My first concern with Alaya after she was born was establishing breastfeeding. I wasn’t able to have the Golden Hour that I wanted, and it wouldn’t be until around 3am in the morning, almost 6 hours after she was born, that I’d breastfeed Alaya for the first time. This was not the start I wanted, but she seemed to have fed. Also, babies don’t need very much food for the first few days of life, needing only 5 mL (0.17 ounces) of colostrum the first day and 5-15 mL the second. With this knowledge, I tried not to worry too much.
The first day, Alaya had plenty of wet and dirty diapers, which is the only reliable way to know if she’s getting enough. However, that day was also painful as my body recovered from the ordeal. I could clearly feel where they had stitched me up since the epidural had worn off, and I was immensely grateful for my peri bottle and perineal spray. Even so, trips to the bathroom were not my favorite, to say the least.
The doctors came and visited me that morning to see how I was healing, and they told me that I needed to walk for 30 minutes that day to prevent the onset of deep vein thrombosis from the epidural. Walking to the bathroom was so much work, I wasn’t sure how I’d manage to walk 30 minutes, even broken up in short 5-minute intervals.
That morning, Ben’s parents came to the hospital to see the baby. They were overjoyed and fell immediately in love. Alaya was quite sleepy, and Ben’s mom held her much of the day except for feedings, diaper changes, and other medical procedures. During their long visit, I heard clips of conversation when Ben’s dad was on the phone about Ben’s aunt also coming to visit. I had not planned for any other visitors at the hospital, but I was okay with Ben’s aunt coming. I knew Ben’s dad had a lot of respect for her. She had also recently made a trip out to Kunshan, and I was impressed that she and her husband had traveled from Shanghai to come see us. None of Ben’s other extended family had ever shown that much interest in us, so I was okay with the thought of her and her husband coming to see the baby.
What I didn’t know and wouldn’t learn until I came out of the bathroom around 5pm that day was that almost everyone on Ben’s dad’s side of the family was coming to see the baby, including a little boy, who may have been around 8 or 9-years-old. They all, about 6 or 7 of them, not including Ben’s parents came loudly into the hospital room before I had any chance to react. They surrounded the baby, and the little boy reached out to touch her, even though none of them had washed their hands. My baby was not even 24 hours old at this point, and she was surrounded by people who had just gotten off the subway and come in from outside without washing their hands. I was horrified and so angry I grew mute. I’m one of those people who doesn’t react in the moment.
“Is there another baby still in there?” I was asked repeatedly by different people. “Are you sure?” I apparently, having only given birth the night before, still looked very pregnant. I had had a large stomach while pregnant, frequently asked by the unfiltered whether or not I was having twins. They often confirmed by asking, “Are you sure?” Yes, I was sure that there was only one baby in my stomach, and that was the one surrounded by countless germs at that moment.
Listen, I get it. Kids will get sick. This will be good for their immune system. But not at hour 20 of life. If a baby gets a fever at less than one month old, it’s life-threatening. She just went through so much to get into this world. Her immune system is not evolved enough to handle the illnesses they could accidentally pass to her. I was more than angry. I was territorial and protective in a way I had never experienced before.
“Sit down! Sit down! You shouldn’t be out of bed!” I was also being told. According to the Chinese tradition of sitting the month, I was not supposed to get out of bed for the next 28 – 42 days. For some, sitting the month or “yuezi” is four weeks, for others six. I wasn’t planning to sit any of it, especially given that the doctors had told me this morning that I needed to walk around for at least 30 minutes that day.
Their visit was thankfully short as I barely kept from exploding on these uninvited guests. Ben came over to me and said he was sorry while they were still there. While he had realized his father had invited all these people, it hadn’t really occurred to him what that meant. I could understand what he meant. Honestly, when I found out the aunt was invited, I should have stopped Ben’s dad right there. I should have told him that I and Alaya were not ready for any visitors beyond them. However, Ben and I hadn’t slept in several nights at this point. We were new parents. It all happened too fast, but I promised that it would never happen again.
Ben’s parents left with the crowd, and even though we had planned to wait another two days before giving Alaya a bath because the vernix she’s born with helps to protect her skin and keep her from getting sick, we explained what happened and asked the nurse to give her a bath immediately. The nurse, upon hearing our story asked, “They didn’t wash their hands?” Ben and I hung our head in shame. We, or maybe I shouldn’t speak for Ben, but I definitely felt I had failed my first test as parent. I had not protected Alaya by requiring everyone in the room to wash their hands with soap before getting anywhere near her. I would need to develop a stronger back bone and faster reflexes if I was to do this Mom thing.
The next day Ben’s dad called and apologized. Even though Ben and I had said nothing, I think my barely concealed anger was clear to all. It also occurred to Ben’s dad that this had been too much for a not even one-day old baby. I appreciated the apology.
That night would really be our full first night taking care of her, and we were exhausted. However, I wanted to establish a good breastfeeding relationship, so I didn’t ask the nurses to take her so that we could sleep. I set an alarm, though I didn’t need it, and I woke up and tried to feed her at least every three hours. This, however, was hard as she was a very sleepy baby, and it’s always hard to get a good latch. Sometimes I would just hand express some colostrum unto a clean spoon and feed it to her.
The second day, the diaper count seemed alright as well. Her weight loss after birth was about 4%, which seemed promising as well. However, I wasn’t prepared for the second night. KellyMom, an amazing website for breastfeeding moms and parents in general, has a post about it here. I wish I had read that post before I gave birth. Apparently, the “second night” (sometimes referred to as the “second night syndrome” is when babies finally realize that all is not what it once was. That night was difficult as the once surprisingly “easy” breastfeeding relationship became very difficult.
I started worrying about her latch, how much she was feeding, and whether or not I should be waking her up more often to feed. I was concerned the hospital might push formula if they felt she wasn’t getting enough, but it was hard to know how much she was drinking. My breasts did not have useful metrics on the side that gave me a sense of how much she drank, if any at all. That third day’s wet diaper count was not nearly as good as the first two days. Also, her weight dropped, so that she had lost 7% of her birth weight, though it was still within the normal range of up to 10% by time the baby checks out of the hospital.
To add insult to injury, my milk came in. Many people assume that once your milk comes in, then all is well. However, it was not well. My milk came in with a vengeance. I was painfully engorged, leaking, and still unsure if the baby was able to get any of it. I was worried about plugged ducts, mastitis, and chapped nipples. When breastfeeding, your nipples are like another mouth, and if you do not get a good latch, it is possible for them to crack and bleed, making breastfeeding excruciating. It was also hard to keep the baby awake during feedings.
The nurses kept asking when she last fed, for how long, and how many wet/dirty diapers she had had. They were concerned she was sleeping too much and not getting enough milk. Also, when her weight dropped, one nurse stated that they may need to supplement with formula. At one point, there was even a concern that the baby was lactose intolerant, and my milk may be causing her to be very gassy. I could hear the gas moving around her stomach, and her cries caused me great suffering.
I was supposed to check out of the hospital after that second night, and I was more unsure than I had been the previous day. Fortunately, the hospital does have a lactation consultant who came in two times that morning to help me with my latch. It was hard to get my newborn, 5lb baby to latch on to my hard, bullet-like, engorged breasts, so I had to have Ben help me do it. In addition to creating a two-people latch, we learned that the baby needed to remain cool while breastfeeding. Breastfeeding was a lot of work for her, and it got her pretty warm. This warmth would lull her back to sleep instead of encouraging her to eat. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that you actually get pretty warm when you eat as well. This is particularly true for infants.
As such, to breastfeed the baby and keep her awake long enough to get full, we would first undress her, prepare a cool cloth to wipe her or change her diaper in between switching breasts, and Ben would help me with every latch. After she was latched, he and I would alternate between massaging my hard breasts to encourage the milk to flow, in the hopes of avoiding plugged ducts and mastitis, the latter of which could cause fever and potentially require surgery. I had heard so many stories of women who had had problems breastfeeding after giving birth, I expected to as well. Even so, I was still very stressed about the reality of the situation.
This whole process was excruciating for me. The engorgement was uncomfortable. The latch was uncomfortable. The massaging was uncomfortable. The fear that she still wasn’t getting enough was distressing. When we left the hospital that evening, I still wasn’t sure I could do the basic, essential task of feeding my daughter. With that thought in mind, I was amazed that they let me leave with her.
I was glad to get out of there though. The well-meaning nurses overwhelmed me with their care and concern. Instead of feeling supported, their care felt invasive and their concerns added to my stress. For instance, when I was trying to feed my daughter that second night, one of the nurses tried to help me. I was using the techniques I had read about in The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, which she either thought was wrong or that I was executing poorly. As such, she took my breast in her hand and pushed it into the baby’s mouth. To me in that moment, the act seemed so aggressive. I was not comfortable with her holding my breast that way or shoving it down my baby’s throat. I’m sure she was only trying to help; she’s a very sweet woman, but it was not the help I needed at the time. I was always more stressed when the baby cried, afraid that it would prompt a visit from one of the nurses. I mention this not to say that the nurses were doing a bad job but because you’ll see a trend of this kind of feeling in the coming posts. I had a hard time in those first few months finding the kind of help I needed.
The good news is that I met a woman in a WeChat group (China’s WhatsApp, but better) a few weeks before I was set to give birth. She happened to have transferred to Jiahui at the last minute like I did. I talked to her individually about her feelings on the hospital, and she’s one of the reasons I decided to give birth there. She is also a black woman in an intercultural marriage. This, however, would be her fourth child. So, she had much more experience than I did with motherhood. She was due a few weeks after I was; however, we somehow gave birth on the same day, only a few hours a part. In fact, one of the things the doctor who delivered both of our children said to one of the nurses that day was, “These two must be from the same country. I’m having a hard time telling them apart.” This despite the fact that we were the only two women who gave birth that day, and hers was a C-section and mine a vaginal. We also look very different. Her hair was long, mine short. In fact, let me not list our differences; the list of similarities is shorter. We’re both black. We’re both female (as are most people giving birth, but hey).
Having this woman in the room next to mine was comforting once I realized she was there. I didn’t know it was her until the day after we gave birth. When I was struggling that second night, she came to visit my room, look at my latch, and reassure me that I was doing a good job. She was exactly what I needed at the time.
Sometimes, the universe…
Comments