my beloved mountain

It's been day two since I hiked to the top of "my" mountain in Kaohsiung. The mountain that was restricted military training ground until about two decades ago when army privates carved out a hiking pathway all the way to the top in the 40% of mountain area that became open to the public. This hiking oasis had been one of my solitary places to go and destress when I was working both day and night shifts in Taiwan during my first full-time job out of college. I would hop on my moped and ride through the city to reach it either in the early twilight hours just before the sun is rising, or around dusk when sometimes I would bump into the nightly patrollers with their headlights-on-helmets as I was descending towards home.  The thick forest canopy covers the harsh sun even during midday, and I loved listening to the birds, watched the giant butterflies, kept an uneasy truce with the pack of macaque monkeys that would sometimes eye my ankles as I walked past their supine, nit-picking forms.

It's been two days and I'm still ridiculously sore in my calves. Like, painfully so, walking like I had a vasectomy kind of sore. My mom said that was the first time she's ever heard me pant while hiking. I hope that I'll be able to return to the mountain enough times during this visit to get back into my former fitness, at least while hiking. Not sure if that's possible while pregnant, but I'm going to try. 

The mountaintop was refreshingly cool, and we drank tea brewed by volunteers who carried at least 25kg of water up from ground level to brew it with. They do this on a regular basis, simply because it would be nice for hikers to have something good to drink when we get to the top. Visibility out to the Taiwan Strait was excellent. I saw at least seven ships and the varied shades of blue/green that belie the ocean depths.

                            Declan enjoyed the exercise equipments on the mountaintop

nostalgia

Declan and Daniel are sleeping away in the master bedroom. Sigh. If Declan doesn't wake up in half an hour's time, the whole getting up at 2am and not going to sleep again may replay itself. I know that it took about a week when we flew to Chicago from China in order for everyone to get aligned with the local time, but unlike in Chicago, I'm actually pretty much adjusted now myself, and it's like taking care of a newborn again when Declan fusses for me to get up with him.

My initial hope was that he would just take a late afternoon nap around 3:30pm, after we came back from visiting a potential church we might join during the duration of our visit. Two months is a fairly long time to go without any community, and I hope we can find a strong one. It's too hard to go it alone with a kid in tow. I often wonder why I seem to struggle so much more than any other moms. That's what it feels like anyway, as I feel more dread and loneliness and frustration and uncertainty every day than anything else. Daniel said that considering the fact that before the age of two, Declan would have lived in four different countries and have visited more than ten different cities, perhaps it's not so much that I'm incompetent as our lives have been and are just insane in terms of providing me as a new mom with any semblance of stability.

I hope that's the reason. And that things will be a little better with the new baby, even though we would be in a new land in which I currently don't speak the language.

While waiting for the other two members of my family to wake up, I started surfing the net. Dreading a bit another new start to a church relationship in this coming weekend. Truthfully, I have such a conflicted experience with every church I've ever been to, and I recently noticed how in all the weddings of people I know in my Pittsburgh local church, all the girls have at least two other girls from our church as their bridesmaids. This demonstrates to me the depth of friendships that were shared in the church I went to...in contrast with my wedding. My bridesmaids (excluding family) were entirely outside of that church. In fact, none of my church friends knew the two girls.

I thought further about how in the church I went to during college, everyone there essentially married each other off. I really have to think hard about someone there who married "outside." And I personally disliked dating guys I went to church with; not sure why.

All this to say, I've always felt an estrangement from others in the churches I attended. And frankly, I'm tired of it... I wonder what it is about me that screams standoffishness. I wonder if I'll ever belong anywhere. While looking through old fb pictures of a recently married Pittsburgh friend, I came upon a kayaking trip I got randomly invited on in the last minute and in which I had one of the best times of hanging out with church people ever. It made me miss the people I hung out with on that trip a great deal, and I wish I had treasured our time more than I had while I was living it.

Also, damn, I looked so thin in those pictures. I actually had a flat stomach! Oh, the past that will never be again. :P

first prenatal checkup of child 2.0

After my mom re-activated my national health insurance one day after my little family arrived in Kaohsiung, I visited a maternity clinic fairly close by to my brother's apartment, which we're staying at for this visit. The clinic was fairly posh -- there was a fountain by the entrance, which opened to an open lobby/registration desk/waiting area with a soft, European-cushy giant ottoman. Next to the ottoman, separated by a large corridor was a table holding paper cups and a hot sweetened herbal tea that I poured a cup from for my mom and another for myself.

This is how affordable health care is in Taiwan. Our breakfast for three this morning at a small store a short walk from our apartment = NT$150. (About US$5) My ob-gyn visit = NT$50. To pay for my checkup, my husband dubiously handed over a 50-dollar coin that I might have otherwise used to buy, say, two drinks from the vending machine. This fee included a blood pressure test, an ultrasound, and a blood drawn to test for my thyroid hormones. Daniel suspects that I might have hypothyroidism triggered by my pregnancy with Declan, and now we could finally check out his suspicion.

So the best news from my visit was that the baby appeared healthy, and the doctor pegged him/her at 10 weeks 4 days old. I'm still going to stick with our more conservative estimate, because I think the medical establishment tends to jump the gun on this timing. Also, I want to avoid any unnecessary stress from being overdue later, so although they estimate a January 17 due date for child 2.0, I'm sticking with January 25 as a reasonable timeframe.

Another good news was that it's not twins! Because my mom is a twin, there's always this lingering joke about how I would end up having twins. Given how strong my first trimester symptoms have been, my friends and husband have been rife with speculations on this front. Rife! And freaking me out to no end.  Aside from my relief to see a single pod person floating in my uterus, I was so amazed to see, well, a single pod person floating in my uterus. My anti-kids environmentalist friends (of which I have many, given that I grew up in the Pacific Northwest) might have it right about wondering why people would want to give up so many things to have children, but I wish I could share with them the awe and wonder of seeing a tiny life growing inside another person's body. It truly goes beyond the physical biology and taps into the spiritual. I have been a little freaked out by my body for the rest of today, having been reminded in so visual a way that I am in fact carrying another person's life within me.

Jet lag is the current biggest drag. Morning sickness is only a distant second now, woohoo! I discovered that if I were to eat more frequently (in small amounts, of course), I'm less likely to get nauseated and have a stomachache. So I scarfed down every little snack and meal portions the airlines served us on the flights over, and paid 1,200 yen at Narita Airport for a bowl of curry rice (and an order of extra rice to mix into the first meal item to stretch out the portion so I could share it with Daniel and Declan). (It was either that or paying US$10 for a McDonald's meal. What.) This strategy really did help with feeling queasy through our journey, and I've been employing it even now by eating a little bit of turnip cake here, a little bit of meat dumpling there, and some fruits whenever Declan eats in his vegetarian way (which worries his maternal grandparents greatly).

I hope we kick this jet lag thing to the curb soon. Mostly Declan, poor little guy. I hate seeing him so tired and crazy.

catching up (a bit randomly)

I am aware that my blog layout currently kind of sucks, both color and template. It's strangely fitting of how my body's been feeling constantly though, so I won't be changing it until things in that department improves. Hopefully in the second trimester.

In other news, calloo callay! A minuscule small feat for stay-at-home and/or single moms who must shoulder all the child care and housekeeping all the time, but an unprecedented didn't-know-how-I-was-going-to-do-it accomplishment: I kept both Declan and myself relatively alive and well while Daniel was away for a week. I switched to using all disposable diapers for that period of time so I didn't need to scratch out Declan's poop from the usual cloth diapers, which would surely had induced severe bouts of vomiting from my combination of highly sensitive sense of smell and all-day-no-holds-bar morning sickness. (I still remember when I tried to use an old toothbrush to do the job, and Declan got ahold of it. I caught him just as he was putting the poop-laden brush head to his lips. SO. GROSS.) Last night, while walking to a farewell dinner (of sorts) with some friends, I went into a bout of dry heaving by the side of the road after passing by a homeless person. I felt really bad for doing so, but the typical alcohol/dried pee mix was overwhelming.

Now all that is left is packing and giving away things. I am really grateful for the few but very loyal friends we have in Seattle, who spent pockets of time with me during my last week of solitude with the toddler and who are now helping us clear out the apartment. I really don't know what kind of community we will find in Israel. I only know that we will really need one.

It's funny how I literally did not have any chance to keep up with Facebook last week, and finally browsed my usual dose just now while Daniel's out with the toddler. The funny part is that I felt quite freed despite the "deprivation." The first five minutes of reconnecting was constructive, in catching up on baby shower pictures of a close friend in Pittsburgh and some other conversations, then it turned into a bit of grapevine gossiping in seeing what friends of friends are up to. Up goes my snark antenna, but I especially shouldn't give a damn anymore how some people behave or do or say. Their lives have nothing to do with mine anymore. Who cares if they are balls of self-righteous contradictions?

In conclusion, I think--once again--that Facebook is more bad for me than good, especially now that I no longer share pictures with family and friends using that medium. Unlike the past three times I've killed my account, only to find being abroad and a stay-at-home mom too isolating without fb, I think I'll just go more dormant like surprisingly a large amount of my friends... and actually do more letter or post-card writing, or even Skyping, as a real alternative to keeping in touch.

I hope tomorrow's flight across the Pacific Ocean will go well, and not too exhaustingly.

ten more days

Today is dealing-with-paperwork day. We returned to Seattle from Illinois on Tuesday, and now it's Friday. Wow, time flies when you're mostly doubled-over with morning sickness all day long and you're just rationing out your energy throughout the day to keep up with a toddler. Then you wonder how you're going to manage it when your husband is soon to go out of town--the husband who's been picking up most of the slack and dealing with the toddler's poopy cloth diaper because you suddenly have the scent power of a reliable bloodhound so diaper-changing makes you dry heave some more.

But I digress. We need to visit the Taipei economic and cultural office downtown in the afternoon. Before then, in the morning, we plan to visit a free clinic for Declan's first well-visit since he's eight month old and get him vaccinated for international travel identification. I hope the international vaccine booklet may be a legitimate substitute for the Taiwan booklet that I just don't have time to translate and submit before Daniel goes to Utah. And, once again, my leeriness of vaccines and their side effects is also making me worry about how Declan might react for the rest of the day.

Well, 10 days until this period of drift and no-man's-land feel ends. That's better than 14 days. I'm looking forward especially to having access to Taiwanese food again. Last night, I dreamt I was making huge vats of marinated minced pork for a specific Taiwanese dish. There's nothing much I can eat right now without my stomach turning, and the only thing I really want to eat are things from my childhood.

no good feelings

In about two more days, we'll be leaving Carbondale, Illinois and heading back to Seattle, Washington for two more weeks before flying to my home of Kaohsiung, Taiwan for two months before our "final" destination of Haifa, Israel.

I don't know if my periodic bursts of feeling hopeless, dread, sadness, nausea, just plain suicidal has anything to do with another descent into antepartum depression, or just the stress of all the international paperwork and packing that we've been doing every six months for the last two years, or the last week in Seattle when Daniel will go to a math conference in Utah i.e. I will be home alone with Declan and probably nobody else because that's part of moving all the time--not having any community. Or maybe once morning sickness subsides, I will feel normal again.

I hate being pregnant. I really do. If memory serves me well, it only gets worse before it gets better. This will for sure be our last child, biologically. I'm open to adoption later, but honestly, some people are just not meant to be pregnant. Ever. I hate being pregnant so badly, and dread all that will naturally follow later, that I'm actually 20% hoping that I'll have a first trimester miscarriage. It's awful, I know, but let me be honest.

Maybe all this feeling awful is homesickness, perhaps. I haven't been back home to Taiwan since our wedding banquet about 2.5 years ago. That's a really long time to be away for me, and I've been dreaming almost every night of all the food that can be found only in Taiwan. I had come upon a fruit store here in Carbondale that sells a lot of "Asian" produce, and threw caution to the wind in grabbing bags of lychee and papaya to buy. The cashier jokingly gave me a hard time about buying "the most expensive fruits in the store!" And I only waited as long as the time it took to walk out the store to break into the bag of lychee. Turned out Declan loves lychees too, but not papaya. Maybe he'll like the papaya in Taiwan; there's still no substitute for those.

Right now, he's watching cartoons in the living room with his cousins. I think I need to go at least change his diaper.

visiting daniel's family

Last night, Daniel roasted some Kona beans in preparation for morning coffee with his dad and his brother Brian, who was arriving around 1am via Amtrak from Chicago. After we came back from frozen custard with Daniel's mom and sister, Daniel opened the jar of roasted beans, tilted it towards me, and said, "Here, smell!" I inhaled the strong scent of fresh coffee beans, and promptly dry heaved and then, on the third time, vomited my dessert into the kitchen garbage can.

Morning sickness is officially upon me, and pregnancy fatigue as well. It feels like the nausea is much stronger and sooner to surface than the last time. I'm glad for Declan's nap times, which I now partake with him.

The visit to Carbondale so far has been very good. Aside from the task of sorting through all of our stored belongings--which Daniel's handling mostly while I moan on the sofa--and a 60 page long manuscript I'm supposed to be editing before Wednesday at the very latest (sigh...I really should get started on that), Daniel's family's been wonderfully kind about playing with Declan and keeping him occupied so I could rest more. I am dreading returning to Seattle after this visit and going back to being the sole caretaker of Declan while Daniel goes on a business trip.

Well, let's live in the present, shall we?