I Was Right!

Yesterday, I learned something that surprised me so much and made me realize that I didn't even know myself, truly.  But first a story from when Boyfriend and I first started dating.  

    A few months after falling in love, Boyfriend and I were talking about our future and I told him I was really excited to be called Mrs. Phan.  He became really quiet and I thought maybe I had scared him because I was already taking his name.  After a few minutes he finally said, "You know-you don't even know how to say my name."    I had pronounced Phan as "fan" and he corrected me that it was "fawn."  The way he said it made me feel dumb (and embarrassed) and we got into a little tiff.  Luckily we were still very much in the puppy love stage and quickly got past it.   Fast forward eleven years to this past weekend, seven years after officially taking his name.  Boyfriend and I were having lunch with all of his siblings and wishing farewell to our niece who is off to college this week.  At some point, his brother said his first and last name and pronounced it as "fan".  I immediately asked if that is how it is supposed to be pronounced when everyone around us seemed surprised we would say it any other way.  When I explained how we have said it, they all laughed at Boyfriend and explained to him why he was wrong.   It is funny, twice I have had random Vietnamese women correct me on how to pronounce my last name.  I just figured it was a "To-ma-to, Tomat-oh" thing.  Now I am finding out not only have I been pronouncing my own name wrong for over seven years, I was actually right all along!   Now that I know I'm saying my name "wrong" I wondered if I should start saying it the "correct" way.  Boyfriend and I discussed the dilemma and we are going to stick with our own version.  I guess it can be a symbol of our interracial relationship-Vietnamese name, Americanized pronunciation.     While maybe I should be a little annoyed that Boyfriend caused me to not be aware of my own identity (though I suppose he wasn't aware of his his whole life) I am more pleased that finally, I was right about something.  

One Week Left

In seven short days from now, I will be back at work turning on my dual monitors that have remained dark for the last 14 weeks.   With Baby, I was ready to go back to work.  More than ready, in fact by six weeks I had started scheming ways to return part time but my wise boss told me not to even consider it-I would regret it.  And I'm so thankful she imparted that bit of wisdom upon me because the next six weeks are some of my sweetest memories.  And when I finally did return to work, I dropped Baby off with the grandmother and had no hesitations.  

  This time my feelings are quite different.  I'm not at all worried about leaving Pillow-she will be with my mother until early next year, at which point we will start taking her to Baby's awesome home daycare.  Also like last time, I am excited to have routine back and to start "real life" with two kids.  Maternity leave is so far from reality, it truly was a blissful state.  I slept in until 11:00 a.m. every morning cuddling my newborn.  As I nursed on the couch I would play hide and seek with Baby (I had to guess where she was by her voice).  I developed crushes on the Scott Brothers from HGTV.
I have no desire to be a stay at home mother, genuinely.  It doesn't fit my personality and I'm extremely lazy (see Boyfriend-I do admit it).  While financially we could afford for me to stay home, we would have to be extremely cautious of our spending and I enjoy not having to worry about going out to eat far too often or taking advantage of my flight benefits and going to the beach for an impromptu weekend trip.  Selfishly, I love having my career as MY thing.  I enjoy working hard and being successful and knowing it was totally just me-no one else in my family can touch that.  Of course I couldn't do it without their support, but ultimately it is up to me if I succeed or not.
I guess what is different this time is that I know how things go from here on out.  I have been extremely cognizant of savoring my moments.  Spending time to just sit there and stare at my sleeping beauty, willing the seconds to just slow down a bit.

I know that once I start work again, my days are going to fly by that I when I start to think about it, my breath catches because it is all just too fast.  I'm going to get caught up in the scheduling, and organizing of life to be able to enjoy just being.  I'm not going to be able to stay up until midnight playing with my baby who just woke and is in a talkative mood because we have to get up in the morning.  I am not someone who can function on a lack of sleep (which explains my 11 a.m. wake-up calls) so I am going to spend way too much time working to get my children to sleep when all I want to do is be with them.   I know that four weeks from now, once I have started to get back in the groove, I will be able to look back at this moment and have a different perspective.  But for the next seven days, I'm holding my baby extra tight.  I am spending as many moments kissing my kids and laughing with them.  I'm not worried about the state of the house or any other non-emotionally fulfilling tasks.  This is the last seven days I will have with the two of them where work isn't a part of me so I am going to give them all of me.    

Spoke Too Soon

When you are a parent of a newborn, you quickly learn not to brag or even mention positive developments as though they are a permanent change in fear that the moment they leave your lips, as does the progression that had been made.   Sleep is especially true of this.  So when Pillow went from sleeping at most two and a half hours at a time to five hours literally overnight I stayed silent.  I didn't even mention it to Boyfriend, I so desperately wanted the trend to continue as sleep deprivation has robbed my brain of it's functioning abilities.   Five hours of sleep was a refreshing as a ten day vacation at the beach.  

   So if I stayed silent about this-what did speak too soon of?  In my last post, I stupidly boasted that breastfeeding was finally getting better.  What a fool I am-I should have known I would immediately jinx myself.   Saturday morning we hosted a yard sale.  We woke up at five a.m. (which I had slept a luxurious five hours prior) to start setting up.  I fed Pillow as soon as I woke and she didn't wake again until almost ten when I nursed her again.  She is an alternating breast feeder, so it has been almost 11 hours since I had fed her on my right breast.  I noticed it was incredibly tender but I assumed I had been a bit engorged and massaged, hopefully draining all the milk to avoid clots.   After our successful sale, we celebrated with my favorite, Bahama Bucks.  Which I want to point out, unless you just love the smell of nail polish remover so much you wish you could eat it, avoid the Blueberry Muffin flavor and stick to the amazing Birthday Cake.  

Anyway, I digress.  I started feeling pretty severe chills but I had assumed that what little I had consumed of my chemical tasting treat had done the trick in cooling me down after triple digit day in the sun.   Boyfriend and I arrived home and immediately plopped on the couch and started to catch up on our DVR.  Not exaggerating, within an hour I went from fine (with the exception of the chills) to feeling like complete and total crud including being disoriented to an extent, I told Boyfriend that the sun had really done a number on me because I was feeling slightly drunk.  Maybe my Bucks had in fact been spiked with nail polish remover?   Then as I nursed Pillow one last time before her bedtime, what was wrong overwhelmingly hit me.  More like the realization punched, ripped, stomped, and kicked that I wasn't experiencing heat exhaustion, I had mastitis.  With a fever of 103.2 and an inspection of my breast (tell tale red streaks, check) I could no longer be oblivious.   Having experienced this very early with Baby, I knew what I had to do.  I had to destroy all progress Pillow had made toward sleeping through the night by waking her up every couple of hours to nurse. Beyond not wanting to nurse because of the excruciating pain, all I wanted to do was sleep but I know what can happen if mastitis continues on and I wanted to avoid that all costs.   I spent the next 18 hours in bed with Pillow, waking only to nurse her.  I sleepily heard Baby and Boyfriend playing in the room next to me but I couldn't muster even the energy to get up and go to the bathroom.  Every single ounce of my body hurt with every movement so I just succumbed.     I felt so dramatic but I seriously thought I was going to have to go the hospital.  I literally can not remember a time I have been that ill (I don't get sick often-but when I do, I make up for all other minor sicknesses I do not experience).   Blessedly, my insurance offers a Teledoc service so all I had to do was make one phone call and I had a prescription for an antibiotic called in for me.  Around five that evening I managed to make my first real movements, 20 feet from my bed to the couch where I remained the rest of the night just dozing and nursing.  

Sunday night I continued to wake Pillow every two hours, sometimes she would nurse, many time she refused to wake.  I noticed I was sweating profusely, I had hoped my fever had finally dropped (it wouldn't break despite me taking ibuprofen every four hours) and when I woke on Monday morning even though I felt incredibly weak, there was not the slightest temperature.  Just as mastitis had come on quickly, with each hour I progressively felt better.   Last night I let Pillow sleep as she wanted.  I had assumed we had lost all progression but she earned her spot as my favorite second daughter when she only woke once and immediately fell back asleep.     I would like to say that is a sign she will just continue on without issue, but I learned my lesson on speaking too soon.  

My Breastfeeding Story: Finally an Answer

I nursed Baby three days short of 17 months.  I'm going strong with Pillow, two months in and will do so for at least the next ten months, though I'm sure it will continue longer than that.  Of my accumulated 19 months of nursing, almost every single feeding session has been encountered with pain.   Until now.  

   A very long story filled with pain, tears, desperation and resentment I was misdiagnosed with thrush for all of Baby's time nursing.  No doubt, I did have it at some point.  Very early on with Baby, I developed double mastitis and a staph infection.  I had to go on very aggressive antibiotics which caused the thrush.  Despite how many home remedies I tried, round after round of Gentian Violet and Diflucan, I could never clear myself of thrush so I just accepted it as status quo.  

When the all too familiar pain of thrush came back with Pillow, approximately three weeks in, I turned to Dr. Google to see if there was anything I missed the first time around.  After various searches, I found this article and my life completely changed.

  Basically, what I had been suffering from all along was not thrush.  It was Raynaud's-which I suffer from in other areas.  During the winter my toes and fingers will go ghost white with the loss of blood circulation.  It is extremely painful but I never once considered the fact that a nipple is technically an extremity; why couldn't it be impacted by blood circulation just as my toes?   The cruelest part of all of this is one of the main tips to deal with thrush is to always air dry your nipples and have as much open air exposure as possible.  This is the exact opposite for someone suffering from Raynaud's-the goal is to keep everything warm.  As soon as I changed my habits, the pain significantly decreased.     With what I hope was my last consultation in regard to nursing, Raynaud's was officially diagnosed as the cause of my pain. I admit, I'm slightly angry that we didn't discover this sooner, all the time I spent in pain, all the tears I shed, it didn't have to happen.   Moving on and forward, I now have an answer.
In one way, I do feel some appreciation for what happened.  I know this sounds loony, but persevering through my nursing maladies helped shaped me as a mother.  I've learned how to be selfless for the greater good of my children.  I have developed the ability to be a self advocate. This experience taught me I am strong and accomplish what I stubbornly set my mind to. I gained friendships and comradery between myself and other mothers.      Breastfeeding truly has been a gift (and I recognize it truly is a gift because it isn't promised to all women who desire it) to me and I value the time I spend nursing my babies.  Pain or not, all of it has been worth every ounce.