Dilemma of a Working Mom

Let’s hold hands, and never let go

How to be convinced that a babysitter will care for your baby the way you do? Or at least the way you want your baby to be cared for? After all a babysitter is just a stranger, paid to look after your baby when you’re not around. Unless the babysitter is a family member, whom I think can be trusted and relied upon, giving a mother more peace at heart.

Dear daughter, mama is sorry for not being able to look after you once I start working. Maternity leave is coming to an end soon and I feel so sad to send you to the babysitter. 8 to 9 hours a day, which could be our precious time to spend with each other will be someone else’s to spend with you 😢

Will she spend time to talk to you? Or just let you watch TV which I will never let you to? Mama will miss hearing you babbling and watch you giving me a big smile, or perhaps miss the chance to hear your first word. Will it be “Mama”? Promise it’ll be mama okay?

Will she feed you when you cry and hungry? Or will she just feed you every time you cry even though all you need is an embrace and a little soothing song? How will she warm up the milk? Is it at the right temperature? ☹️

How will she clean you after you poo poo? Or giving you a bath? Because mama always gives you a warm bath and I enjoy watching how your little feet kicking in the water 😢

And how will she put you to sleep? Will she sing a song like I do? Because to me, looking at you sleeping is the best feeling ever. Watching you smile while you sleep and wondering if it’s mama that you’re dreaming about 😭

I’m sad. I wish I could take care of my baby by my own. But I need this job, there’s no way to quit unless I’m a millionaire or married to one.

Dear God, I pray that you will always keep my little baby safe and healthy during my absence.

Postpartum Struggles

Stepping into motherhood, now I know that being a mom is not just having to carry a baby for 9 months (lucky me that I didn’t have any sickness during my pregnancy), give birth to it; it also includes the confinement period, and, breastfeeding. Of course throughout my pregnancy, I had been given great advices on what to eat for a healthy baby (even though most of the time I was pampered to eat for two), sleeping position when back pain is unbearable, breathing techniques and how to push a baby out. I was made aware of how painful it would be to give birth. What I was not warned about was how I should be enduring my postpartum life, how the confinement period is like (well Asians go through confinement period after giving birth), and I did not know how painful it is going to be to breastfeed a baby (thanks to my flat nipples).

My postnatal life started when I was discharged from the hospital 3 days after my delivery. And my first nightmare began when I rushed back to the hospital just 3 hours after I was discharged because my baby had blood in her spit-ups. I forgot that I just delivered a human few days ago and had my episiotomy stitches, and I walked like nobody’s business. All I could think of was to make sure my baby’s safe and healthy. Thanks to my own negligence, my episiotomy stitches were opened up and I was so depressed, and in pain! The doctor just wouldn’t stitch me back, leaving me with no choice but to walk slowly, and I had to clean my wound with warm salt water and antiseptic, every single time I used the toilet. I hated this the most, honestly.

Nightmare number two started at the same time, and it was breastfeeding. My nipples are the kind which do not protrude, and I didn’t know it would put me in such a painful situation. I had badly cracked nipples which were the cause to my baby’s bloody spit-ups and the late night emergency room drama, oh not to mention, the drama repeated itself: the same bloody spit-ups from my baby, and my baby and I was admitted (again) in the hospital! The nurses monitored my baby and my breastfeeding technique. They wanted to see the latching of my baby to my breast. And I didn’t even know how to correctly hold a baby!

It’s no joke for breastfeeding business. You need to feed your baby, with your milk, through your nipples which hurt like hell, you need to beware of what you eat since some food can cause your baby to become colicky, and trigger eczema if you’re unlucky (I am unlucky, sadly), at the same time you want to eat a lot of things to boost your milk production but you just can’t because you need to be careful of what you eat. And when you talk to other moms who exclusively breastfeed their babies, you’d feel like a loser for supplementing your baby with formula milk. I wish someone had told me all these things before.

I wish I knew how hard it is to be a mom. But now when I look at my baby’s face, I thought to myself, all those pains, stitches, sore and cracked nipples, they’re totally worth it. All these struggles, I’d go through everything as long as she’s always healthy and happy. Because I love her so much ❤️

Effort

Don’t ever ignore someone’s effort to tell you how much you mean to them. Every word they say might have been revised and rehearsed thousands of times. They might have imagined the scene in their head over and over again. They might be wondering cluelessly about what you’re going to say. They might be hesitating to make the phone call, or draft the message and delete and draft it again, and again. They might use every ounce of courage they have in them to say it out to you, to tell you how much you mean to them, how much they miss you, how much – they love you. At the end of the day, we are scared of rejection, we are afraid of feeling worthless, we afraid our efforts will go to waste and not appreciated.

You think they think too much? No, because I know how hard it is to say something like that to someone. We don’t say what we don’t mean, and what are words, if we don’t really mean them?

I’m not a queen, and I don’t expect to be treated like one. 

I don’t need roses, or a kiss on my hand 

I don’t need poems about how deep is your love

Because I’d only believe it when I see it in your eyes

All I crave for is to be pampered with your attention, and care

Counting Days

I’m counting days, to a day where a new phase of life will start, a big shift, a turning point,  – No I’m not becoming a mother, yet! It’s 76 days to my wedding day, a happily ever after (may God grant). Excited? Yes because I finally get to own the whole kitchen to myself! Haha! It’s a mixed feelings, honestly. Nervous, sad, happy, grateful, excited, hopeful and insecure at the same time. Nervous? It’s worse than a public speaking’s stage-fright. You are not human if you don’t feel at least a bit of nervous. Sad? Because I feel like I’m still a young girl for my parents, already I’m not seeing them as often now due to my working distance, what will happen if I can’t go home that frequent in the future? I’ll be having two homes to return to. What about my siblings, I’m gonna miss them so much, I even miss them now and always. Happy, very. I am happy because I found someone who loves me back, and I finally have someone to share my life with, in good and in bad. I am truly grateful for this gift from God.

I won’t lie about feeling insecure though. I mean, I have so many flaws. I’m fat, I’m no where close to what you call “pretty”, I have monolid eyes, I’m not fashionable,  I’m sensitive, I hate waiting, I’m overly attached, I’ll cry during my PMS, and so much more. Will he be able to have patience, will he accept me for who I am, will he understand when I get emotional? Will he look at other girls, who are prettier, nicer? And you know what, almost all married women I met whom I had conversation about marriage with, would give one same advice: “When you’re married, do not trust your husband one hundred percent, save some in your own pocket just in case anything happens”. It’s kinda daunting, to receive such an advice, I wonder where does that come from. Perhaps women with cheating husband cases came up with it, and it was being passed on to other women as a precaution to save your own little heart when you are betrayed by your own husband. True enough that we cannot foresee what is written for us, but I personally think it is unfair to have such negative thought to your own partner, when he can trust you wholeheartedly. Especially when you are about to build a home together, aren’t we supposed to have hopes, that it will last forever? I might be a little too positive, I don’t know, should I be negative then? These thoughts, are those which make me feel insecure and uncertain about starting a new life in the next two months time.

I have a book of “101 things I wish I Knew when I Got Married”. Let’s finish it before the big day. Hopefully everything will be just fine. May God ease, may He bless us.

Alone

I’m so used to being alone, making my own decision even though I suck at making decisions, doing my grocery shopping alone. I used to be someone who was afraid of being alone and feeling lonely. When I was younger, I couldn’t go anywhere without someone I know accompanying me. Eating alone was the worst kind of event, it felt like the whole world would conspire to stare at you all at once. I hated the feeling of having no one to talk to, no one that I know who could save me when I needed help. I still do. But I realized, people can’t stay forever, they come and go. I need to stop being so dependent on others. I have friends, of course, but they have their own life and business too. I have families, but what can I do when they’re so far away? So I braved up, I started to involve myself in events full of strangers. I walked alone, I drove alone. It was very hard, for someone who always needed company to feel so lost, so isolated, so scared.

That courage that I took  changed me time after time. It shaped me into someone who couldn’t careless about strangers or their stares. I bet it’s true, that when you don’t give a damn, everything becomes easier. I can drive alone now, I’m in a team of people who are not my close friends, I’d eat alone if I want to, I’d go anywhere alone if I feel like to, I can talk to strangers too.  I get comfortable in my own loneliness. Maybe when we’re mature enough, being alone isn’t that bad anymore. Sometimes we need our own time to discover who we really are, to clear off our minds, to dream and think. But it doesn’t mean that I want to spend my whole life in my own solitude, because part of me still yearns for having someone to always be by my side, without me worrying that he might leave. Maybe that’s what we call love when we found that someone and we know we don’t want to be alone anymore. And when you’re apart, that same lost and soulless feeling returns.

“Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.”

 

Hope

The best feeling in the world, is when you look at the happy face of someone you love, knowing that the reason behind it is – hope.

To me hope is like a precious drop of water, in a dessert, dry and hot. It’s like waiting for a shooting star, crossing a dark night sky. You know it’s there, whether in your atmosphere, or at the other side of the world, and deep down you still believe if it’s meant to be, it will be. Whatever has been written for you, will be yours. That’s hope.

I’m not the most positive person on earth, I must admit. I don’t like my job, i feel useless in my own field of work. But I’m not being ungrateful. I know there are tonnes of people out there searching for a job, whether it’s really their passion or not. And I know damn well how hard it is to hear from an HR after you hit the “Send Email” button for job application. But dear, it isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. Even though times are hard, it all works out someday. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers.

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”

 

 

 

My Favorite thing

My favorite thing in the world, is the stars. Songs, quotes, movies, anything with stars in it, I will just love it. It is so magical that, something so distant and tiny from our view, can make us realize how small we are in this universe. All of the stars unite with each other, and mesmerizes people with their twinkles and dazzles. The fact that I am living in a city full of lights, and stars are not within my vicinity. I know they are out there, they always do. But still, they are like the hidden gems, which can only be seen when there’s darkness.

Working as an engineer, on an offshore platform, I had the best chance to do stargazing. After work I’d go to the helipad, lie down, and just look at the stars. Look how they are shining, and look at the constellations they are forming. It’s just wonderfully magical, after having a long day on the platform, far from home.

The most beautiful stargazing experience I had was during my trip to New Zealand. At the Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo, pick a comfortable spot to lie down, and there you go, the great Milky Way is right above your head. I wished it was a little quieter but the tourists were too loud, messing with my concentration to enjoy the view. And it was freezing cold, but it didn’t stop me from having the best night of my life.

The image is taken from Google, since I did not have a good camera to capture the Milky Way. The view will always remain in my heart. I wish that one day, I could go stargazing with you, stargazing with love, so that I could have both of my favorite things in the world, at the same time 🙂

 

I pray.

I pray that every time you are sad, God will wash away the sadness in your heart and fill it with happiness.

I pray that every time you are hurt, God will heal your heart and ease the pain.

I pray that every time you are stressed, God will enlighten the burden and guide you.

I pray that every time you are lost, God will light up the darkness and lead your heart out to find the way.

I pray that every time you are angry, God will soothe your heart and grant you calmness and peace.

I pray that if we are meant to be together, God will always bless us with love, patience and loyalty.

I pray that if we are in love, it will be for forever. I will never want to be the one who will make you sad, hurt, stressed, lost or angry. 

Sincerely,

Love

Promise. Vow

 
I vow to love you, respect you, and stay through all the good times and bad.