Random musings of a new mother..

It’s been 10 days with my upgraded status of a mum. The past 10 days have been pretty much a whirlwind, and well, I survived it thus far, another 20 days to go to a month (and end of confinement! Yay!). Don’t be mistaken, I actually quite enjoy it (confinement food has always been my favourite stuff to eat), only grouse is not being able to wash my hands under the tap and drink my favourite plain water. Time zooms past when you have a baby, and on hindsight, aiyah! The most enjoyable days are those in the hospital!! I should have slept my fill then, but it’s near impossible with visitors springing up on me every other moment, and even people whom I wasn’t expecting at all.. So yeah, I guess it’s hard to stop people coming through that door.. Other times when i manage to catch a wink, im often woken up by the nurses for checks, baby updates or meal/tea times. Was telling der 2 days after my discharge, ermm… could you admit me again? Damn shiok eh. Nurses looking after the baby for you and well taken care of, and all you need is to press the bell and get served. No need to fret about food, people serve it when time is up.. Wound isn’t that painful yet!

Anyway, learnt much in the last few days. Weird that knowledge just comes to you with practice, observation and some times, a stroke of luck! Of cos, reading and googling too but I have YET to touch any book at all with all the sleep deprivation and only started using my computer like 2 days ago. But twitter messages and lj comments are like the best source of information for me in the last 10 days.

Being a mum now, I find myself interested in the no of times my son poos, pee, drinks, durations of his naps, color of poo and pee, mostly to predict when I could kick my legs back and relax a little, but it has proven hard to even relax! I lie down only to hear cries moments later. Argh!!

I do feel damnn alone in this parenting journey. Yes, der does help at times but I cannot comprehend why everyone is able to sleep through his cries and not hear a thing and poor me, on top of all the breastmilk expressing schedule, have to care for the baby. There were times where I think I sink into depression, mostly due to helplessness of the situation, and how the hubby could just zonked out and leave baby to me when I am equally, if not more tired than he is. I actually had thoughts about giving the baby up for adoption in dire times of frustration. Tmd, he can be someone’s else problem.. (hubby has no reaction to this when I said it and he just closed his eyes and headed to dreamland). I was thisclose to giving him a slap on the face (he didn’t know of cos).

And I found out.. I am quite the cow. At least, the supplies are exceeding the demands right this moment.. 265ml in 20 minutes. I have slowly built up a reserve in the fridge/freezer now. There are times where the milk isn’t that much, due to positions of pump funnels, the pumps not being fixed properly, and mostly, leakage. I don’t know about you people, but I need to lean forward during the deed so that the milk flows into the bottle and not back into the wide funnel, so I waste quite a bit there at times when I’m not paying attention and the milk flows back. I have also gotten a little lazy now that the flow is better. I no longer do 2 hrs schedules but 3-4 hours schedules. The longest I have dragged thus far is 6 hours because I was soooo tired, the alarm didn’t wake me up so I had 2 milk bombs ready to explode when I finally woke. It helps when you just put a hot towel on.. And there are times where I freak out with the non stop leakage that wet my clothes and the floor! If only there was a tap that I could turn to stop it from flowing. It just drips and drips! Kinda disgusting!

Now my mum is fussing that I have too many milk bottles in the fridge and kept asking me to freeze it in the milk bags. I’m rather hesitant with the milk bags cos they are so expensive but my 8 bottles are proving insufficient to rotate between the storage, feeding and my milk expressing. There were a couple of occasions where I had to wait for feeding to be done to free up the bottle for my use. Imagine that I already gotten 4 more extra bottles on top of the standard set.

Isn’t she hard to please? Der was telling me that my mum is quite a critic. She never compliments anything and if you show her something nice, she’ll find something to comment about.. Like, oh, it would be better if it’s like that, or it should have been like that. overly critical I say, really gets on my nerves. Someone needs to teach her how to be appreciative of things, because her behavior only pushes people away from her.

Started my Malay jamu massage yesterday. Rather shiok, but it had resulted in more pain (!!). was still rather happy that the wound has been much better the last 2 days (thanks to moomeh/Ruth with her sitz bath rescue!) but I didn’t quite expect the contractions and cramps-like feelings I got post massage. Apparently it is supposed to be like that, so that the lochia will clear off faster and that the womb/uterus contract faster and I recover faster. But still, ouch! The pelvic pains also came back to haunt me thereafter, not sure if it’s related to the massage though.

Well, also got to know that the jamu massage should be done in continuous days, without any breaks in between for optimal effect, and one should wear a binder for up to 2 months to keep the skin taut, the womb to heal and to regain the figure. Interesting! And to think I wanted to space out the massages for optimal enjoyment! Well, the massage lady also recommended this cheap and good binder from guardian pharmacy, only at $35.95. Just need to apply any firming cream (I used fatgirlslim from sephora) to the tummy area, place 2 pcs of kitchen towel (to keep binder clean) and wrap it up for 6-10 hours for 2 months. Hopefully I can keep it up! I couldn’t do it today, hence I got the binder to “hold” the tummy in place. Looking forward to the next massage tomorrow, but it’s at 8am! Yawns.

P.s many thanks to all who came forward with solutions/suggestions on coping with the episiotomy wound pain. Looks like a swimming float is the way to go! Haha! Guess what? I was going to buy a float to use and by a stroke of luck, I found a very good substitute that works equally well and if you are breastfeeding, you probably might have bought one so that can double it on it’s roles. It’s the my brestfriend breastfeeding pillow. It works perfectly well and I happened to have one lying around in my house, courtesy of my colleague. If you already own this, you can save on the float money! Of cos, if you don’t then a float is definitely more economical. So just thought I’ll share this useful tip!

Random pictures of the baby boy.. I removed his hanging mobile for now and replaced it with a tiny eeyore because it’s quite big and annoying. And check out the big balloon. Courtesy of Bernice when she sent me a basket of sunflowers to cheer my day!

I always think babies are fragile creatures but my boy is no where near it. I don’t know if it’s cos he is a full term baby or something.. But errm, how could a 3 day old baby hold a bottle?! I am SO amazed. of cos, we didn’t let him hold it himself, but it’s pretty amazing isn’t it? Is it an instinct or what?

If only babies are this smiley all the time!! I love the expressions that Jerry has, but most of the time he changes them faster than I could possibly reach for my mobile phone to snap a shot. I was lucky with this, but it was rather blur though. The other classic expression that I love is that when he is done with his milk, he pouts and refuses to open his mouth for the bottle teat, regardless how you probe him. Supper funny! They sure have a mind on their own!

Back to my strong baby, he could turn himself sideways to sleep (!!!!!), wriggle from one spot to other (not far, but could dangerously move to the edge of the changing station) and he is damn good at his kungfu kicks and punches. I guess he had really good practice in my womb with all the action while he disturbs me at work last time. You know how the gynaes will always tell you to monitor at least 10 baby movements within a day, my Jerry always give me at least 10 every hour. That’s how bad he is.

He has pretty strong neck too! Every time we lean him forward to burp him, he can struggle and lean backwards and straighten himself! If his legs were pushing against something, he can actually go into a semi-standing up position. I stare at my baby in wonder and I have no idea why a 10 days old newborn can do all that. Aren’t they all supposed to just sleep soundly, swaddled in a cloth? I gave up swaddling mine after day 1 at home, he wriggles himself free ALL the time, and can kick his blanket away the whole night (even if you keep putting it back). Heck, he can even remove his own mittens!

He grows really fast these days, my bro commented that his cheeks are getting fatter. We headed for the pediatrician this morning (follow up on wed’s visit where he was diagnosed with high jaundice levels) and within 3 days, he put on > 300grams. Very healthy weight gain, the pd said. So, his jaundice is cleared and his milk intake has gone up to 80-90ml at each feed. I thought it’s a lot but the pd said it’s ok, its better that he wants to drink because it helps clear the jaundice faster (pee/poo more). His rashes has also cleared up and so has the allergies. So yay!!

And about latching on directly while feeding, I have since given up latching him and figured there’s no incentive to do it at this point since I need to wean him off the nipples when I need to head back to work, so am perfectly fine with bottle feeding him. Someone else could help while I sit back and relax! Don’t have to be there all the time, but discipline is definitely required on the milk expressing to ensure supply. The only other grouse about not latching is that there’s loads of washing involved and loads of items to lug around when we head out, but we’ll reach that stage in some point in time anyway since baby can’t be on breast milk forever.

And oh, though I’m using cloth diapers, I have to say that disposable mummy poko pants are so much better to use than huggies one! At least for my boy… He detects the urine on huggies and cries the house down when soiled but is perfectly fine with mummy poko., will be using disposables only when we head out because I’m too lazy to lug back poo soiled cloth diapers in my bag any more (done that twice) because I think it’s weird carrying shit (literally) around in my bag where the food (milk) is as well!

Ok. It’s milk production time again. Update soon. I have so much to say!

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