange to go from that BBQ to the Bible study. For the area within a few blocks of us, we have one of the bigger houses and seem like 'rich' people. A little further north in Oak Cliff, there's an area called Kessler Park that has really big mansions, rolling hills, and a golf course. The Bible study is in a house just off the golf course. In that group, I'm definitely NOT one of the rich ones. (Note: the houses below ARE in Kessler, but they're much bigger than the house where the study is...)


We went to a pool party yesterday to welcome new faculty. Jrex was one of the guests of honor. THAT neighborhood has "Oh-My-God!" mansions. It's in a northern part of Dallas that's very wealthy. It all circles back to making me so, so grateful for the house/street/neighborhood where we get to raise a kid. I love the diversity around us and that there's a mix of rich and poor and that we'll get to know people from so many walks of life.

Remembering

Mom K came for a short visit this week. Sept 17 was the second anniversary of Jrex's father's death and she wanted us to spend time remembering him and praying together.

As we prepared for Saturday, I asked lots of questions to try to understand the background and culture for how she wanted to do things. Here's the summary:

Traditionally for the anniversary of a parent's death, the children gather, but so do any other family members who are able to come. In non-Christian Korean tradition, everyone bows to the dead relative's picture and a feast is prepared in their honor. The belief is that on that day the spirit of the ancestor visits the home. Mom didn't say this, but the implication seemed to be that you want the spirit to see that everyone and everything is fine so they won't need to hang around. It's also a way for the dead person to see the family's esteem for them. To my relief, Mom said she doesn't believe that the spirit shows up, she believes that Dad is in heaven, but that he's aware of what we're doing.

As a result, the whole meal was food that Dad would have liked: a wonderful seafood stew (squid, scallops, fish, mushrooms, tofu and other ingredients) and another stew filled with variations of rice cakes. Of course, there were also lots of side dishes. When setting the table, all the settings were white (placemats, napkins, etc). Most of the time, we use cloth napkins, but Dad always asked for a paper towel, so we set the table with paper towels. Mom wore an all white outfit. Neither of us had known about the white stipulation, so we just wore ordinary clothing.

For the ceremony, Mom bought flowers. Five big roses for her, Jrex, me, his sister and her husband and two small roses for Asian niece and our unborn son. I printed out a picture of Dad and put it into a frame I had. She bought a new candle that we lit and placed in front of the picture and the flowers.

Mom had prepared scriptures she wanted us to read about the resurrection and how we have hope. Then we sang Amazing Grace (Dad's favorite) and each of us prayed and thanked God for his life. Mom shared memories of their life together. She was honest and laughingly said, "Jrex knows, when Daddy was alive, I complained about him. When he died, I saw how much he did and how I didn't have to worry about things because he took care of them. When he was alive, I thought all problems were him, after he died, I realized it was me, too. If I had to do it all over again, I would choose him. No one else is like him." She spoke about how hard it was to move to a new country and learn a new language at the ages of 38 and 32. I'd been afraid that it would feel like a strange combination of animism/Buddhism and Christianity, but it was just a good time to remember together.

She asked what my family does to remember my Mom's death. I was embarrassed to admit that after the first year when we gathered together, we mostly just called each other on that day. And that now, 14 years later, we rarely do that. It sounds like she expects to keep doing something for Dad the rest of her life. She also made it sound like it was a really big deal that we need to show up at her house next year for this. She said that her community in NYC keep asking her questions. Her implication was that they are judging her for having disrespectful children who neglect their parents. We do need to go and help her sort and clear out her house, so we might as well go at that time and deal with all of it together.

Do any of you remember those who have died with any special ceremony? Have you experienced another culture's ceremonies?

We ARE the bad kids in the back of the class

First of four "Prepared Childbirth" classes tonight. I think that Jrex and I are definitely in the 'which of these is not like the others?' category. All the other parents seemed to be doing the blissed out, miracle of baby thing. Of course, most of the people in the class are having their kids in late November or December. NO one else has procrastinated as badly as we have (we're due 7 days after the class finishes...whoops). I thought the whole focus was going to be on labor and delivery, but this first class was all about interviewing and then introducing the people in your little group. Discussing a chart of pregnancy symptoms and how to relieve them, hearing about the right biomechanics to use during pregnancy, etc.

Given the fact that I sit on a balance ball all day as my 'chair', it was amusing/annoying when they spent 10 minutes going over the benefits of using one. I do think that it's been a big part of why I can still pick things up off the floor (plié/relevé...hips apart and down, swoop and rise) and why I'm not getting back pain. Apparently, it can also help get the kid into the right position in my body. I don't know if it's true or not, but they said it might help avoid backache labor. I'll let you know.

We were in the second-to-last row making snarky comments to each other the whole class. He kept correcting the teachers' anatomy explanations (in a whisper to me), I kept muttering about having to hear about how to manage pregnancy symptoms. After I checked off what symptoms I've had and it was only a third of the preggers possibilites, I poked him in the arm, "You are SO lucky! This could have been so much worse." He raised his eyebrows and peered at me over the top of his glasses, "No, YOU are so lucky." I laughed, "I KNOW I'm lucky, I just don't think you appreciate how lucky YOU are. You should be much more grateful for how easy I've made this for you!"

During class, the baby was really pushing and stretching and making me uncomfortable, I nudged him again, "This child is already a trouble-maker. He's definitely YOUR son." Jrex shook his head in mock sadness, "I keep having to point out to you that this whole thing was YOUR idea!"

Everyone else was being wonderful and polite and listening intently to the teacher. Oops. On the way home I commented that it's a good thing we weren't in high school together cause we'd have gotten into lots of trouble. I could blame Jrex, but really, since 10th grade, I've consistently been the bad kid in the back of the class. It must drive teachers crazy to have me around: I'm paying attention and listening, but usually just restless enough to make comments to people sitting near me. I've sat giggling through way too many classes, sermons and lectures with a wide variety of people for me to be able to blame Jrex.

How are we going to NOT corrupt a child?