We have already made half way into 2017, and I have not posted anything till now. Guess what? I have the perfect excuse – I am a mother now and my time is tight.
Magnus and I have been learning parenting since 14th February. Isabella Lehne arrived almost 7 weeks earlier than the due date. She caught us completely off guard, I arrived hospital that day with a stuffed toy which my mum gave me before we left Beijing. That’s not the most useful thing to have when you are about to give birth, but then I really thought I was going to stay in the hospital for a few days before baby arrived. It turned out child birth was not something went according to plan.
Isabella came to earthside with a doctor pulled her hard with forceps. She came out quite bruised, and we spent two weeks at the Auckland Hospital’s New Born Intensive Care unit. We received the best care we could wish for, the doctors and nurses were just incredible during our stay. We are very grateful to start out the journey of parenthood with such warm and amazing support.
My parents arrived Auckland a month after Isabella. It was nice for Magnus and I to have the complete alone time with Isabella before that. Of course, I count myself very lucky to have the full support of my amazing parents in every way. However, I still believe that with a newborn, the parents should be the main care givers. The Chinese way of letting elders or professional baby care givers to take over the feeding and other duties are not something I prefer to go with. Also in Chinese culture, mothers go through the first month after birth with extra care on eating special foods, no going outside, no touching cold water, no lifting heavy things etc. It is called confinement. There is a long list of things mothers are forbidden to do. I was constantly reminded by my mother and other female relatives on the importance of these rules. Well I must admit that I ignored most of them. The reason is I believe in mind over body. Happy mum means happy baby. Post birth, there were so much going on. Since Isabella stayed at NICU, we visited her daily. It was overwhelming for us to keep updated on her progress and learning how to take care of her. I simply did not have any extra energy to care about those confinement rules that base on little or no medical reasons. I understand to some extent why these rules exist, but deep down I feel these rules in some way diminish a new mother’s strength to look after herself and her baby. Also all the worrying of doing the right thing is putting on extra stress to myself.
Looking back, the first two month were the hardest. Now Isabella is almost 4 month old. She is a happy and chilled baby. Magnus and I tell ourselves we are so lucky to have her in our lives everyday. She made us better and happier people by simply being her. I read something the other day which made a lot of sense. When we were born, we changed our parents lives forever. We want to change the world, actually when we were just babies, being a baby has already shifted our parents world in many ways. Being a new mother, my view on many things in life have taken a different perspective. I am certain that there is so much more I will discover on the journey of parenthood. Happiness only exist when it is shared, and it’s my utmost pleasure to have Isabella join our little team and I can’t wait to share everything with her.
LIYANG'S THOUGHTS 