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lauren back to san francisco

lauren came over for lunch today.  i felt a bit better, so cleaned up a bit (the house and myself), and prepared some snacks.  we ordered fruit and salads from element fresh, and it was so nice to see her before she leaves for her new life in san francisco.  although i'll miss her a lot. 

spence kept staring at her - i think he knows all her since i was running around until the very last minute before the hospital.  auntie lauren.  wonder when she and allen will be having a little one soon.  :)

today we listend to miles davis.

mr. chen buo wen

mommers picked out another chinese name for him:  buo(2nd tone) wen (2nd tone).  buo means connector, inclusive, expansive,  and wen means language, scholar, thirst for knowledge. like many chinese words, one character can have multiple meanings.  i liked many of the meanings of these two words, and the way they roll off the tongue.  my mom also thought water should be a part of his name, so we added the radical for water (san dian shui) to buo, the part of his name which signifies language.  if people ask, he can explain it's because he was born in shanghai.

he's starting to smile outside of his dreams, when i burp him, soothe him.  maybe it's just gas, but it makes me over the moon to see those dimples.  today i learned how to give him a sponge bath (with customary resplendent baby massage),and suck breastmilk boogers like a pro.

today we listend to chet baker.

thankful

today mr. tang was working for us, so my mom ran to the tailor to explain how to make my crazy bumper for spencer's crib and drop off some other things.  god, only she and calvin would put up with my crazy obsession with "making things" and anal retentiveness to put things back into "systems".  i love them so.

there are have been so many miracles lately.  it's only with god's blessings and a spirit of trust and generosity that so many things have worked out - ayi, mr. tang.  i am so thankful we'll have a car to ride safely around in, and a wonderful trustworthy ayi to help us with the cooking and cleaning.

i really relish this time with mommers, chatting like old times, and preparing for my entrance into a new phase as a mommy/mommers myself.  i'm starting to be able to lift him easier, and put him into the travel bed myself today.

today we listened to mozart.

spencer's emerging personality

as mommers and i sat down to dinner, we were actually able to have an adult conversation as spencer played quietly by himself in his travel bed.  clearing the table, we discovered he was desperately trying to flip the pages of the soft book we had set in front of him (fluffy chick and friends).  he definitely takes after his dad - and his mom, if you can imagine fluffy chick and friends: the movie.  he also likes to nap with weipuo.

one thing i've noticed about him already, call it survival instinct, but he's a pretty determined little guy.  when i didn't know how to begin nursing him, and had him turned every which way, he reared his head up and down for for almost a straight minute like a baby elephant trunk and didn't stop until he found his goal, without stopping to waste time by crying or fussing. we were all pretty shocked.

he's very patient, and never cries without reason.  if he's hungry, dirty, or gassy - but then he REALLY lets you know.  other than that he's an absolute angel.  mr. no nonsense.  not one bit fussy.

the loud construction noise, typical to shanghai apartments, doesn't phase him one bit.  human voices interest him, though, and he loves to stare at people, connecting and remembering faces. he's sensitive to touch rather than noise.

today we listened to the all-knowing, all-loving john coltrane. 

gramma chin

gramma chin left for sf today.  her dad, calvin's gong-gong, has been ill for the past few months, yet she made the choice to come to shanghai to be with me and calvin for the birth of the baby, and help me out. 

her sacrifice to come to a place where she doesn's speak the language, during a very difficult time for her and her family, is something i'll never forget.  i know she must have had it in the back of her mind, and not been able to shake the worry that her father would pass away while she was in shanghai.  i told her to focus on her dad now that spence is here, healthy, and we're fine.

she didn't make it back to the bay area in time when he passed, but when i spoke to her to offer my condolences, she could only ask about how spencer was doing, and laughed when she heard his little cries. the strength of a gramdmother's love.

happy birthday, calvin!

it's calvin's birthday today!  i'm sad we're apart, but i was able to give him his gift and so happy we were able to share a week with our baby before he left for paris.  happy birthday, daddy ...

here's a picture of spencer doing his elvis impersonation.

up till now, i've become a feeding machine.  i nurse him about every 2 hours, so getting a bit bleary eyed and disoriented.  still take pain killers to do so, but i get a lot of satisfaction knowing he's getting only my breastmilk, and that my body (amazingly enough) has an answer to his cries. i'm sure that won't last long, so i enjoy being the problem-solver for now.

odd fact:  around 3 am, when he was born, we still both cry in pain.  he makes sounds like i made when i was in intense labor - it's a horrible sight. he turns red, and acts like he's pushing with his whole body, and is inconsolable.  i hope it goes away soon, i don't want him to remember the labor, and it makes me cry to think the contractions put stress on him for such a long time.

i'm not doing yuetse on purpose

in china, 40 days after giving birth is a big deal.  women are encouraged to lie in bed for this period of time, not take showers, have any cold air blowing on them, and given a very special diet that varies from week to week that involves pig knuckles and drinking lots of rice wine.  sound nuts?  this is called "zuo yuetse".  there are even ayis here, as well as food services in shanghai, specially trained to take care of moms during this time.  although i opted to forgo it, it seems that i untinentionally fell into this category of women, as i didn't shower since contractions started until today.  as my mom dried my hair with a towel, i must say, i felt much more like myself.  she didn't allow me to have any air con directly blowing on me, so after over a week of going through labor, sweating through the shanghai heat, let's just say the before and after was pretty ... dramatic.

eugenia dropped off her wonderful rocker/glider before leaving for the states for a month.  i can't believe how amazingly generous she and bennet have been ever since since we met - we are so blessed to know them.  as i nursed spencer for the first time, my back was criticky-crick free. 

calvin gave me a set of beautiful diamond earrings today, sort of a mother's day gift.  spencer is demonstrating how what my face looked like when i opened the box.

leaving hospital

after a week of learning how to breastfeed, resting, seeing friends (envying every moment of their ability to hold him, my wound is still not healed yet) we brought spencer home from the hospital.  it still hurts to move, but i have the gramms and calvin to help me.  oh, and i also still look 5 months pregnant.  the cleaning lady joked as i was leaving if i was having another one.  a real knee-slapper.  you can see my tummy in my chinese communist worker pajamas that calvin thoughtfully posted onto our flickr website to show everyone how i looked after giving birth.  yuck.

we rolled out in the huashan hospital "party van". it recalled a prom van - you know, with vcr, dvd, stero surround sound, leather & woodgrain interior - and basically acts as a huge billboard to advertise the hospital.  i was so embarrassed as we drove into our apartment complex.

as i peered out the window of the party van, looking at little spencer bundled up in the car seat next to me, asleep, completely unaware of where we were taking him or where he was headed, i was flooded with emotions seeing all the bicyclists, street peddlers, curious chinese faces.  suddenly, the world wasn't good enough at all, and everything wrong with it came bubbling to the surface.  an innocent - pure and special as snow - was entrusted to me.  i am his guardian, his protector, his mother.  i couldn't think clearly, a million things were coming into effect, and i thought of a quote from paul bowles in the sheltering sky, a writer who made me want to leave new york and travel:

how many times will you remember something from your childhood that is so linked to who you are? maybe 4, maybe 5 times in your life.  or see the full moon rise?  maybe 20.  yet, it all seems so limitless.

visitors

spencer allen wuchin enters shanghai, china, the universe, our hearts

we set up shop at huashan hospital (a jv with fudan university and nyu) and listened to lots of 50s and 60s jazz while pacing up and down the hallways.  i tried to read the new yorkers & economists that colleen & dirk brought me between rather painful contractions. 

i can't lie - labor was no walk in the park.  it took me 48 hours to dilate to 10 cm, and then he wouldn't come down no matter how hard i pushed.  i was falling asleep from exhaustion.  and since the epidurals were slowing down my contractions, i had stopped taking pain medication.  nurses were massaging my back, calvin trying to help me breathe, and i'm sure i terrified everyone in the hospital, including the doctor who asked me to scream purposefully. finally, i was wheeled into the OR alone, and told as i passed my mom in the hallway, i said "mommy, i'm scared."  contraction after contraction still came until local anesthetic took affect.  the next thing i remember was seeing a little head with a big tuft of black hair brought over to me.  before he was taken away, i felt his feet stroke my cheek as if to say, "we did it, mom". or, that he wasn't happy it took so long for him to make his entrance. either way, through a dirty window my mom found an entrance to the OR unit, i was seen by her, smiling.

i can't quite explain how different i feel yet, but i do. i was told outside the OR was horrible, garbage everywhere, and patients wheeling their ivs in dirty robes.  but even if i had died on that table, there is no doubt in my mind it would have been worth it.  there's no question he's the best thing i've ever done with my life, and i'd go through it, every second, again to give him this chance.