Year of the Horse

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday on the calendar here and my school closes for three weeks. The national calendar gives a week off and almost all Chinese nationals go home to spend it with their families. With all the migrant workers in China heading home, I've read it is the biggest human migration anywhere.

Usually I consider it a good time to leave the country. All the tourist spots in China are overcrowded and most non-tourist spots are closed. More than half the expats I know travel abroad for the holiday. This was the first time I stayed in China for the Chinese New Year. Last year Danny and I traveled all over Northern India. The year before that I went home to the states; Danny stayed in Shanghai and told me about the ridiculous amount of fireworks set off around the city. With a newborn big trips weren't in our plans this year. We make it out of the house for about an hour or two a day and usually that is just so we can get food or other essentials.

It is the year of the horse. Last year was the year of the snake. Apparently, since Jonah is a snake baby according to the Chinese calendar he is now two. They grow up so fast! Two years ago was the year of the dragon and according to my Ob/gyn lots of people purposely timed it to have dragon babies.

We haven't done anything to celebrate the new year. I'm honestly not entirely clear on how it is celebrated other than spending time with family and setting off fireworks. I know the color red and fireworks are meant to scare away a legendary monster that comes once a year. I think the fireworks weren't quite as abundant in Shanghai this year because people cut back on them due to all the pollution. There are still more than at any fourth of July displays I've ever seen and they went on a whole week instead of one day. The fireworks are much more random and sporadic, there aren't shows with grand finales, just lots of random fireworks. They go off all over the city sometimes dangerously close to people and buildings. I'm not quite clear on it but there are a few specific days during the week of New Year where you set off fireworks for different reasons. There also seem to be very few regulations in Shanghai on who can set them off and where. This random tent popped up a few blocks from our house to sell fireworks; when we walked past the tent there were four police men buying fireworks. If you look closely in our photo you may notice a police man. I'm still not sure if it is legal.

I was worried all the fireworks would scare Jonah but he seems to be pretty much indifferent to them. Danny on the other hand has barely been able to sleep.

The Chinese New Year and my maternity leave are almost over. Crazy how fast it went! Jonah is 6 weeks old already (or 2 years if you follow the Chinese lunar calendar). I go back to work on Monday. We finally hired an ayi to take care of Jonah yesterday so I feel sort of ready for work now. She seems really nice but it still is no fun leaving him with a stranger. Our ayi starts tomorrow so she has two days of training while I'm home before the holiday ends and I start work. Xin nian kuai le.

Baby Jonah

Jonah's here! It didn't go smoothly as I hoped but he is happy and healthy. He was over a week late and the waiting really sucked. I stopped work a few days before my due date and I was really bored  for about two weeks. People kept telling me to relax and enjoy the quiet but I definitely would have preferred an extra week with the baby over a week of waiting around for him. I don't really believe in it but I even tried out a few of the stupid old wives tales to induce labor like eating pineapple and getting a foot massage.

I really didn't want to be induced but at my checkup they had some concerns so I ended up having to at 41 weeks and 1 day. I had a check up with a different doctor who wanted to induce one day earlier but he was awful so I waited until my regular doctor was available. The other doctor referred to inducing labor as wanting to "close my case." Seriously, it is a baby, not a legal brief. I was really glad my regular doctor delivered Jonah.

Jonah was born 9:30 pm on Christmas eve. We will forever continue to get comments about him having a Christmas birthday and how great it will be for him getting double presents. He isn't getting Christmas presents. When Jonah gets bigger he needs to think up some clever jokes about being a Jew born on Christmas eve.

Inducing sucked. I'm not the type to be excited about the natural childbirth thing but I'm kind of scared of drugs, I don't even like to take Tylenol, so I was hoping to take as few medications as possible. I ended up getting all kinds of stuff to start labor and stop the pain and I had some unusual complications in the middle and had to be sedated part way through. Jonah's heart rate was weird for a while and I almost needed an emergency c-section. They were all prepared for him to have problems but he was totally healthy when he arrived. The hospital care was pretty much as good or better than what we'd expect to get in the states. The nurses were all really nice and helpful but being in the hospital was exhausting and I barely slept the whole time. When it was finally time for us to leave we found out Jonah had jaundice and we needed to stay and put him under UV lights for an extra 12 hours. He hated it and it burned his skin and gave him a heat rash. Once we got home from the hospital things got a bit easier and Danny and I were able to sleep a lot more.

The first few weeks with Jonah were a bit hectic. We had all his grandparents visit from the states. First, Danny's parents came. We thought Jonah would be born before they visited but since he was a week late he wasn't born until halfway through their visit. After they left we had two days by ourselves and then my parents came. In the meantime, Danny had to go to the states for a conference for ten days and by the time he got back he missed half of Jonah's life. Now things are finally settled down into a normal routine.

Before I had a baby I thought changing diapers was the part I'd hate but it doesn't really bother me. I even mostly got over the fact that he has managed to pee on his own face mid diaper change on two separate occasions. That required some serious bathing. (DANNY NOTE: More than 2, Shoshana doesn't know them all...)  The lack of sleep everyone warned us about hasn't been that bad. We actually have managed to get 6 or 7 hours total most nights and Jonah generally hasn't been that fussy late at night, usually he wakes up once or twice, eats and goes right back to sleep. Turns out breastfeeding was the toughest part of having a baby for me. I don't understand these people who think breastfeeding is this beautiful magical experience. At least my experience the first few weeks was really awful, and painful. Also, why didn't anyone ever tell me about cluster feeding... he wants to eat nonstop for hours... it sucks. At least he sleeps for a long time afterward. I kind of wondered how I'd spend all my time after he was born. I spend most of my waking hours feeding him. I frequently use a free hand to research information about all the random things Jonah does, including cluster feeding. The one really good part of breastfeeding is it makes you lose weight really fast. I barely looked pregnant by the time I left the hospital. Feeding him is a whole lot better now that I have started pumping and can give him bottles instead but pumping really makes me feel like a cow. At least it gives me the freedom to leave the house by myself now and then. Anyway, the first few weeks were tough but things are much calmer and happier now that we've gotten more used to caring for him and he's in more of a routine.

After having a baby, I can understand better why Chinese locals have so many postpartum customs. I had a really easy pregnancy but the few weeks after he was born were tough health wise. I had more annoying postpartum symptoms than pregnancy symptoms. The concept of having a relative or yue sao take care of the mother and baby the month after birth makes more sense to me now. Most of the Chinese postpartum customs in my opinion are kind of crazy and irrational though. That is my general opinion on Chinese medicine but especially on the rules on what foods to eat and avoid after having a baby and the thing about not being allowed to do anything including taking baths for a month after the baby is born.

I have less than two weeks left until I am supposed to go back to work. Even though I'm going to miss Jonah I'm looking forward to getting back to having a regular routine and getting some time out of the house. So far in the 5 weeks since Jonah was born I left the house without him twice, once was for a doctor's appointment and once was to pick up some dinner. The scary part of going back to work is leaving him with a nanny or as they are called here an ayi. We still haven't found one. We have had six interviews so far and most of the sounded like they are more skilled in cooking and cleaning than in childcare. They also seemed to know absolutely nothing about child development. We interviewed one woman whose answer to what activities would you do with the baby during the day was watch tv...  Awesome. Read stories, play with toys, at least make something up. Am I expecting too much here?

The fun parts of having Jonah around are that he is super cuddly and cute and every day he learns new things that are pretty amazing. At a week and a half he started to be able to hold his head up. Yesterday he figured out how to roll over on his side. He is getting a lot more alert now and he stares at our faces like he is trying to figure us out. He is really funny when he sleeps, he giggles and pouts while he dreams. It is fun to notice all the little things he does and watch him change every day. He also is really fun to snuggle with.