5-month interview with mama Liz

I know. Already 5 months. I can't believe it either. 

1. Big question: How is your mental health? 
Well my mood seems certainly a lot better these days. I was just telling my sister that I feel better than I did even 1.5 months ago, but I still don't feel like my best self. I know this because I find myself still being quite critical and judgmental. I don't like admitting it, but it's the truth. When I'm doing really well, I'm accepting and non-judgmental. I laugh a lot and genuinely enjoy the moment regardless of how it's going. I know I'm not there yet, but I think I'll discover what it means to be a new "best" version of myself as a mom. [Side note: It's still weird to say that I'm a mom. But below is proof, I guess, that this baby is mine. He lets me wear him around and feed him...and munch on him as much as I want.]

2. How's Julien sleep affecting you these days? 
He was, amazingly, sleeping around 6:45pm and waking up around 6:45am with one middle of the night feeding for about a week this month. BUT, just this past week, he's waking up three times wanting milk! I think he's going through a growth spurt because he visibly looks longer. I have this feeling I'm going to say that he's going through a growth spurt until he's ... 18. lol. (Look at the way he stares into the camera...it's like he knows I'm watching him.)

3. What's been an area of challenge for you, parenting-wise?
At the moment, I think there are three things: 
     (a) Wishing he were at a different stage developmentally. ("Gosh, I wish Julien could sit on his own or _____ on his own.") This has more to do with wanting life to be more convenient for me. 
     (b) When he's clingy, it can get rather annoying. It's hard to enjoy him when he's complaining about not being held in my arms all day. Again, this has to do with my own convenience.
     (c) Wondering if I'm teaching him enough. Often times, I feel sort of insecure that maybe I'm not doing enough for him so he can learn as much as he can right now. Am I reading enough to him? Am I showing him enough new things? Is he getting enough X, Y, Z...? 

4. Now that the weather is getting warmer, what do you do with Julien?
Sometimes, actually often times, I spend the morning inside. I try to prioritize Julien's naps, especially in the first part of the day, and frankly, it takes me a while to wake up. So staying indoors helps me get myself together in the morning. After 2pm, it's a shit-show. If I try to put him down, he might just yell at me for long enough that I throw my hands in the air. I surrender. Then I usually take him outside for a stroll or wear him somewhere to give him a catnap. That seems to help his mood until bedtime.

What I'm actually saying: I do anything and everything I can to create a pleasant day for both of us. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Even adorable puppies can't cure a tired child.

5. I heard you've been on whole30. Why'd you do it anyway? 
Remember my diaper cream around my mouth situation last month? Well, I was so desperate to figure out what was going on with my body that I decided it was time to detox to rule out any foods that could've been irritating my body. The skin flare isn't completely gone yet, but I did do an allergy test and it turns out I'm allergic to soy. That's going to cause a major disruption of the kind of food I eat, especially as a Korean! :-( 

Anyway, whole30 is going pretty well still besides the fact that I still really want to eat a waffle. Ugh, that perfect crispy-fluffiness with maple syrup AND whipped cream. I want to devour it. To my utter surprise, I've been able to abstain. Instead I've been devouring the mint chocolate Rx bars. It's really good and whole30 compliant!

6. People are wondering if you've lost of ton of weight because of whole30, have you? 
Hahahaha. (Who are these people?) I think I lose 1/2 a pound every morning after a poop, which I proceed to gain back with that day's meals. TMI? Too bad. ;-) I'm about 6-7 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight, but whole30 has not contributed to weight loss...to my surprise. I thought I would lose some weight too, but nada. I do feel less bloated which is nice. To be fair, whole30 was not really about weight loss for me (ok, only a tiny bit secretly). 

7.  A lot of women don't really like their postpartum bodies. Do you fit into that camp? 
Daaang, you just went there huh? Fine. Well, almost three years ago, I made a commitment to not complain about my body. Hm. Well if you saw me the other morning looking at my phone in video mode (b/c I swiped one too many times to the right on Facebook)...you would've seen me looking at my neck creases and thinking they look like Julien's and wondering what the heck! Or here's a photo of me covering my neck so it wouldn't look so gigantic in a we-just-woke-up family selfie. Taking this photo actually made me laugh at how ridiculous I was being.

To answer your question, I'm not totally digging my body right now because I still look a little pregnant at times. The 6-7 lbs leftover is pure fat, seriously. Not like I had flat abs before pregnancy, but I duno, I guess I don't prefer having a bulge. Who are these women on the internet who bounce back to flat ab bods? Either they're good at hiding it, a miracle happened, or I'm like...what da what?! I don't get it and honestly, it's not the case for most women. Don't let the internet trick you! 

8. I've heard many moms feel lonely. Do you?
Sure I do. I try to make it a goal to have at least one social interaction each day. It can be facetime/skype, but ideally there's at least one face-to-face interaction. On Fridays, I go hiking with a gal pal and both our kids, so that's mostly guaranteed. The other weekdays are a toss-up right now and it really depends on if I take the initiative or not. I really need to take more initiative to get to know people better here. I'll say, it's more challenging to make friends as I get older. It seems I'm a bit pickier and that "instant" connection feels like it rarely happens anymore. Maybe it's because I just don't meet as many people as I did when I was younger so there's less chance of those instant connections. I'm not sure. Do you resonate with this? What do you think it is? (This is us on one of our Friday hikes.)

9. Are there any traits of yours that you think Julien has acquired?
He sneezes like me (3-4xs in a row) with intensity. His farts also sound like mine. No kidding. Obviously he has no self-consciousness about tooting so I hear them all. Sometimes I pause and laugh because I can't believe how uncannily similar ours are. 

10. Well, what do they sound like? 
Satisfying.

4-month interview with mama Liz

1. Have you ever tried to cook and eat your baby?
Why yes. Don't tell. He didn't fit in our Instant Pot even though we got the big 8qt one! Hmph.

2. I heard you might have turned a corner. Is this true? 
YES. It's a small corner, but I feel like something significant shifted inside. I don't feel like I'm drowning anymore...it's more like a treading (which I am horrible at, but I'd rather be struggling to tread than gasping for air).

3. What do you think contributed to this shift?
I have no idea. Maybe because my face isn't a big red itchy balloon anymore (see 3-month interview if you want to know what I'm referring to)? Maybe because Julien is sleeping a teeny bit better? Maybe because we have a better grasp on meals? Maybe because we started DAAAAAYYYYYCAAAAAAAARRREEEEEEE!?!

4. Did you say DAAAAAAAAYYYYYCCAAAAAAAARRRRREEEE????
I sure did! What the heck, how come I didn't realize how amazing it would be to drop my child off somewhere where they would rock him, hold him, feed him, change his poopy diaper, and entertain him all day? I didn't think I'd need daycare because I was going to work from home and it would be all peaceful and I would be blissed out and you know, I wouldn't need any help! lol. You know that's a joke. It's only two days a week, but having j in daycare has been a great source of freedom for lots of reasons.

5. What do you do on those days?
Well, right now I'm learning how fast 9 hours goes. Geez. With pumping multiple times, feeding myself, trying to catch up on a bit of sleep, errands, work, brain-farting, looking at pictures of J...I usually only get a few things crossed off my list.

6. It sounds like you're trying to be really productive.
Yeah, "sounds like" is the operative word here. I feel crazy compelled to be productive, but get overwhelmed with all these to do's because I'm still just freaking tired and trying to catch up with sleep. 

I had a conversation last week with another mom with older kids and it's got me thinking about why I feel like I need to be uber productive. I realized it's because I believe I've fallen behind for the past year from when I got pregnant and ill, and I need to "catch up" to this person I would've been if I hadn't gotten pregnant and had a child, except...I'll never know what I would have or would not have done if my life headed down that path. I think there's this idealized self I keep comparing myself to as well as feeling like I'm just so behind on life, discounting the fact that I'm raising a human being.

7. Well if you had no pressure at all to get anything done, what would your ideal daycare day look like?
I'd sleep in the most carefree way I could. I'd drink a really good cup of coffee and look out the window and stare at the ducks that have migrated to the pond, then maybe fall back asleep under a cozy blanket. Eat nourishing meals. Enjoy a phone call. Go for a bike ride. I'd meander. I'd miss my little guy too.

8. Are you feeling more connected to j these days? 
YES! Finally. It took about 4 months, but I can say with certainty that I'm really loving the guy. The first few months was really about choosing to love him with my body, providing milk, holding him, caring for him practically. But I did not really like the guy from the get-go. He brought me a lot of pain and suffering and it was hard to reconcile that. But this last month, something really shifted inside of me and I'm so grateful that I finally feel affection towards him. I love my little j! :)

(He had fallen asleep on me for two hours. It was very sweet, even though I was stuck on the couch for that time.)

9. Name some things that brought you joy this month!
When j laughed hard for the first time.

Putting diaper cream around my mouth. (Really, I laughed pretty hard when I saw it. The sad face is just to show off how I can make my mouth form an upside U.)

Learning how to prune fruit trees from Santa. 

10. I heard your postpartum hair loss is....going well.
Seriously. Shouldn't postpartum hair loss include the entire body, and not just my head? Holy cow people. Holy cow. I wish my leg hairs would fall off at the rate my head hairs are...I wouldn't need to epilate anymore! Anyhow, I'll end with a shot of my growing forehead/receding hairline (however you prefer to think of it).

3-month interview with mama Liz

1. How much does Julien weigh now?
Last I weighed him, he was 15 pounds. That was over week ago...

2. That's pretty big for a 3-month old. Do you feed him formula or breastmilk?
He gets milk from the boob. So far, he's had my milk, my sister's milk, my friend's milk, and donor milk (from when we were at the hospital the first week). Julien doesn't discriminate. As long as it's milk, he pretty much takes it in any form. As Samuel says, "He loves those chi-chis."

3. Any notable moments this month?
He's better able to fart on his own. He had his first tears this month. We got him a crib and he slept in it for the first time. He had a friend come over and they sat in bouncy chairs next to each other. I pumped 10oz of milk for the first time! We elected to get J's tongue tie released. I went on my first solo trip with J. We met Winnie for the first time! LOTS of firsts.

4. OK, I'm going to try to steer this interview about you Liz...not all about baby.

Good call. This isn't called "3-month interview with baby Julien." :-P

5. What would you say is the main thing you worry about these days?
That J won't ever chill out and he'll always be high maintenance. The second thing I think about (not so much worry), is what kind of work will give me back a sense of creativity and meaning outside of raising baby. I think about what it would be like to go back to work and it really piques my curiosity.

6. What would you say you are most confident about these days? 
Two things: (1) that my body is producing enough milk to feed my babe (as long as I keep eating food and drinking water); and (2) I'm confident in the women in my life and their willingness and capacity to care for and/or carry me when I can't. 

7. I heard baby cries a LOT. What is that experience like for you? 
He certainly cries less than he did a month ago (thank God!), but it is really hard when I'm trying to console him and I'm pooped. Sometimes he won't even let me sit. The moment I start bending to sit down, he lets me know it's not going to happen so I keep bouncing on the yoga ball or walk around holding my heavy sack of potatoes. Sometimes I have nothing in me and he's just wailing, so I put him down, look away, and take a couple breaths before I can pick him back up again. And sometimes I feel so much compassion towards him because I know he's having gas issues and can't control what's happening; he's just in pain/discomfort. All around, baby crying is torture. 99% of the time, I want it to end as soon as it begins, and 100% of the time, I start sweating.

8. You've been doing this "keeping it real" thing by posting photos of him crying. What's that about? 
It's totally okay if you someone has a happy content baby. It really is. But it's so tough for me to read about these "perfect" babies who smile and giggle and play by themselves when that has not been my experience. My reaction is almost always, "WTF?! Is that for real?!" Our curated lives on the internet bends towards our best moments, but that sliver of life makes me feel like I'm completely alone in my hardship. My contribution is to try to tell a fuller story of what being is a mom is like so other moms who are having a tough time don't feel so alone and women who might become moms don't have some illusion that babies are easy. Some of them are, but from what I hear, many of them are plain hard.

9. Speaking of keeping it real, how's your postpartum depression and anxiety?
Ugh. I don't know. It's still there. It's like the snow this winter. It won't go away. I'm trying to find things that give me a teeny semblance of myself before I got pregnant. This helps kinda sorta. I'm also doing some good work in therapy, but this won't be a quick fix as much as I wish it were. I've been in some state of depression for almost a year now. :(

10. I heard you just went on a solo trip with baby. Tell us all the deets!
I went to see Anne Lamott speak at the Mothers Symposium at Stanford. It was a fairly spontaneous trip that I kept quiet simply because it's hard to see everyone in my old stomping grounds. The trip was so soul-nourishing, but it was hard on my body and mind. It was super tough to solo parent in the chaos of travel. I had so much anxiety in public areas because I didn't want to be a bother to anyone with my crying overstimulated baby, but I needed to be there for me, for my well being, so I made Julien come along for the ride. (Where the chi-chis go, the milk will flow.) I also got to eat a lot of amazing food - sushi, thai, ethiopian, milk tea - and spend time with some great friends. I felt so mothered and nurtured; it was exactly what I needed. 

(Not a very flattering pic of me...but wait till you see the final one below. I look amazing here compared to that one.)

11. Sounds like that self-care trip was much needed. Final question: this interview feels a bit more serious than your previous interviews. What's going on?
I'm just worn down. It's hard to feel "light" about life when it's heavy. I had so much going on physically that it took a major toll on my spirit. From an extreme allergic eczema reaction, mastitis, sleep deprivation, J's traumatizing tongue tie release procedure, it was/is really hard to find the humor in suffering when I'm barely coming out of the string of fires I had to keep putting out this past month. I'll include a photo of me when my eczema flare was at it's peak because I can't make up this stuff. And now as I type this, I'm fighting off some head cold. I hope next month is a little easier. Or at least I hope my face doesn't blow up into a pink Korean-shaped balloon. I'll report back in a month.

2-month interview with mama Liz

1. So what's new? 
Oh, a baby. And cleavage. And only sleeping in 2 hour spurts. 

1.5 Ohh, cleavage huh?
You care about the cleavage? Really? I just birthed a baby! 

2. Okay, tell us allllllll about your baby. 
Well....we had a baby boy on December 3, 2016 at 9:17pm. He was brought into this world after a very painful induced labor and ultimately via an unplanned cesarean. He was 6lbs 5oz and 20" at birth and had a very funny shaped head because he was stuck in my birth canal. 

3. Does this baby boy have a name? 
Well husband often calls him "baby boy," but he is also known as Julien. Julien Gangsan Mandell. Gangsan (강산) means rivers and mountains in Korean and we loved it right away when my mom presented it as an option. Julien is a derivative of Julius and doesn't hold much inherent meaning. We just knew we wanted a name that started with a J (if we were having a boy) and we liked that Julien was easy to say for the Koreans on my side of the family. We also wanted to represent baby boy's French roots, so we wanted to give him the French spelling with an "e" and not an "a." I'm biased, but I think it's a beautiful name!

4. Say, why'd you skip the 1-month interview? Too busy for the internet these days?
Ha! Some (meaning the husband) might argue I'm on the internet way more than before because what else does one do in the dark in the middle of the night while a tiny human being sucks on your nipple? Internet. (I'm using it in the verb form, btw. #interneting ftw!)

5. Gee, you seem more sarcastic now that you have a baby. Is this true? 
I'm feeling especially spicy right now not necessarily because I have a newborn, but because I detest trump and want to see him suffer. I want to lock him in a small room with no windows and a crying baby for 10 days and watch him shrivel up. So if you sense any sarcasm, its roots lie in my repulsion with our current president.

6. Trump aside (since he's evil and disgusting), how have you survived the last two months?
Minute-by-minute, I have no idea. But on the whole, I've survived because of community. My mama was here for the first seven weeks to cook, clean, and take care of me and Julien while I recovered. My sister Helen came during a pivotal time to help with my transition. She installed blinds, cooked food, set up my house for baby's arrival, woke up in the middle of the night to take Julien, and more! My oldest sister sent me 16 lbs of breast milk overnight when we thought my milk supply wouldn't come in, and then later flew out with her family to visit and showed me her "walk" to get baby to chill out. Hahah! My sister-in-law came and cooked us meals, held Julien when he was crying, and took my mom grocery shopping. We've had local friends bringing us meals. And I've been supported by girlfriends via text/email/social media. I'm so grateful for technology! Ironically, I have felt less alone because of it. 

7. I've heard the first three months is really like the fourth trimester. Would you rather have baby inside you or outside if our bodies could handle it? 
Odd but intriguing question. Where do you come up with this stuff? I'd rather have baby inside. 

8. I also heard you're obsessed with something right now. What is it?
Freezing and storing breast milk. Every bag I can store away makes my eyes glisten with hope. Each bag represents a tiny bit more freedom! I duno, it's just fun too to see my little stash grow. I feel proud of each bag.

9. So going back to having a baby boy, were you surprised by his sex? 
Honestly, not really. I had a feeling we were going to have a boy so his sex wasn't surprising. I was probably more surprised that the belly bump that was growing actually did house a baby - not an alien - and that the baby looked like a miniature version of my husband! (Although, he looks a tiny bit like me here...no?)

10. We all know your pregnancy was rough because you shared a lot about it, but is there anything you miss about being pregnant?
This is kind of a sad question. As miserable as I was being pregnant, I can now look back and appreciate it as a special time where literally my body was throwing the greatest magic show EVER. It made a whole new organ that would be the lifeline to a whole new human being. My body made something incredible (like you and me, and every human life out there) out of the miraculous meeting of one sperm and one egg in the most miraculous timing. It was really quite difficult to have this perspective while I was pregnant, but now that I'm not, it's crystal clear how remarkable that time was.

11. Miraculous seems like a theme here.
It is. I have PCOS, so I didn't even think I would get pregnant for a very long time or ever. Then to survive a pregnancy I wanted over within the first couple months was a miracle. Then to survive a very complicated delivery was a miracle. And now, surviving each day seems like a miracle. With all these miracles all over the place, you'd think I'd be a little more joyful! Unfortunately, it's usually hard to see the joys of this little baby because sleep-deprivation is torture and I've been managing postpartum depression since Julien's birth. (It's getting better little by little though. I think seeing him smile every so often gives me a bit of hope.)

12. Well, that's kind of a downer. You really want to end on that note? 
Haha, yeah, I do.

13. C'mon, you barely mentioned anything about Julien. Why don't you tell us one thing about him that makes you smile. 
When I change him, I love seeing the multiple rolls on his thighs. They are GLORIOUS! I don't feel right about posting a pic of his thighs because the only one I have is x-rated, but this pic might make up for it because look at that face!