Here's Ethan a few days after we came home from the hospital:
I got home from the hospital on Monday afternoon. My in laws arrived for a three day stay on Friday morning. I was recovering from delivering Mr. Big Baby. I thought the recovery was going ok, certainly less painful (and fewer stitches!) than the recovery with Emma. But then, during the in law visit, I got mastitis in my right breast. For those who don't know what mastitis is, it is a breast infection caused by clogged milk ducts. It causes fever, chills, flu-like symptoms, including all over body ache, swelling and tenderness of the breast and exhaustion. Lucky me, I got all these symptoms in spades. To make matters worse, Ethan, just like his sister before him, had caused cracked and bleeding nipples during his breastfeeding sessions. On Sunday morning, my sister in law and brother in law arrived. My mother in law had a small birthday BBQ in our newly remodeled backyard (a post for another time), but I was too sick to participate. All our guests left late on Sunday afternoon, but I was still feeling very crappy. One of the remedies for mastitis, in addition to antibiotics, is to massage the affected breast with hot compresses. Well, when the breast is swollen and tender to the touch, the massage can be downright painful, and each time I fed Ethan (every two hours), I had tears in my eyes from the pain of the mastitis and his suckling on my raw, bleeding nipples.
On Sunday night, I got mastitis in my left breast. I couldn't believe it - both breasts were now infected and so painful. The fevers came back because of the new infection and it seriously took so much of my energy to move. Each breastfeeding session, with the massage, feeding and pumping out the extra milk, took over an hour, cutting into the time when I could sleep or rest between feedings. I think I was also just plain exhausted from recovery, staying up at nights with Ethan, trying to spend time with Emma, and visitors. It was all too much, too soon. During this time, Emma was being so great, kissing her brother on his head, patting him, calling him Baby, and coming to my bedside for stories. I felt horrible emotionally because 1) Emma was getting so little attention from me, and 2) breastfeeding, something which I thought would be easier than the first time around with Emma and would be a beautiful bonding experience, had turned into something so overwhelming and painful. I was so close to giving up breastfeeding Ethan, and I cried a few times from pain, sheer exhaustion and guilt.
Finally, on Tuesday, I started to feel better, where I could move around some. My doctor had warned me that I needed lots of rest and sleep to fight off the infections, but seriously, try doing that with a newborn and a toddler in the house.
On Thursday, we got notice that my father, with whom I do not really speak (for so many reasons which are not for this blog), was coming to San Francisco from Korea for a FIVE DAY stay starting on Saturday. He gave us two days notice - so freaking typical. For those who don't know my father, the news of his visit was not exactly good. He is not the type of guest who is easy and he is demanding and very high maintenance. Oh, you might think that this would change because he would know that we have a newborn and toddler in the house, and that I was still sick, but his behavior was pretty much as expected. I won't go into all the details here, but our entire household breathed a sigh of relief when he left for Korea this Thursday morning, without TOO many incidents during the visit. I will say that he was besotted with Emma (not so much with Ethan, but I guess that is because newborns don't really do very much in terms of being entertaining), and I was glad that he got the opportunity to spend time with her. She impressed him by knowing her letters and speaking Korean and English and just being overall cute. As a side note, just to make sure that the I knew the universe was laughing at us, during my father's visit, both my mother and I caught bad colds, from which we are only now just recovering. Still, a bad cold beats mastitis any day!
In addition to chronicling my crazy post partum, I also wanted to use this post as an ode to my mother. I swear she is like Superwoman, and I just don't know how I would have gotten through these past three weeks without her. She was there, doing all the things that I should have, or would have been doing, had I been feeling "normal." She cooked and cleaned for all our guests, and she made sure that there was always something to eat for Emma, husband and myself during these past three weeks. She entertained Emma when I couldn't and when husband had to go back to work after the first week and took her on walks and to the park everyday. She was the one who stayed up with me at nights, helping me with the hot compresses each and every feeding. She did the mountains of laundry that appeared from all the hot compresses and general messy post partum recovery. She calmed Ethan during the wee morning hours, just so I and husband could catch an hour or two of extra sleep. And she did this all in her quiet manner, rarely complaining, and just getting things done without me or husband or Emma having to ask. Once again, I am floored by her nurturing ways and her ability to power through difficult situations without keeling over from exhaustion. In addition to taking care of the household, the visit from my father wasn't easy on her, but she still managed to get through it all, even with the bad cold.
So here we are, on a Saturday, three weeks after Ethan's arrival, and our household is FINALLY quiet and back to normal, or as normal as it can be with a newborn and under two toddler. Emma's 2 year birthday is coming up soon, and frankly, I am glad that we made the decision to make her birthday a small and quiet celebration this year, because I don't think we can take much more craziness!
And because Emma is still my baby, no matter how old she is, here are some pictures of her, too.
From 4th of July weekend, in our newly redone backyard. Note her sunglasses. She insists on wearing them when she goes outside:
