Climbing Out

About two weeks ago, our little guy started sleeping 12 hours a night. Jeff and I feel like we hit the jackpot in having the most agreeable baby. Since the first day, he's been the healthiest eater and a very sound sleeper. When awake, he smiles and giggles constantly, and when we put him down in the crib for a nap, he falls asleep without too much fuss four out of five times so long as we put him down before he gets overly tired. Even though we had worried about him getting dependent on the pacifier when we first started giving it to him, he started spitting it out several weeks ago. I don't think it gets much easier.

Despite this, I've found this transition to motherhood challenging. Surprisingly, the physical aspect has been the easiest. Sure, we had our sleepless nights the first few weeks, but once Jeff and I started splitting our nights into two shifts about 3 weeks in, we managed to get about six hours of solid sleep each night (we surprised almost all of our friends by how well-rested we looked). And it took me a while to realize that the baby is actually mobile -- that I could take him place with me, like the grocery store and the coffee shop -- instead of treating him like a fragile piece of glass I have to keep protected. And then I've had my breastfeeding challenges, which made me break down in tears and feel incompetent in the most fundamental way, but slowly over time, I decided that I could live with it.

The more difficult aspect about becoming a mother has been emotional and psychological. They were driven more by concerns about me than the baby. I've been surprised by how much having a child of my own brought out so much of the anxieties I've had about my family growing up. And how that process made me notice the mental and physical barriers I had built over the years to keep my anxieties under control. I think just the process of being exposed to my anxieties again left me feeling incredibly vulnerable and psychologically exhausted.

Somehow, today, I feel like I'm on the other side of those anxieties. As if they are under control again. Maybe it's because the hormones are finally settling back down (let's hope!). Or maybe it's because I spent the day working while Jeff watched the baby, and I had a little time to step back and appreciate all that we have. Or maybe because I decided that I needed more community involvement and signed up for a volunteer position with the Golden Gate Mom's Group. Or maybe because I've had four months to process all this, and I'm feeling more in step with my day to day routine. Or maybe it's because I've been going to sleep at 8pm for the past few nights.

Whatever it is, I feel like I'm climbing out. And ready to start planning for our second baby!

On Not Trying for Perfection

I've been having difficulty writing my posts these days. It's hard to find the time to sit down and write some coherent thoughts. And when you've spent the day singing nursery rhymes and making googly faces, it's difficult to switch gears. When I sit down to write, I find my mind becoming vacant. I've tried to write in the past few days, and I write out a sentence or two and then peeter off. I've been thinking about this, and I am starting to wonder if it is partly because I find it difficult to write honestly without playing into some stereotyped role of motherhood.

As a new mom, I've had a lot of complicated and confused thoughts about the changes we've been experiencing since our little guy's arrival. I absolutely adore our little guy and feel so grateful that he's here with us. But with the bliss comes a host of changes, some of which I anticipated and others that I didn't -- and I find myself reacting to some of them with a lot of intense emotions and anxiety that seem to bubble up from a well I hadn't drawn from in years.

Writing about all of those, however, doesn't seem so easy. When I start writing about any of these topics, I feel compelled to start out with disclaimers about how much I love our little baby. Perhaps to fend off any criticism that I'm complaining, especially when we had been waiting for our little guy with such anticipation. Instead of writing, I've been mulling over these issues in my head, which tends to create a never-ending spiral of aimless thoughts that lead to loose associations that lead to more aimless thoughts. When I try to talk about it, I feel a little guilty, as if I'm failing to measure up. And I scrutinize the listener to try to measure whether she understands.

I'm now starting to understand how much social pressure women have as moms. To be loving. To be devoted. To be motherly. To live up to an image of motherhood that I can't seem to meet.

I'm realizing that being a mom is complicated business. Hormones have taken over my body, and I can't seem to shake them. Then there are all those other issues, running the gamut from life decisions to the mundane. Like whether I'd rather stay at home or work, how to be ok with being a slave to housework, how to stimulate the little guy just enough to help him with his development, but not too much as to overstimulate him and push him over the edge, how to schedule my days so that I don't feel overly disconnected from the world but still manage to get things done around the house, how to find some time for myself and still do all that I need to do for the baby, how not to feel guilty about everything, and a host of other concerns that I can't seem to keep track of in my head.

Just in the last few days, I discovered the general parenting forum on the Golden Gate Mom's Group's website, and I've been pouring over some of the topics. I had browsed other websites before, but they were mostly for topics related to the baby's well-being, like how often should he be pooping, how do you ensure he is napping enough, etc. Those topics are on this website too, but I'm also finding threads of conversations between moms about being women and mothers. And they are a godsend.

Thank goddness for the women who are honest on that site, even if they do it anonymously. When I read that some other mom worries about being selfish because she is thinking about going back to work or that another mom no longer feels like her confident self after having a baby, I want to call her up and ask her to meet up for lunch. To these posts, I write in my comments with effusive words of empathy. I want to give them a hug because we need each other.

Just Showing Off

Can't believe how much our little guy has grown in the past 3+ months!

Looking in the Mirror

I've never been happy with my looks. Throughout most of my life, whenever I looked in the mirror, I scrutinized the person in the mirror with the critical eyes of a disapproving mother-in-law. And through those set of eyes, I saw a flat face, drooping cheeks, froggy eyes, and clumsy lips -- features unbecoming to any potential suitor. As for my body, it was never good enough. Except for one brief stretch in my early teens when I grew faster vertically than horizontally, I always seemed to be 10 pounds overweight. And too big-boned.

Despite my efforts over the years, I never quite managed to live up to my image of myself. You know, that person I thought I could be if only I could lose all the weight I wanted, if I could discipline myself to work out regularly with weights, if I remembered to cleanse and lather my face with face cream every night, if only I learned how to apply make-up properly for once, and if I only worked my jaw muscles regularly enough to develop cheek bones. It wasn't that I needed to be glamorous or sexy or stunning. I just wanted to be a better version of myself.

I've wondered where this comes from, this poor self-image. I can blame the media and the elongated models who flaunt their emaciated frames. But if I took the time to psychoanalyze myself on this topic, I'm sure there were enough incidents in my life to germinate this attitude.

For example, as a child, I grew very quickly. Faster than most other kids. When we lived in Korea, I was always the tallest kid in my class -- where teachers lined us up by height before pairing us off for school trips. My mom remembers me running home in tears, crying that I was again left without a partner. Fast forward to 6th grade. A picture of me, with thick glasses and a pony-tail, slow dancing with a boy who came up to my chest. His arms taut across to my waist, my arms draped over his skinny shoulders, and my back hunched in an effort to make myself shorter. Even to this day, I shrink when I see that photo.

As we were growing up, looks were never emphasized in my family. Perhaps for that reason, we were given bowl hair cuts, so typical of the 70s and so downright unattractive. For a long time, I worried that I looked like a boy and was often mistaken for one. One time, when I was about 6 or so, I remember going to the public bath with my mother (as we did in Korea), and an elderly lady criticized my mother for not sending me to the men's section as I was clearly old enough to bathe on my own.

As I grew older, I couldn't believe that anyone would be attracted to me. When boys flirted with me, I dismissed them. I assumed they weren't really flirting -- perhaps only practicing for the real flirting they would be doing with the pretty girl. Or maybe something was wrong with them for pursuing me -- perhaps they couldn't get anyone else or had poor self-esteem themselves.

Such thoughts used to preoccupy me in my late teens and 20s. And then I entered my 30s, and I slowly shed my self-absorption over my looks. I remember reaching a point where I thought, well, there are plenty of uglier people in the world and they don't seem to let their looks get in the way of their happiness. I still don't dawdle in front of the mirror, but nowadays, I care a little less. Perhaps because I'm happily married and besides, who has the time to worry about looks anyway.

So imagine my surprise that I should be so enamored of my features on my little guy. Every time I look at him, I think, how did a little guy of ours turn out to be so handsome! Of course, Jeff is strikingly handsome, and the little guy looks a lot like Jeff (or at least as Jeff did as a baby). But the funny thing is that he has my eyes and nose, and I find them to be the most adorable little eyes and nose.

These days, I sometimes stand in front of the mirror and look at myself a little differently. I twist my lips, raise my brows, open my mouth, and move my jaws just as I saw my little guy do. And when I look carefully, I see myself and the little guy smiling back at me.

Loving the little guy helps me love myself a little more.

Growing

I'm sitting in the dark, camped out on our extra futon, typing with one hand. My other arm is holding the little guy, conked out with his head rolled over the crook of my left arm. It has been a rough day for him. The developments occurring in his brain seem to seize him especially radically on certain days. Today, for example, his eyes have been popping open unusually wide at even the most mundane objects. We're not sure how these objects and surfaces appear to him, but we see their impact on him. He can't seem to tear his eyes away, and he stares and stares, even as his eyes droop from fatigue and he cries in desperate need of sleep. His current nap is the result of a 40 minute workout of shooshing, rocking, patting, and repeatedly putting him down only to pick him back up when he cries out with an urgent plea for peaceful sleep.

When he has a difficult time falling asleep, I jump on those opportunities to break our self-imposed rule and let him sleep on me. His warm body fills me like nothing else. When he breathes on me, I want to suck it in, knowing that we really are one still.

Our little baby has been growing incredibly quickly. He is now over 14 pounds, almost double his lowest weight of 7 pounds and 2 ounces about five days after his birth. When we put him down on Tiny Love Gymini playmat, he latches onto the limbs of the orange giraffe and sky-blue monkey with such determination, and we boast as if he has scaled the highest of towers. He smiles and coos at us, and we know he has the best disposition. When our friends Paul and Hugo visited over the weekend, he took it upon himself to babble and engage our guests, and we knew that we have one gracious host. He's already a little person.

What an incredible year this has been. He will be three months old this Saturday, and I still can't believe he's here with us.

The Threat of Domesticity

When I was 14, my parents bought a hamburger stand after my dad quit his company job. That was when my mom, who had always stayed home and made us after-school snacks, started working full-time for the first time in my life. They started leaving at 5:30 in the morning and returning after 10pm, six days a week. That left us three kids to run the household.

I don't remember how much housework we had done before my mom started working. I remember helping her with the laundry at times and assisting in the kitchen. And learning how to make a dish here or there. But I can't recall if we even had regular chores until then.

Once she started working, I remember the three of us sitting in front of the TV a lot and fighting over the remote control. While resenting that my brother always wanted to watch horror films, even as we sat next to him on the couch with our hands cupped over our eyes. And endlessly eating burritos and eggrolls stashed in the freezer in wholesale size boxes that my parents had brought home from the burger shop.

Those days are now a blur, but my memory then skips to a time when we started doing the groceries. And the laundry. And the dishes. And cooking dinner. And endlessly fighting over who should do what.

We fought daily. Over the same set of gripes day after next. It's your turn to do the dishes. I did them last night. It's your turn to do the laundry. Why am I always doing them? You have to make the dinner tonight. You said you would!

In my teenage world, having to do something out of turn was a grave injustice. I shouldn't always have to be the one to do the dishes. Why is it always up to me to figure out what to make for dinner? Why can't you fold your own laundry for once?

We had no sense of order. We were living in the realm of the Lord of the Flies, and I was sure it was my place to impose order. And justice.

I developed a habit of ranting freely. Whenever the situation seemed to call for it. The three of us fought with all that was within us. With the fervor and intensity of divorcing couples. There was no sense of boundary of what would be deemed proper behavior. Within our four walls, we screamed at each other and cried regularly. We nursed our headaches afterwards.

Looking back, it's now clear that we were fighting over more than just having to wash one more dirty dish or carry a bag of groceries from King Kullen two blocks down the street. It was a time of change and anxiety for our whole family. We had lost our sense of security that had come with my dad's company job, and we didn't know how to cope with the emotional stress of feeling like we had been spit out into the world to fend for ourselves.

Years later, my mom rued that she and my dad had not imposed a sense of order when they both started working. We were so busy, she said. We shouldn't have left the three of you alone like that.

With no adult to guide us, we never really developed the skills to manage ourselves or each other. And couldn't seem to find a way to cope, except with the passing of time and by drifting away from each other.

One year, when I was home from college, my aunt came to visit from Korea. She happened to come when our family was in the middle of moving from our rental apartment to the first home we had ever owned. She watched me and my sister organize all the furniture, tear down all the boxes, and sort through all that needed to be put away in cupboards and drawers. Later, she told my mom that I was ready to run my own household. That I would be quite the catch. That any bachelor would be lucky to have me in his home.

I remember feeling my face stinging from that comment. It was the same shame I felt when I went to stay with a friend at her aunt's house during one Thanksgiving during college, and as we were helping with the dinner, the aunt observed that I managed myself in the kitchen like someone who had a lot of experience.

Oh, I just helped my parents out here and there, I remember responding.

I felt that I had become overly domesticated. Domestic skills were nothing to be proud of. In my world, they were associated with resentment and bitterness. Something acquired despite myself. I didn't want them to be the dominant markers of my teenage years, even as I gloated when my parents thanked me for helping them.

When I first started living alone, I shunted domesticity to the side. I took my laundry to the laundry service. I had two pots and one frying pan, but took months to acquire cooking utensils. I loved eating out. I'm too busy to cook, I loved to say. Too many other important things going on.

Over the years, I've learned to become more balanced by cooking occasionally and doing my own laundry. And breaking out the vacuum and the mop on a regular basis.

Now that Jeff and I have our baby, though, domesticity once again threatens to dominate our lives. Our days are now filled with laundry, bottles washing, grocery shopping, and cooking. Sometimes I find myself reverting to my teenage self, a complaint on the tip of my tongue over having to wash an extra bottle or yet again doing the laundry. In a preemptive move, I prepared a chart -- with many a revisions -- specifying exactly who is responsible for what and presented it to Jeff after sending it to him on Google Docs.

Do you want to be in charge of clearing the Diaper Genie? I propose to Jeff. Then I'll be in charge of unloading the dish-washer.

He looks at me patiently and asks, Can't we just work together?

It takes me a few minutes to remember. Oh, right. We're grown up now.

I'm grateful to him for the reminder.

Classes on Glass Blowing

For those in the Bay Area looking for a cool gift idea, consider this! As I've posted before, Jeff is a glass blower and he has made some beautiful pieces like this over the years. Anyone can make something worthy of ooh's and aah's -- so long as you keep at it and develop the skills. If you've ever seen a glass blowing demo, you know how cool the process is. Every glass blower I've met is intensely into the art -- and there is a wonderful community of glass blowers in the Bay Area. You can give the class as a gift -- or better yet, take the class yourself to make a gift!

Cranium Challenged

Jeff and I are big headed people. Not quite bobbleheads but not entirely out of range. My head looks deceptively larger than Jeff's, and Jeff loves to tease me about it with malicious glee. But when we first started dating, we measured our heads with a tape ruler, and we both know that Jeff's is larger by two inches. Mine's only flatter while Jeff's is long.

So when we were expecting, we were of course anticipating a baby with a large head -- both in terms of width and depth. We worried about it a bit before the due date and prayed that the little guy wouldn't be too ripe. When the doctor decided to induce me nine days early, we were relieved.

When we visited the pediatrician for our one month check-up in early November, the little guy measured at 75th percentile in terms of height and weight. We were happy to learn that he was proportional.

When they measured the head, though, we found out that he was only in the 25th percentile in terms of head circumference. You would think we would have been relieved to have spared our child our lop-sided fate. Instead, our immediate reaction was to worry. Oh, no, how could his head be so small? Is something wrong? Is his brain developing properly?

We've obviously entered the realm of worrying because we can.

The doctor told us all was fine as he looked up to gaze at our heads. He seemed assured that it'll take more than one generation for our clan to join the ranks of the cranium challenged.

Learning to Be a Mother

I've been surprised to find that I've been nagged by a strange sense of anxiety since becoming a mom. Not enough to take away from the doting moments I've been sharing with the little guy, but enough to make me wonder what the hell is going on. Hormones? Definitely. The control freak in me rearing its enormous head in the midst of all the changes? Probably. Some unexamined fear creeping out? Hmmm...

You'd think after all the waiting and anticipating, I should just sit back and enjoy motherhood. That's what I expected. And most of the time, that's how it is. I hold the little guy tight across my chest and soak him in. But at random times throughout the day, the anxiety seeps out. When I find myself unshowered and undressed at 11 in the morning. When the feeding has been going on for over an hour, and I haven't yet crossed off any of the items on my to do list. When I realize that I have just a couple of hours left before it is bedtime again.

I sometimes feel like I should be somewhere else. As if there should be two of me -- one running around as I am used to doing and the other cuddling with the baby. I feel somewhat desperate and unproductive. And almost always, like I'm trying to catch up.

The anxiety was the worst about a month after delivery. When my parents had already left and we were trying to handle our new life on our own. We were starting to settle into a routine that was meant to give us time to get some sleep, to do all the tasks that needed to be done, and also to find some time for each other and ourselves. And discovered in the process that there isn't time to fit them all in.

I generally have a lot of anxiety about time. Probably from watching my parents work away for decades doing meaningless, repetitive labor -- only for the sake of making a living for the family. And because I so fear that such a big chunk of their lives had been wasted, I feel like I have to have something to show for my day -- something concrete that I can point to and assure myself that the day had been productive.

Being a mother is forcing me to let go of my desperate hold on time. I feel like I have to take some lessons in Zen Buddhism -- and learn how to focus on the moment at hand instead of keeping a part of me always speeding ahead. And to be ok with not being able to account for it by the tenth of a billable hour. And letting some things go.

But that would mean giving up my sense of control. Another thing I like to latch onto.

One of these days, I will learn these lessons.

Our Thanksgiving

I should have gone to bed at my usual time the night before. On most nights, I'm tucked in bed by 9pm, following up on the day's emails and news, before I conk out around 10pm for four hours of solid sleep while Jeff takes care of the baby. My shift starts at 2am.

The night before Thanksgiving, however, we watched more episodes from the third season of Lost on Hulu, an indulgence we haven't had since I was on bedrest during pregnancy. It was too easy to click the "Next Video" button as we excoriated Kate for having slept with Sawyer and wondered how they were going to kill off Charlie. And before I knew it, it was already past 11:30pm. But hey, live wild. It was the holidays.

When I took over for my shift, the little guy was just finishing one of his many meals. He then slept until around 3:30 am. When he woke again, I took him into the other room where he ate and then dozed for about 30 minutes. He then woke again unhappy with his state of being and proceeded to toss and turn, apparently trying to deal with his gasses. After a couple of hours of discomfort, it was mealtime again. I finally got him to sleep again at 7am.

I intended to close my eyes for just a few minutes while he slept, but when I woke again, it was already 9:30am.

I rushed into the bedroom and woke up Jeff.

"Jeff, when are your parents coming?"

"I'm not sure. They haven't called back yet."

I grabbed his phone and saw that there was no message.

"I hope they don't show up too early. They wouldn't just show up, right? We'd better get up and get dressed."

"Ok."

"Can you watch the baby for 10 minutes? I really need to poop and then I have to pump."

"Sure. Come here, Mr. T."

I handed the baby off to Jeff and rushed to the bathroom.

It had been a few days since I had done number two and that's never a good thing. Some alien creature had taken over my body since delivery and my system was no longer reliable. My efforts to eat more fiber sometimes failed when we had no time to shop for groceries, so I often resorted to taking plum extract supplements that my mom had sent. But they obviously were not working as I had hoped. I felt packed inside, and I knew I had to go before it got worse. So on this morning, I even took a nasty tasting drink of "Colon Cleanse" that we had in our pantry.

I had been sitting there for good 15 minutes with US Magazine across my lap when Jeff banged on the bathroom door. He popped his head in and said, "They're here!"

"What?"

"My parents are here!"

"Oh god. I haven't even showered. And it's going to take me some time here. And I have to pump."

"Don't worry. Do what you have to do. I'll take care of things out here."

With that, he shut the door.

I sat there, feeling miserable. And for the life of me, I couldn't go. I sat there as I heard the doorbell ring and heard Jeff rush down the hallway and open the door. Then I heard the greetings and his parents coo at the baby. Then their footsteps walked past the shut bathroom door, as I continued to sit there.

After another 5 to 10 minutes, I finally gave up. Feeling worse than I did before I started, I took my shower and got dressed as quickly as I could.

I rushed into the living room to greet Jeff's parents. Then sat uncomfortably for a few minutes as they chatted about their recent cruise to the Hawaiian Islands. I then handed them the photo album I had made for them of our little guy's birth so that they could entertain themselves while I went off and pumped.

I then rejoined our guests for another stretch while Jeff went off to take his shower.

Later, I handed the baby back to Jeff and excused myself as discreetly as I could so that I could try again.

No luck.

I came back out and squirmed some more.

Around 1pm, I decided that I had to do something. Jeff's brother and his girlfriend were also coming around 2pm, and I couldn't keep excusing myself. Then I remembered we had coffee. The caffeinated kind. Coffee always worked for me. But I haven't had it for two years ever since we started trying to have a baby. Now that I was breastfeeding, it was still not an option. But I was desperate. I had to sacrifice one round of breastmilk to do this for myself.

So while Jeff prepared the roast and our guests munched on cheese and crackers, I downed one cup of coffee like a tequila shot. Then another. I waited 10 minutes and then excused myself again.

This time, after additional effort, it worked. With great relief, I did a mercy flush. And heard the now all too familiar sound of the toilet clogging.

Fuck.

I tried to unclog the damn thing with the new heavy duty plunger that we had just bought last week. It hadn't worked the week before and it wasn't working now.

About 15 minutes later, I heard Jeff knock on the door.

"Are you ok in there?"

"I clogged up the toilet." I felt on the verge of tears.

Pause...

"Here, let me try it."

"No, no. Stay with your parents. I'll just call the plumber. I hope they're working today..."

I closed the lid and ran into the bedroom to look up the number for Plumberman. Then got voicemail.

"Hi, this is Shinyung. You were here last week. Our toilet is clogged again, and we need someone to unclog it right away. We have guests at our house, and we only have one bathroom. Can you please, please call me back as soon as you can?"

With that, I waited with the phone in my hand. And turned to Baby T, "Things are not going so well today..."

The phone rang less than 15 minutes later.

"Hi, this is Larry from Plumberman. I can be there in about half an hour. Does that work."

"Oh, bless you."

When I went out to the living room to tell Jeff the good news, he was on the phone, telling his brother to make sure to stop by a gas station on their way up if they had to go.

Shortly after our other guests arrived, Larry the Plumberman showed up. He was done in less than two minutes. He charged us his usual $60, even though it was a holiday. Jeff gave the guy a $20 tip.

After, we had a lovely meal. Our little guy's first Thanksgiving with his grandparents, his uncle and his girlfriend and their three pugs.

Little does he know that The Plumberman saved the day.

Now...

It's 5:30 in the morning, and I am listening to the grunts, sighs, wails, and snorts coming out of his little body. I had just picked him up to pat his back to make sure I had burped him properly. After re-swaddling him. And adjusting the folds across his neck to make sure that they weren't brushing too closely to his mouth. Earlier, when he wasn't breathing as heavily, I had leaned in to listen to his breaths, to make sure he was breathing. And took an extra minute to stare at him, as I have done over and over again during the past six and a half weeks.

The little guy -- all 11.5 pounds of him -- fills up our whole house. When we are in the same room, all of our being is directed toward him. When we are elsewhere, his every crackle and sneeze are transmitted through the baby monitor. His noise takes up all of our consciousness and alertness. We crane our necks, stop in our tracks, and still all else to listen to what comes out of him. Does it sound unusual? Is his breathing labored? Is that a cute little snore coming out of the little guy? Doesn't he grumble remarkably like a gremlin?

Sometimes, I still don't believe it. That he's here with us. Two years after we started trying to conceive. After two miscarriages. After fretting that it was taking so long. And then fearing that it may never be.

Now, he is here. With each breath, he announces he is here. And reminds us how he depends on us.

Time now seems to fly by in warp speed, taking with it pieces of him, how he was yesterday, the day before. And presents new discoveries with each day.

All I can do is hold him and be grateful.

California Lawyer Article

California Lawyer magazine asked me to write an article for them a few months ago, and here is what I wrote. Not much different than what I've written often in this blog, but I thought I might as well post it. Here is the link.

On Mothering

My parents stayed with us for three weeks to help us take care of our newborn.

When I first asked her to help us out with our baby, my mom responded, "I think American babies are different than Korean babies."

"What do you mean?"

"American people take their babies outside right away. You would never do that with a Korean baby. American babies must be built stronger. I don't think I would know how to take care of an American baby."

I didn't get into a discussion about whether our baby would be an "American baby" under her definition, but I tried to convince her that all babies are the same, even though I lacked the basis to make such an assertion. When my persuasive skills failed, we agreed that she would help with only the cleaning and the cooking.

On Wednesday, the day before I was scheduled to be induced, my parents arrived from New York with enough food to last us through a nuclear attack. When they unloaded their suitcase, it spilled out with cellophane packets of dried-out seaweed, an assortment of dried fish, varieties of ground rice powder, sesame seeds, and other ingredients for postpartum concoctions.

After unpacking, my mother marched into my kitchen and surveyed the cupboards, refrigerator, freezer, and pantry.

"Where is the sesame oil? What about the soy sauce? You don't have ground red pepper? Oh, these? These aren't the right kind. Where did you buy these? We'll have to get some more. How old are these black sesame seeds? Get me a basket. A big one..."

After she cleared the counter, re-arranged the pots and pans, and browsed through the refrigerator, she grabbed the Swiffer and put the vacuum in my dad's hands. By the next evening, the floors had been vacuumed and mopped, the refrigerator cleaned, the ceilings cleaned of cobwebs, the laundry done, all furniture dusted, the floor mats dried in the sun, my plants thoroughly watered, and our yellow lab Sherlock's fur balls exorcised from all corners of the house.

Early Friday morning, shortly after we called them from the hospital to announce the baby's arrival, my parents rushed over in a cab. After oohing and aahing over the baby and inquiring about my breakfast, they left the hospital in a cab. About five hours later, they returned, again in a cab, but this time bearing a pot of pine nut porridge.

"I thought you told me the food was good at the hospital!" said my mother. "How come you ate only a bagel for breakfast? You can't breastfeed on a bagel."

The next morning, they returned with a new pot of abalone porridge, more pine nut porridge, and two types of seaweed salad.

"I wanted to bring seaweed soup, but I wasn't sure how to transport it..."

When we returned home from the hospital, we were greeted with balloons and a big pot of seaweed soup.

During the next two weeks, I was mothered as I had never been mothered before.

As soon as I stirred in the morning, my mother knocked on my door.

"Are you ready for your breakfast?"

By 6am, my mom and dad had already had their breakfast. By the time my husband and I woke up, fed the baby, and sauntered out of the bedroom around 8am, we would find my mother in the middle of cooking a second breakfast just for me. She would bring over a steaming pot of soup, a fresh cooked bowl of rice, a whole fish, and various other side dishes.

"I cooked a separate pot of rice just for you. Dad and I'll eat the leftovers. You have to eat everything I cooked for you!"

"But Mom, I can't eat all this food. It's too much."

"You're nursing. You have to eat a lot. In Korea, you eat until you get sick and tired of eating. You eat for your baby. Tonight, remember you have to wake up in the middle of the night and have a snack. You can't go through the whole night without eating something. You can have some of the porridge I made for you."

"Mom, I'm tired of eating. I ate non-stop for 9 months."

"You do it for your baby!"

When I ate, my parents hovered over me. They jumped out of their chairs if I needed to re-fill my glass of water or wanted to check on the baby.

"You eat. You need to recover. I'll get it for you!"

And for the meals we ate together, they brought over my food first.

"You start eating. Don't wait for us. You have to eat when everything is hot. You are a mother now. You have to take care of yourself."

It wasn't the usual order of things, not in our family where Confucian hierarchy was strictly followed, with the father served first and the youngest child served last. And it was unlike the kind of parenting I had seen for the past 25 odd years when I had felt more like a parent at times as we played out the drama of an immigrant family.

When she wasn't cooking or washing the dishes or mopping or dusting or doing the laundry or weeding my garden, my mom held our baby. And I don't know how to explain how it felt to see my mother hold my baby the way she must have held me 38 years ago. To see her gently fold her arms around the child, to smile and coo at him, to wrap him in her love and to bestow all of her best of intentions on his well-being. To see her affection and tenderness spill out at his sight.

She must have forgotten her protestations about "American babies" when she showed me how to bathe him, how to hold him when breastfeeding, how to massage him.

Seeing her with him, I knew that I had been mothered in the best way possible. And that my child would be a part of this history -- of mothering skills passing from one generation to the next.

Catching Up to the Day

Since my parents left about ten days ago, today is the first day I've felt somewhat in control of my day. Instead of the day whipping me around by my ass, I actually felt one step ahead of it. By 4pm, I had already worked out, finished all of the laundry, had all bottles cleaned and sterilized, had vacuumed, had eaten both breakfast and lunch, and had even remembered to drink lots of fluids to help with the lactation and eat lots of fruit to help with a certain other problem. Compare that to Tuesday, when I felt like having a little breakdown for failing to keep myself well hydrated and barely having a chance to finish half a sandwich for lunch while foregoing dinner altogether because I was so tired.

It's a challenge to try to fit in all of the chores while the baby is asleep, and god forbid he awakes before I had finished going through all of the tasks on my list -- which has been the rule, not the exception. The one privilege I started allowing myself is a workout at the gym. I jump in the car and speed up and down the hills of Noe Street like a madwoman to get to the gym to fit in my 30-40 minute workout while Jeff hangs out with the baby.

It is only because Jeff has been a partner in the true sense of the word in taking care of our little Baby T that things have been as manageable as they have been. We've broken up the nights into two shifts, and I have not been sleep deprived since we started that schedule. When I fretted about failing to take good care of myself and negatively impacting my lactation, he ran out and picked up a bunch of groceries for us -- and cooked a healthy dinner for us last night. I don't know how single mothers do it -- they have my deepest respect.

So it should not be a surprise that my blogging has suffered a bit in the past several weeks. I can sit and write for an hour -- or hold my baby in that time -- or sleep. We have grand plans to make life easier for ourselves -- like hiring someone to clean our house. But it will only happen when we have time to look for someone. With each day, however, our new life seems easier. And one of these days, I will be able to post entries with coherent thoughts once again. Until then, dear readers, I beg for your patience...

Two and Half Weeks Later...

It has been about two and a half weeks since our baby's birth, and the world I live in now is very different than the one I inhabited before he showed up. I feel like I'm on the other side. As if I've climbed Mount Everest and can see a vista I didn't even know existed -- and can appreciate a human experience that I only poorly imagined before. I think I would sound trite if I tried to describe all of the changes I have gone through, but I'm sure anyone who has been through this can relate. My relationship to my body, to my sense of self, to my family and others... nothing is the same.

But despite that, having our little guy feels so completely natural. It feels like he has been with us forever. He feels so right when I hold him in my arms. And when I press my nose against his skin, he smells exactly as he should, and I can't get enough of him. When I look at him, I fill with an aching feeling -- a determination that I should -- that I have to -- do right by him. Please let me not fail him.

There are so many moments in the past two and a half weeks that I want to preserve. Like the second when they pulled his writhing grey body out and laid him on my chest -- and how I cried when I saw him. And how he has grown so miraculously fast that he seems like a different person already, and it hasn't even been three weeks. And how much it warms my heart to see Jeff hold our baby and talk to him with the most engaging of conversations, even as he changes the fifth consecutive diaper in less than an hour -- he who always declined to hold other people's babies. And the tireless effort of my mother to mother me after the delivery -- and to see her hold our little baby and to know that she must have held me the same way 38 years ago. And to see my father kiss our child, even though I had never seen him kiss anyone as long as I've known him.

I am filled with emotions, and I can't seem to contain them. Life seems so tender, as if it would bruise so easily. But it is also very soft, and it is in this softness that I have been living in the past two and half weeks. Let us stay here a while...

Our Baby

Here's our baby at 5 days old. (I'll just call him Baby T on the blog so that I don't give away his privacy before he's ready to.)

The last 5 days have been wonderful and tiring and wonderful. I can't seem to stop staring at the little guy. And holding him. I'll write more when I've had more sleep, but I just wanted to post a little update and thank all of you for your happy wishes.

Looking forward

A few years ago, I remember coming home after work. It had been one of those long days, after I had probably been working on some brief or another. I found myself alone in the car, driving home when there were very few cars on the road. All dark around me, a random street light here and there.

It was no different than many other nights I had worked late. When I had come home, only to roll into bed and to roll out as early as I needed to the next morning. But on this night, maybe it was the fatigue. Or being worn down after having worked in the office all day and late into the night, sitting in front of the computer all by myself. Or being wrapped in the night's darkness.

Whatever it was, I remember thinking that all I had was my job and my house. That those were it. And the thought depressed the hell out of me.

Tonight, sitting here, the night before I am to be induced to deliver our baby, I am reminded how long it has been since I've had a thought like that. All has been so good in my world for so long now. Even with all the nonsense that occurred with my job last year -- and the miscarriages. Through all that, I never felt despondent in the way I felt that night.

As I sit here, all feels so right with my world. And I know it'll only be righter tomorrow.

Coming Soon...

It looks like the little guy will be here before the end of the week. We had a non-stress test this morning and a visit with our doctor this afternoon. I am already 3-4 centimeters dilated, and the monitor during the non-stress test showed that I am having regular contractions every 7 minutes. I feel what seem like very mild cramps, but not every 7 minutes. If he doesn't show up on his own in the next few days, my doctor said she'll induce me on Thursday morning because of my high blood pressure.

It's kind of hard to believe that it is really happening. I find myself thinking about everything and nothing. For now, I am just waiting. Feeling as if I am holding my breath.

The Luxury Suite

I've been on bedrest since Tuesday afternoon. We went in for a regular checkup, and my blood pressure was unusually high. Fearing that I may have preeclampsia, the doctor put me on bedrest and sent me in to get blood tests, a non-stress test, and fetal weight assessment. She also had me collect my urine in a plastic jug for 24 hours while keeping it refrigerated, which was pretty repulsive.

While I sit on the couch trying to look regal, Jeff has been running around the house trying to do all the last minute things we have on our list. I was able to do most of the preparation before this week, like washing the kid's clothes and sheets, purchasing and organizing all the little knick knacks he may need once he comes out, and getting the room ready. But I had a bunch of other little projects I wanted to tackle, like making more baby outfits and getting rid of some additional clutter in our house. For now, though, I am reminding myself to be grateful that he and I are both healthy and that the pregnancy has progressed so uneventfully until now.

The good thing about all this is that we got to do a thorough ultrasound of the baby yesterday, which we haven't had since week 20. He's already estimated to be about 7 pounds, even though we still have over 3 weeks to go. His head is already 9.5 cm in diameter and his body is 10 cm in diameter. We also found out that he has a shocking amount of hair, and his face seems to resemble the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. I can't wait to see him in person. It also seems there is still plenty of room in my uterus because he didn't look cramped at all, as I expected. He was hanging out, moving however he wanted, and looking rather complacent. I'm glad that I'm providing him with a spacious luxury suite.

Seeing how comfortable he looks, I'm feeling rather good about my big old belly. I was wondering how I could be so big at this stage, but it seems he's putting that space to good use. It gives him plenty of room for calisthenics and underwater aerobics. Whatever makes the next few weeks more comfortable for him.

In some ways, I feel as if I have been pregnant forever. It's just a part of me now, like my toes or my limbs. How will I feel when he's no longer inside? These days, I like to look at myself in the mirror and see the huge protrusion in my midriff. It's mind boggling that he's just hanging out in there, doing whatever he's doing. And before we know it, he'll come out to join us. Before he turns into a hulking 180 pound man. Before he becomes the rock star or the rocket scientist or whatever he wants to be.

And it all started here.

Under One Roof

My parents met Sherlock for the first time in early 2007. My parents and I had just returned to San Francisco from a vacation in Hawaii. They were staying in San Francisco for a couple of more days before returning to New York.

Jeff and I had just started dating a few months ago, and my parents met Jeff for the first time before we left for Hawaii. Even though Jeff and I had been living together for the past month, I found it difficult to announce it to my parents, so while my parents were visiting, Jeff stayed at his house in San Jose.

Upon our return from Hawaii, Jeff offered to pick us up at the airport and then return at 10am the following morning to pick us up for our excursion to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo. Instead of having Jeff drive back and forth to San Jose, my mom asked him to stay with us overnight at my house. When she did, I alerted my mom.

"Mom, Jeff has a dog, you know."

"I know, you already told me."

"Well, he can't leave the dog alone for two days."

"He can bring the dog with him."

"Really, he should bring the dog with him?"

"Why not?"

So said my mother, who believes people and animals do not belong in the same abode. At least that was her refrain when I cajoled her for a puppy throughout my teens.

"Do you think Dad would be ok with that?"

"Oh, he'll be fine."

Neither she nor I mentioned his fear of dogs after he got bit in the leg about a decade earlier.

So my mom and I made our plans. Jeff would pick us up on our return from Hawaii, stay overnight with us with his dog, and then we would all drive down to Ano Nuevo together the next morning.

When Jeff picked us up from the airport, he said he had already dropped Sherlock off at my house. We drove 20 minutes from the airport to my home in Noe Valley. Jeff dropped us off with our luggage and went off to find a parking spot.

As we approached the door, I warned my parents again.

"Jeff's dog is in the house. You're ok with that, right?"

They just nodded and didn't betray any emotion.

As I turned the key in the lock, I heard Sherlock's toenails clickty-clack on the hard wood floors as he charged through the house, barking like the mad dog he always played whenever we entered or had guests. I pushed open the door, just as Sherlock -- with all of his 65 pounds -- tried to bounce into my lap, his blond fur and ears flopping up and down. When my parents followed, Sherlock rushed around me to get better access to the newcomers. As he tried to bounce onto them, my parents barricaded themselves behind their luggage, standing back to back.

"Tie him up! Tie him up! Can't you tie him up?" My dad yelled.

"Dad, just stay still. He just wants to sniff you, that's all. He doesn't bite. He'll calm down in a second."

Sherlock continued to bounce, trying to get closer.

"Tie him up! Tie him up!"

"Dad, he'll calm down in a second. Sherlock! Sherlock! Over here, big boy!"

"Tie him up! Tie him up!"

That's how Jeff found us when he entered the house. My parents still barricaded behind their luggage, and me holding Sherlock by his collar and trying to calm him down. By then, Sherlock had gotten most of his barks out of him.

"See Mom, see, Dad. I told you he'll calm down. He's a good dog."

Sherlock soon lost interest in my parents once he got a good sniff. He then went back to the living room to look for his toys.

Once my parents managed to pry their hands off of their luggage and step out from their protective circle, they settled down. When they sat on the couch, Sherlock sat at their feet. When they went to the dining table, Sherlock ambled to their side. He tried to nudge their hands with his nose.

"Dad, try petting him. He feels really soft, especially around the ears."

My dad hesitantly reached out but pulled back when Sherlock reached with his wet nose. Jeff held Sherlock's nose down as my dad safely petted Sherlock's back, far away from the nose.

"See, doesn't that feel good?"

"Yes, it's very soft. I've never pet a dog before."

Jeff and I stared at each other. "You never what?"

My mom chimed in. "I've never touched a dog either."

Jeff and I looked at each other again.

My mom hesitantly touched Sherlock with a couple of quick pats before pulling her hand back while Jeff held Sherlock's nose down.

When they returned to New York a couple of days later, my mom called.

"He's a very good dog as far as dogs go. I can tell he's very mild mannered and he listens well."

"Yeah, he's a good dog, right?"

"But he sheds an awful lot. Can't you do something about that," she said.

"Well, Mom, that's just how he is. He's a yellow labrador, and they shed."

"Well, can't you guys trade him in for a dog that doesn't shed?"

Such blasphemy. I begged her never to repeat that in front of Jeff.

In less than a month, my parents are coming out to stay with me, Jeff, our new baby -- and Sherlock.

We'll see how we all fare with one another.