Beautiful Boy

 Jacob Eden Kim was born on Monday, October 24th, 2022 at 8:38 AM ET. I got to hold my son less than an hour later when I was rolled out of the operating room and he was placed on my chest. Since that moment, I have been swept up in life with a newborn baby and the emotional whirlwind of it all. 

Welcome to the world beautiful boy!

My recovery from the c-section has been going relatively smoothly and we have been settling into somewhat of a routine at home with our baby. It has not been an easy adjustment, but it has been so incredibly worth it. I never imagined experiencing the kind of love I feel for this little human. He is truly my greatest love, and it is hard to imagine loving anyone more. I also have felt surges of love and gratitude for my husband that I never felt before this, and this intense feeling of attachment to them both; our little family.

Our first two weeks with Jacob were quite stressful because he was jaundiced and we were in and out of the hospital and doctor's office most days. In his second week of like we were at the hospital six of the seven days. They were tracking his weight and he suddenly started losing weight, so that became a huge concern. The care we experienced from the doctors and nurses was extremely attentive, which I realize is a gift in the current medical system in Ontario. I was able to witness how newborns are monitored extremely closely. The downside of this though, was the intensity of it all. As a new mom with all of the postpartum hormones, I began to dread and fear going in everyday to find out more bad news about my son. It was hard not to feel like I was failing him already as his primary caregiver. 

I also felt a strong sense from the moment he was born that he was going to be ok, however when immersed within the system of doctors and nurses running tests upon tests and assessing and evaluating his condition against benchmark numbers that he was not meeting, I started to doubt my intuition. Anxiety and fear about my son's overall health and well-being took over me. 

Why wasn't he gaining weight? Why were his bilirubin levels so high? What have I done to contribute to my son's poor health? How can I make it better? 

We watched in the NICU as my son had vials of blood taken to run a multitude of tests for different genetic abnormalities and health issues. We spoke with doctors and nurse after nurse, all offering different opinions and guidance on how to feed him better and how to help him get his jaundice levels down. I would come undone on the drive home from the hospital, crying in the backseat as my husband tried to console me while also being incredibly worried about our little boy. All of this while dealing with a lack of sleep, hormones and my own recovery from surgery. 

We leaned heavily on my parents for support (thank God for them!) and changed our feeding schedule to ensure Jacob was getting over 3 ounces of breastmilk every 3 hours (pumping, nursing and supplementing with formula periodically). I also cut out dairy, chocolate and caffeine in my diet. 

The beginning of his third week of life got off to a much greater start with him having gained 90 ounces from his previous weight and being almost back to his birth weight. We were discharged from the hospital - yay! and could finally go home and enjoy our week without any more medical appointments until Friday. I was able to settle back into life at home with my baby, which was a relief. 

In my experience that second week, while grateful for the extreme attentiveness from medical professionals towards my child, I also felt bombarded with opinions and judgements disguised as attempts at helpful guidance. At one point, Yeorum lamented that it felt like the doctors were running science experiments on our son. All of his test results came back negative, and his bilirubin levels were decreasing every day. He is now well over his birth weight and eating, peeing and pooping lots. 

I realized that my intuition about him being totally ok, was right. And while I do not regret having taken him to the hospital to ensure he was ok, I am also reminded of just how vulnerable I as a new mother am to losing my footing and sense of trust in myself, when surrounded by external experts in those settings. In a conversation with my girlfriend after it all, we bonded over our shared experiences within the medical system after our sons were born. We realized that we both experienced hypervigilant care directed towards our newborns especially because they were not meeting the mark in some way, and a complete lack of care towards ourselves (the mothers) in the midst of it all. It creates for this high stress, unbalanced situation, and has negative impacts on everyone involved, especially the baby. 

When I sat at home rocking Jacob and feeling his chest breathing on mine, I could tap into my connection to this little boy, who I could feel was completely OK. But it was so easy for me to become disconnected from that, when thrown into the system described above.

I hope this blog serves as a reminder to any other mothers to trust their intuition and connection to their child, especially when it is the most challenging time to do so. I am so grateful for the medical care that our son has received in the first few weeks of his life. I am also grateful for my support system who continue to encourage me to trust my instincts and connection to my child. This is just the beginning of advocating for Jacob for likely the rest of my life, so it seems the universe is already providing me with opportunities to do so!