Six Months of Parenthood in Retrospect

Happy 6 month birthday Sophie!

I thought to celebrate today, I would look back on all our favorite and most difficult times as parents.

Most difficult moments

• Sophie's 2 week and 4 week growth spurts when she was insatiable and feeding non-stop, and we were adamant about not introducing formula or pumping yet because we wanted Sophie's demand to regulate my milk production.
• Bottle training on Mother's Day, having to force a silicon nipple in her mouth despite her screams, and having to let her go hungry for eight hours straight before we broke her will and she finaly drank from the bottle.
• Our first experience travelling with Sophie when she was about four months old. She actually did really well on the plane rides, but what made it difficult was that I had to be seperated from Sophie for a longer period than ever before, and Jensen was left alone with her without all the comforts and conveniences of home, pretty much confined to a hotel room all day. Adding to the problem was that Sophie was still sometimes stubborn about drinking from the bottle. I have no idea how single parents do it every day, but my respect for them has increased ten-fold.
• Going back to work, not just because I had to be separated from Sophie, but because she became a night owl, and Jensen and I were sleeping only 4-5 hours a night for an entire month. This was even harder than the first month after she was born because at least during the first month, I could catch up on sleep during the day.

Favorite Moments

• Seeing Sophie for the first time after she popped out as she woke up to the world around her. The image of her blinking in the lights and turning from bluish to pink is forever imprinted in my mind! It was the most beautfiul thing I ever saw :-)
• Sophie's first real smile (not just gas) and first sweet cooing sounds around 4 weeks
• Sophie's first time peeing in the potty in response to our cue at 6 weeks, after which she gave a big fat grin.
• Sophie's little feet bouncing up and down when we twirled around a mobile above her
• Sophie's first time cracking up with laughter at her 3 month doctor's appointment. We were waiting for the doctor to come in, and we were playing peek-a-boo with her own reflection in a mirror. She loved it!
• Sophie figuring out how to roll over around 4 months. She worked really hard at this one, and she had a proud look on her face when she finally figured it out.
• Sophie doing her "happy wiggle" for the first time around 5 months. This is where she is laying down on her back and wiggles around her whole body with a huge-moon-eyed smile on her face
• Sophie discovering her favorite toy in day care - the Skwish, and holding on to, presumably all day. We handed it to her in the morning and she was immediately enchanted by it. When Jensen went down to visit her, she was holding it while her diaper was being changed. When I went down to pick her up, she was holding it while napping in a bouncy chair. Needless to say, we ended up buying one, partly for sentimental reasons.

And a funny oops-moment:

• Our day care provider asked me on Monday whether I was starting Sophie on solids soon. I told her that we were planning to start once she was six months, so she asked that we bring in some rice cereal to day care as well. I brought a small container of Rice Krispies and she gave me a funny look and said, "You gave this to the baby?" "Yeah," I replied. "no.....here, let me show you." And then she showed me a box of Gerber baby rice cereal, which was really more like a porridge. Oops. Why don't they call it rice porridge? This whole time, whenever people mentioned rice cereal as a good first food for baby, I've been imagining Rice Crispies! Anyways, she rather liked the Rice Krispies. We put a couple kernals in her mouth last night, and she seemed to find the new sensation of it melting in her mouth rather amusing.

First Week Back to Work

The first week back at work was pretty tough. On my first day back, Sophie decided to go on a hunger strike again against the bottle. I got a call from Jensen around 12:30pm calling for reinforcements because he and my mom were just exhausted from battling her all morning. Fortunately, I live really close to work and so I can easily make it home pretty quickly. I took over the bottle battle while Jensen took a much needed nap, and as I looked at her weepy eyes, I felt really guilty for deciding to return to work. She finally drank from it around 3:30pm. Then I went back to work to finish out the day, and we haven't had bottle issues since then.

Then that night, Sophie decided that since mommy wasn't home most of the day, night time = play time, and she was wide awake until 2:30am. Thing is she was so darn cute and I missed her so I wanted to play with her, but I knew I needed my sleep. For the rest of the week, her sleep schedule got all thrown off. Not only did she not want to go to sleep until past midnight each night, she would wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning for another feeding. She hadn't been doing that in over a month! We figured it was all because I was back at work, so she had figured out that she had to maximize her time with me by going to bed late and waking in the middle of the night. Sort of a sweet way to think about it that makes it less frustrating. :-)

I also noticed that my milk production started to decline as the week progressed, so Sophie may have been night waking more frequently because she wasn't getting enough at her bedtime feeding to last her through the night. Each day, the amount I was able to pump during the work day seemed to decrease by 2 ounces, so I'm going to have to start pumping more frequently. Nursing all weekend got me back up to speed, so I'm just going to have to be really intentional about keeping up my milk production. It is definitely a labor of love...

This week, we are starting to get a schedule down. Sophie and I go to bed around 8pm while Jensen finishes up some chores, and I wake up at 5am to feed her and to make it to work by 6am so that I can get home by 3pm. Jensen comes into work around 9pm and gets home at 6pm. This way, my mom is only alone with the baby for about 6 hours, and I get home early enough to help prepare dinner. We're trying it out this week, and we'll see how it works.

God is good to me

I am just amazed at how blessed I am. It shocks me sometimes as I wonder why God has been so gracious to me. Here's a rundown of unexpected blessings this year:

I had an awesome boss during training and I have an awesome boss now. After 2 years of not so great bosses at my old job, I appreciate them all the more. Both of them were incredibly supportive of me as a new mother, helping me to get an extended maternity leave and giving me a lot of flexibility. I have also been assigned one of the better technologies (antennas). It's one of the most straightforward and well-organized technologies here, so it makes my work pretty easy in comparison to some of my co-workers. And now that I am back at work (just started on Monday), I have my own office! Most people have to wait until they are Primary Examiners to get their own office. I thought I was going to get an office mate when the next new person came in, but I just found out that they are putting her in the office 3 doors down from me! It's really really nice because I am pumping milk right now, and so having a private space is a must. Otherwise, I'd have to pump in a bathroom stall. I thought maybe my boss somehow knew I was going to be pumping and arranged the offices this way, but I never mentioned that to him...

All this to add to the fact that I live a mere 15 minute walk from the office, work at the same place as my husband and get to have lunch with him, have a beautiful baby that is growing and thriving and already sleeps through the night, and have my mother here helping to take care of the baby. How many people have it this good?

All I can say is Thanks be to God.

Back to Work

I'm back at work today and completely unable to concentrate. I kind of don't remember how to do anything anymore, and I keep going to my picasa webalbums to look at pictures of my little sweetie. Missing her already....

Our First Mother's Day

When I first realized that Mother's Day was coming up, I was super excited to think that for the first time in my life, I would be honored among all the other mothers all over the country. There really is a sweet connection among mothers. I find myself far more excited to see other newborns now than before we had Sophia. It brings back the memories of the struggles and the exciting moments you have walked through before. On Monday, Sophie made a big messy poop all over her clothes and car seat while we were in the doctor's waiting room, and all the ladies smiled a knowing glance at me. I could tell they were reminiscing about those days.

But Mother's Day ended up being a bit stressful because it was the day that Jensen and I decided we were going to persevere and get Sophia to drink from the bottle. We had trained her on the bottle starting at 6 weeks old, and she took it without much of a fight, so then we didn't worry too much about it after that. Big Mistake! After a month of exclusively breastfeeding, Sophie had developed a very strong preference for the breast, and refused the bottle all last week. On Saturday, we tried 2 feedings in a row to get her to drink from the bottle before her kicking and screaming did us in, and I called our doula for advice. She told us you just have to be persistent, and that there really isn't an easier way. So Sunday came, and Jensen made me a Mother's Day breakfast, and then it was time to get to work. Jensen tried to feed her with the bottle, and Sophie kicked and screamed and spit out any milk that went into her mouth. Her bib and onesie were soaked, and she finally exhausted herself and fell asleep. Repeat 3 times. Finally, about 8 hours later during the fourth attempt, she was hungry enough to drink from the bottle, and she chugged it down!! Praise God! What a relief! We wanted to dance and jump up and down, we were so happy. Two hours later, we gave her the bottle again, and she still drank even though she wasn't desperately hungry. We ended up running out of expressed breast milk, so then I went ahead and took her to feed from the breast. She was so excited the minute I took her into my arms and put her into that familiar cradle position and opened her mouth with eager expectancy. haha...it was so cute.

So now, she feeds on the bottle once a day when her daddy gets home from work without putting up a fight. This has been our first big power struggle with our baby (we didn't have to do much sleep training...she just started sleeping through the night regularly on her own!), and it feels great to have gotten past it.

In other news, Sophie is growing like crazy. She is over the 90th percentile in both length and weight for her age, which is pretty surprising considering she is only fed breast milk and doesn't exactly have big-person genes! She's pretty much the size of a 5 month old. I keep telling her to stop growing so fast. It makes me sort of sad because I like her all nice and tiny, but at the same time, there are certain benefits to her fast growth. Not only is she growing more quickly than normal in size, I think she is also developing in other ways earlier (i.e. already sleeping through the night without any night feedings, able to laugh and squeal with delight).

Welcome to the World, Julia!

My sister gave birth to her beautiful little girl on April 26, 2008 at 5:46 am. Meet Julia Emde. It was a long and hard labor (almost 15 hours in the active stage), and I am so proud of her for getting through it. I can't wait to meet my little neice, and it will be fun to see how the cousins will interact. What fun it is to watch your family grow!

One Proud Mama

I love taking Sophie out and about in the baby carrier so that her head pops out. I see all these people stop, look and smile. I see them tap their friends/wives/husbands on the shoulder to say, "Look at the cute little baby!" I notice that they just can't help but smile and laugh upon seeing such a sweet little face, and it makes me happy to see that she is already bringing joy, not only to us, but to the world around her.

They say it will change your life forever....

but not until this weekend have I really felt that.


Sophie has been a really calm and cooperative baby. Every time we have gone out to eat or shopping, she has pretty much slept the whole time. The stroller or the baby carrier both lull her into a deep and restful sleep, so going out has not been a big deal at all. I have also become pretty comfortable nursing in public with a receiving blanket covering me, so whenever she did arise for a feeding, it was really no big deal.


So when people say that having a child changes everything, I didn't really notice it. For one thing, Jensen and I have always been more inclined towards family friendly activity. Before we had Sophie, we liked going for walks in the park, or grabbing dinner at low-key casual restaurants, which we could still easily do with a baby. We didn't feel like we were giving up a lot because we were never big nightlife/bar scene/movie goers. In addition, neither one of us is particularly time-oriented, so adjusting our schedule to the baby's schedule felt pretty natural.


This weekend, Jensen's brother and sister-in-law were back in town for a conference, so we went to meet them in Dupont Circle. Sophie was awake during the entire metro ride, and when we got to Dupont, she started fussing a little, ready for another feeding. It wasn't very convenient to feed her right then and there, so we kept moving towards the hotel. Her crying began to escalate, and by the time we reached the hotel room, she was in a bit of a frenzy. I think she was hungry, hot, and scared from the unfamliar surroundings, all adding up to one very unhappy baby. At this point, I tried to feed her, but her crying had become so frantic that she wasn't able to suckle, frustrating her all the more. She reached a point where she was hyperventilating and crying a painful cry that I have never heard before. It took us about an hour to calm her down, by turning on the hair dryer, rocking her constantly, and helping her along with the feeding. She reached a point of exhaustion, and then napped for an hour.


After Jensen and I felt a little more relaxed after the episode, we all decided to go for a walk in Georgetown and to grab some dinner. We made it all the way down to the waterfront (about 30 minute walk) before she started to fuss again. This time, we would not make her wait, so we quickly went into the first restaurant we saw. Luckily, they had a table open, and we sat down, and I started to feed her. It was a little uncomfortable because it was a small, intimate restaurant...the kind of place you would go for a date. We were definitely the only one with a kid in the place, and it made us feel really out of place. She then progressed to let out a big bomb of a poop, which leaked out onto her clothes. Fortunately, we came prepared with an extra onesie, but the bathroom didn't have a changing table (I don't think they expect to have many babies in the place). We made do with what we had...I used a console table that they had in the bathroom for decoration to change her. She nursed while I ate, as I have learned to always order things off the menu that can be eaten with only one hand (things like fish which don't require a knife, or penne pasta work well), and so she was calm during dinner. We were going to take a look at the dessert menu when she started to fuss again, and so we told the waiter we needed to go ahead and grab the check.

I think making Leland and Tilina have to adjust their plans to our baby's needs made the way that our lives have changed all the more apparent. They had to wait while I fed her, wait while she napped, and cut their meal short when she started to fuss. And to add to that, we were in a less family-friendly part of town. While we were walking back to the metro station to head home, we walked passed two men, and I overheard one man say to the other, "That guy was carrying a monkey!" to which the other responded, "That was a kid!" That gives you an idea of how rarely you see babies in Dupont Circle!

Daddy's Little Girl

I love watching Jensen interact with our daughter. He looks at her with this "my heart is melting" look, and seeing that look in his face makes me fall in love with him all the more. She is definitely going to be a daddy's little girl. Everyday when he comes home from work, he says, "She's so cute, Jennifer!" at least a dozen times. Then he says, "It's too much..." as if he's about to burst from all the love welling up inside him. Seeing his baby girl after an 8-10 hour separation hits him with a longing that I probably won't completely understand until I return to work.

Baby Lafalot

Sophia is starting to giggle now! I had some really fun playtime with her today where she kept making a face like in this picture with cute giggly sounds. Ah! I wish I caught it all on video, but I was too busy enjoying the moment that I didn't get a chance to get the camera. It was so precious, I started to tear up, and it's just the beginning! Soon she'll be toppling over with laughter...I can already imagine. She loves it when she is face to face with either Jensen or me. She gazes into our eyes and then smiles with a little coo and knows that mommy and daddy love her so much.

Today she is 8 weeks old. Only 2 months, and she is already outgrowing her 3 mos. sized clothing! I was so upset when she grew out of her safari pajamas (pictured above), that I started to worry that I was overfeeding her even though I have been told many times that you can't overfeed a breastfed baby. Our doctor chuckled when I asked him if it were possible that she was growing to fast, knowing that all moms must feel that way.

Look how I've grown!

The top picture is one-day old Sophie, and the second is Sophie today, almost 6 weeks old. I can't believe she used to fit that tiny hat!

Sophie can now....



Hold her head up steadily


Smile and laugh


And this weekend she made her first pee in the potty!

The Hard Part

mommy and baby finally getting some sleep after a restless night.

I have been meaning to write an update on this blog for over a week now, but something always happens to pull me away from the computer. Sophie gets hungry or just stirs from her sleep because she wants to be held, or the clothes dryer buzzer goes off, or I have to go to the bathroom and then get distracted doing other things. Mothering is becoming quite a full time job, even with grandma here preparing all the meals and holding the baby for long periods of time to allow me to catch up on sleep.

The last few days have been the roughest since Sophie was born, as she has hit her four week growth spurt. Three out of four nights, she has been insatiable, constantly wanting to eat, popping off the breast, crying, wanting more, and unable to sleep. I wonder, "Why are you popping off if you still want more???" It's pretty frustrating because when she does that, my milk leaks all over....ick and it takes me a while to reposition her in the dark. Four nights ago, I don't think I had enough milk to fill her, so she suckled and cried and suckled and cried until 4:00am, never being satisfied until she finally fell asleep by my side. This is where breastfeeding gets really tough, because even if Jensen and my mom wanted to help calm the baby at night, they just don't have the stuff she wants.

Last night was the ultimate challenge. After a full day of lots of awake time with Uncle Leland and Aunt Tilina, we were hoping she would be tired enough to sleep a good chunk of time through the night. Leland and Tilina had booked a nice hotel in Alexandria for the night, but ended up having to leave early. Jensen and I decided to take advantage of the hotel stay and not let it go to waste. After all, it's our 1 Year wedding anniversary today, and we thought it'd be fun to get out, but of course, baby must come with. Sophie slept at the hotel about two hours very soundy, but awakened around midnight to feed, and fussed and fed for the next five hours without a break!!! I'm not sure whether it was the change of environment that over-stimulated her senses (this hotel had lots of bright colors and busy patterns in it's decor) or the fact that I had eaten three girl scout cookies and a slice of chocolate cake (the caffeine could have passed through the breast milk?), or just a continuation of the grown spurt that caused all the fussiness. But after a day of entertaining visitors and a night of trying to calm a fussy baby, I was painfully exhausted. We decided to head home around 5:30am when we found that it was useless trying to get Sophie to sleep. Fortunately, the car ride home did the trick, and she has been asleep ever since today except for a few quick feedings. So Jensen and I are now celebrating our anniversary catching up on sleep.

I've been itching to put her in this bear suit since December when I bought it. Hehehe

My mom is here now, which has been a HUGE blessing. Poor Jensen was getting pretty exhausted playing superman, taking care of the baby, me, and all the household chores. He's been my caretaker for 3 weeks now because I came down with a pretty awful cold one week before my due date, and right when I got better, I went into labor. Plus, having a home birth means no nurses attending to me immediately after the delivery. Jensen's been doing it all without a single complaint. Sigh....am I a lucky girl or what?

It's fun seeing my mom interact with Sophia. It gives me a glimpse of how she interacted with baby Jennifer! She gets really excited when Sophia cracks a little smile (really, I think she's just exercising her muscles, but it's convincing enough), and it makes me wonder if that is the reason why I smile so much. So much positive reinforcement for just a little curl of the lip.

Natural Childbirth in Retrospect

During my second trimester, Jensen and I decided that it was very important to us to have a natural childbirth, meaning having our baby without the use of drugs or unnecessary medical interventions. Whenever I told someone this, they would be pretty shocked that I didn't want the epidural. Funny thing is that when I learned more details about the epidural procedure (not even mentioning possible side effects), it sounded far more terrifying to me than labor pains! I think if more people really knew ahead of time everything that an epidural involved, they wouldn't consider it such a no-brainer decision.

As a result of our decision, we began learning more and more about what happens to the body naturally in childbirth. It has been a bit of a spiritual journey to me. It convinces me all the more that we are created beings, and reinforces my trust that God has made me perfectly and wonderfully. Perfect doesn't mean flawless in my mind, just "the way it ought to be." It is all just too amazing, the way the right hormones turn on and off at just the right times, and the way it knows the right time that the baby is ready to come out -- all of this happening completely out of my influence and control. All I can do is go along for the ride and be a good steward of my body by eating healthily and exercising. The natural childbirth mantra of "learning to trust your body" has been synonymous for me with "learning to trust that God has made my body right, and therefore learning to trust God."

I had some friends/family challenge me to not try to control my birth situation because I was being so adamant about not wanting drugs, and to be more "trusting" of God about it. "Sometimes things happen and it's out of your control," they would say. They didn't want me to be too disappointed if things didn't go as I had hoped. I found it sort of ironic because my perspective on it all was so different. I felt that I did have complete trust in God in the situation, and for that reason was choosing to do it naturally because I believed that God had created the birthing process, and He created it to work without our intervening in the process. I felt like their encouragement to "trust and not try to control," was really advocating the opposite thing. It was saying, "fear the unknowns, and therefore be prepared if things don't go the way you want them to."

It reminded me of how sometimes we pray "if it be Your will prayers," because we don't want to be disappointed if things don't turn out how we had hoped. Richard Foster says we ought not pray "if it be Your will" prayers because we should only be praying the things that we believe are in God's will in the first place. "If it be Your will," is really only an indication of doubt, although maybe we feel like we're trying to be polite or something. With childbirth, my thought was, "why wouldn't it be in God's will for me to have my baby naturally, when the natural way is the process He has created?" And Praise Him for He has been very gracious to us through it all.

I think just about all women struggle with issues with body image during their lives, and I am no exception. Everyone has something about their bodies that they would like to change. For me, I am very small on top, and sort of big on the bottom, which makes finding bras and pants that fit sort of difficult. Pregnancy has been quite a healing experience for me in this area. I have really learned to love my body. In fact, I am downright amazed by it and that it has been able to grow and nuture from a tiny seed this beautiful human being. And even with my small breasts, I am able to feed and nurture my baby with milk, and I am thankful for these wide hips of mine even if it means wearing a size 10 because I think it probably made giving birth a lot easier. I have gained this new confidence that I am just the way I am supposed to be.

So how was labor without drugs? It was painful, I won't lie, but it never seemed too much to bear. Because we were at home the whole time, drugs were never an option and thus never a temptation. I believe that pain has a purpose and that a world without pain would also be void of soul, depth and meaning. As the Bible says, "we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." (Romans 5:3-5) In this case the pain told me how to work with my body to birth this baby. I didn't need someone to tell me when to push. Without drugs numbing the sensation, you know exactly when to push.

I learned a few pain coping techniques beforehand as well. There are two basic ways of coping with pain. One is to distract yourself by focusing on something outside the pain (such as your breathing), and the other way is to focus entirely on the pain, and somehow, that makes it more bearable. I found that focusing on the "center of the pain," worked very well for me. As I was pushing in the final stages, I focused in on the burning sensation of my perineum, and I think it gave me a strong determination to push harder because I was thinking, "the more it burns, the more the baby is coming out!!"

It was really amazing to watch Sophia wake up to the world once she was out. We saw her face change from bluish to pink within seconds and slowly she began to let out a few cries and open her eyes. That picture of when I first laid eyes on her is burned into my mind, and I'm glad I wasn't lethargic and out of it from any medication so I could really soak in that moment.

The Honeymoon Period

You know how when you first fall in love with someone, you have a honeymoon period where every little thing that person does is absolutely beautiful to you for a little while? That's where we are with Sophia. I find every little movement and sound she makes absolutely adorable, even when she is crying! When she sleeps, she sometimes raises her eyebrows, purses her lips, and stretches her arms, and each movement to me is beautiful. We are having so much fun just doting over her. :-)

Baby Sophia's first bath

Modest Sophia clutching her washcloth in front of the camera, trying in vain to defend herself with her big hand (which she inhereted from her momma.)

Welcome to the World Sophia!

Baby Sophia Hu was born on February 6, 2008 at 6:29am.
20 inches long
7 pounds, 3.4 ounces