The ordeal

* After reading this blog entry, you might think that I am a spoilt brat who does not appreciate. But I really only need to vent it all out at once....so bear with me.

"Sit the month" literally means to be confined for a month (30 days), and it's some kind of serious ordeal. Of course, if you are truly old old fashion, you'd probably do it up to 40 days. I can't do that.

I can't tell you how many pork livers and kidneys that I have eaten for the last two weeks because I already lost track of it. Yes, I have only finished two weeks of confinement and there are two more weeks to go. (I think) The liver and kidney diet came to an end and starting this week, it's all chicken soup in sesame oil and ginger.

The above ingredients are the must-have every day. The meals do consist of basic veggies (green, root and whatever), rice and/or noodles (fine skinny noodles with, you guessed it, in sesame oil and ginger), eggs, some kind of soy stuff, fish (in soup), spare ribs (in soup), pork shank/feet (in soup). There are also two snacks/dessert a day with different kinds of sweet soup: white wood ears with lotus seed, peanut and yam soup, taro and yam soup, red bean and barley soup, corn meal with dry plum, black sesame sweet soup to name a few. Of course, menus change daily, not the basic the ingredients of ginger, sesame oil, ginseng, goji berry, and some other herbal stuff I couldn't name coz I don't know what they are. To be brutally honest I am so very sick of eating them. They don't taste bad, I just have had too much.

TB is a sport. He eats with me because the portion is pretty big. My mom said it's big because "back in the days" the husbands have to be fed too. "They can't cook in the kitchen you know", said my mom. Why? Because they are male? What a bullshit. There are a lot of things my mom said.

A lot of the food is to help post-partum recovery and to help gain the energy back. With c-section, there will be another set of special food you eat, but I am lucky I don't have to eat those things to "heal the wound". My issue at first was the milk production, so my mom made me eat Young Papaya Spare Rib soup and Peanut and pork shank/feet soup (the ones with a thick layer of pork skin on them. I actually like it.). I am not sure if they really worked or it was about time for my milk to come in. After 2-3 days eating them, my milk came in, a lot of it.

There are also things to eat to get rid of the extra blood in the uterus, mom called it the "the dirty dew", and to drink a kind of black bitter herbal soup called "shen hua tung", which is an herbal anti-inflammatory; there are things to eat to prevent hair loss, called "he sho wu" that's cooked in soup.

I don't want to jinx myself and I don't want to doubt that those things/methods don't work. So far, my blood loss has been going with a good pace and no cramps at all and I don't notice any hair loss.

Granted, I still take my prenatal vitamin and D and DHA. So hopefully they are working in my system too. Wham Bam - I bet they didn't have these kinds of vitamins back in the days!

A great thing about the confinement meals, and the only thing, is that I have lost a lot of excess water and shed a lot of weight to fit into my old clothes, including jeans and those extra small jeggins, though not quite back to before the pregnancy state, it's a matter of a stricter diet and workout which will start after the first month. Simple reason for the weight loss - all the foods are not flavored, meaning no salt and very minimal oil, other than the sesame oils for its healing and nutritious purpose. The food has enough calories to make up for breastfeeding.

We will see what the coming two weeks have in store for me, food wise.

I did, however, ask TB to cook steak for me for dinner tonight since I feel that I need extra more protein and energy that I have now - you know, the lack of sleep and constantly being paranoid about what happens to blueberry. How funny I ask to eat beef and I didn't even touch beef before I met TB...And I bet they didn't have steak dinners once a while back in the days.

Mom said, back in the days....

I know I am a very lucky person to have mom here help me for the first mom. I flew her here mainly because I didn't want her to miss the opportunity of bonding with my son and I know she'd appreciate it. However, because me and mom have such a close relationship, we also butt-head a lot, like a lot. She does things for me and the baby and I know she means well. But sometimes, her methods drive me crazy. The whole traditional confinement is her idea (well maybe I did want it too) and she insists that I follow the old school practice, or "Don't let me say I told you so when you have all sorts of physical problems when older", she threatened me.

She knows that it's hard to convince me to do things, I am the most rebellious daughter she ever had, well, and I am the only daughter she has, so she'd always start her sentence with "back in the days" to show the credibility of anything she says so that I'd listen. There are things I do and can't do based on what she says. Let me make a list:

No leaving the apartment

She said that because after giving birth, all the pores on my body are wide open. Therefore I can't go out because "the air is cold". I can't let cold air coming into my body since it will cause issues with bones and muscles pain, as well as headache. However, doctor's appointments are exceptions because she didn't know how to respond to this since "women back in the days didn't have doc's appointments"...

Lying down flat and not move as much as possible, if not 24/7

She said I should be lying down 24/7. But the fact that I have to breastfeed, this is impossible. So she lets me breastfeed. Oh yes, she would have advise against it. She reminds me to "go lie down" whenever she sees me walking around. Her argument is that my organs have been rearranged before and after delivery so lying flat on the bed will help them go back to their original place. Well, I use belly bandit for that same reason.

No watching TV/computer; no reading for that matter

She said that my eyes are also the weakest after delivery. Any activity that requires using my eyes is prohibited. But back in the days, who had TV/computer?

No shower and no washing hair for the first month

She said no shower and no washing hair for the same reason that the pores on my body are open so any cold air that goes in will affect my internal organs, bones and muscles. Well, back in the days they didn't have central air/heat, hot water or blowdryers, duh!!

No lifting, including holding the baby

She said lifting is not allowed, not even holding the baby because a post-partum body just could not take that kind of extra weight on. But, but, really?

No touching or drinking cold water

She originally said drinking (tap) water is not even allowed, I have to drink hot soup and boiled water. So not drinking and touching (washing hands) in cold water also because of all the pores on body are open. She didn't even let me wash dishes. Hey, I'll take that.

No drinking tap water. All drinking water has to be boiled first

She was going to buy cases of rice wine to distill them into water for me to drink. I was like, huh?! What the heck is that? She said that's the only water I could drink. She was in disbelief when we drink water out of the tap. Luckily I have a water boiler. She finally said OK to drink water from the water boiler. Alcohol distilled water?

 List can go on but these are some of the ridiculous ones.

She would make certain things for me to eat and tell me, "you have to eat it" without explaining to me why. And sometimes when I looked up, there are doctors (yes, Chinese ones) who would advise against it for some legit and/or scientific reasons. When I told her that, she would get offended and said "I used to eat these and I am fine. And you just have to eat it because every woman eats it." She is so wrong about every woman but then again, if you understand Chinese language, you'd understand the way she says it is only to express how common the practice is, I get that. But, they are wrong too. Since I don't live in "back in the days", I refuse to follow the rules to the core and 100%. She got pissed. In the end we had to negotiate a lot of terms and conditions.

Whenever I ask for a reason why she asks me to do certain things, she'd say "I don't know the reason or theory but it's part of the ancient Chinese wisdom that has been passed down." How convincing is that! She would also add "it's not just for your own good, it's for your baby too." Well, if she goes there, what else can I say.

By the way, there are things I can't do to baby either: baby can't go out in public, well, duh; baby can't have visitors other than close family members before one month is up; baby can't play with mirrors (it was a toy thing that came with the play mat); and we can't say good things about the baby in front of the baby....

Well, well, this is the kind of confinement I am doing. I hate it, as much and more than I hate being pregnant. However, I do know she means well and she only wants what's the best for me.

Sigh, mom is the unbearable lightness in my life. She lives in a world that's so different from mine and I just can't change her mind about a lot things. She gets frustrated not being able to make me see what she sees and I share that frustration too. In the end, I still love her and respect her.

Because of her constant reminders, I actually get to sleep a lot during the day while she helps taking care of blueberry. Blueberry loves it when grandma holds him. The rest is definitely much needed to get me through all the long night parties.

I can't wait when blueberry is one month old.


DearJulie