Woori’s birth story

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

This post is for our secondborn, Tov’s little sister, Woori Grace Lee-Herrmann.

Woori Grace Lee-Herrmann was born on August 19, 2024, at 7:39 pm, on a Monday in which I had planned to make no-cook tomato capellini for dinner using the sun-burst heirloom tomatoes we picked at the farm.

I did not get to taste that pasta, but I was told Tov ate very well that night.

But this post is about the birthday of Woori, and to tell that, I need to start on Sunday, the day before.

For weeks before Sunday, I had been having some pretty nasty contractions, some up to level 4 pain. Some nights, I woke up convinced I was going into labor from painful contractions, only for them to subside by morning, and every morning I rolled out of bed surprised and annoyed that I was still freaking pregnant.

It wasn’t just because I was suffering from the discomfort of contractions, cramps, backaches, and sciatica. Tov will be starting school on Sep 3, and I was worried that he’d have to deal with this huge transition mere days after his sister is born. That’s enough big changes in his life within the month. So I had been chugging about five cups of raspberry leaf tea each day, hoping to trigger the labor process, but all that happened were a frustrating series of false alarms.

On Sunday, I had a level 5 contraction during our family afternoon walk that lasted at least 20 minutes straight, my uterus clenching as tight as an Olympic gymnast’s abdomen, refusing to loosen until I finally sat down on the edge of somebody’s flower bed and rested.

Then that night, around 11 pm while I was snacking on homemade sourdough banana bread, I felt a wetness that imprinted a damp spot in my sweatpants. The last time I had gone into labor, it had started with my water breaking as well– not a gush like in the movies, but a small, clear steady trickle that very quickly rolled into intense contractions. Could this be it? I put the banana bread down and started walking around the house, wincing from the back and leg pain. But no more trickle, no building contractions. Ugh. Of course. Another false alarm. I returned to my banana bread.

The next morning, on Monday, I woke up 38 weeks and 6 days pregnant, irritated that I’m rolling out of bed with a watermelon belly once again. “Come on, Woori,” I grumbled. “You can come out now.”

I decided to start the week assuming Woori wasn’t coming any time soon. I made a pediatrician appointment for Tov to get his lymph node checked. I filled the inflatable pool and let Tov splash about the backyard. I refreshed my sourdough starter and baked sourdough Irish soda bread. I texted my neighbor and a friend to plan playdates for Tov. I made plans to do an inventory of the deep freezer and pantry so I can stop buying things I already have. I put Tov down for a nap, crushed tomatoes to make the pasta sauce for dinner, and headed down to the gym to work out.

During my workout, I felt wetness again. It certainly wasn’t urine. And it was too watery to be discharge. But from my last experience and everything I’d read on ruptured membranes, shouldn’t the leak be constant, rather than sporadic? It’s probably a false alarm, wistful thinking on my end, I thought. But it wouldn’t help to message my ob/gyn, just in case, so I texted a message to the ob/gyn office, marking it “non-urgent.”

An hour later, they responded. They told me to go to the hospital to get myself evaluated. “That would be the safest thing to do,” they wrote.

Eh. Seems like a lot of fuss and work for something that’s probably nothing. Besides, it was soon time to take Tov to the pediatrician.

I texted David what happened. “I think I’ll go probably after dinner,” I wrote.

“Why don’t you go now?”

“I have to take Tov to the pediatrician in 5 mins.”

David offered to take Tov instead, which gave me time to take a shower, do my skincare routine, and get dressed to go to the hospital. I briefly considered finishing packing my hospital bag, just in case, but decided against it. Nah. Too much work.

At 3:30 pm I drove leisurely to the hospital, listening to a podcast on book recommendations and munching on chocolate-covered pretzels, ignoring the cramps and contractions that were by then too familiar. I felt silly. I wasn’t leaking anymore. It was nothing. I was wasting time.

Thankfully, check in was swift. A nurse greeted me within five minutes of waiting, and ushered me into a room. She hooked elastic bands around my belly to monitor the baby’s heart rate and my contractions. When she saw I was having a contraction, she pressed her hands on my stomach and looked down at me in surprise. “You said you’ve been having contractions for weeks? Did they always feel this tight?”

“Yep,” I said.

“These are really strong contractions,” she said.

While we waited for the test results on whether I was indeed leaking amniotic fluids, she told me what’s likely to happen. If I test positive for amniotic fluid, I’d be admitted immediately and induced, because that means I’m at risk of infection. If I test negative, I’d be admitted or released depending on the dilation of my cervix, and whether I choose to be induced anyway.

I tested positive. And surprise! I was already 5 cm dilated.

The nurse looked at me with arched eyebrows. “Oh, you’re not going home.”

And for reasons I cannot understand, after all that impatience to give birth, my immediate reaction was, “Oh crap. But I need to go home and make that pasta.”

The nurse saw the expression on my face and she softened. “How are you feeling about this? You feeling OK?”

I couldn’t tell her about the pasta. She wouldn’t understand that I’d been really eager to put those $16 heirloom tomatoes from the farm to good use and make sure Tov eats it. Instead, I told her I needed to call my husband.

I called David and told him what happened. “Good thing I didn’t wait till after dinner,” I said.

“I had a feeling since yesterday,” he said. “That’s why I offered to take Tov to the pediatrician.”

I gave him detailed instructions on how to finish making the pasta. The plan was to call Mimi, Tov’s former nanny, to come help watch Tov until my cousin got off work and take over until the baby was born. David would feed Tov, take him for a walk, put him down to bed, and then head over to the hospital around 8 pm.

While David called Mimi and my cousin, the nurse wheeled me to a labor & delivery room. It was about 4:15 pm then. She called the ob/gyn on call and he recommended I get induced right away, as my water had broken nearly 18 hours ago by that point. They wanted me to have the baby in my arms by 11 pm that night. I told them I wanted to wait before being induced. From everything I had read, induction makes the labor process even more intense and painful, and I had been hoping to have an unmedicated birth so I can still move about freely before and after birth.

So the nurses left me in my room and I bounced on a grey yoga ball, waiting for a spontaneous labor to happen.

Praise God, I didn’t have to wait long. It was like my body knew it was game time. The random contractions I had been having for weeks started picking up in pain and intensity. They were a level 5 pain, and within half an hour, a level 6. The nurses came to check in on me once in a while, offering an epidural. By 6 pm, they were at least a level 7.

“Am I officially in labor?” I asked a nurse when she came in to readjust the monitor.

She shrugged. “I suppose you can say that?” She looked at the chart. My contractions were still irregular and inconsistent, ranging from 3 to 6 minutes apart. But I was having a harder time breathing through them. I told the nurse my husband isn’t coming until 8 pm. Would that be too late? “Oh, you will have time,” she assured me.

I texted David anyway. “Come here around 7 pm? I’m definitely in labor.”

He FaceTimed me so I could instruct him on which skincare products to pack into my suitcase. I might be in excruciating pain, but I need my Skinceuticals CE Ferulic serum.

He arrived at a little past 7 pm with my suitcase. By then, no position and breathing could keep me relaxed. Every contraction seized my shoulders and curled my toes. I know this pain. I remember this pain. It was the same pain I felt two years ago as we sped up the 405 at 4:40 am on May 4, 2022, the day Tov was born, while I clutched to the side of the car, fetal-positioned in agony.

But this time, I knew what to expect. I knew the pain would get worse. It meant I was transitioning into delivery, like the guillotine at the end of a torture session: sweet, cutting relief.

A new nurse knocked then and entered. A new shift was beginning. She introduced herself, asked about our birth plan, started typing things into the computer. Meanwhile, I gripped onto the bed with both hands and groaned. “I feel pressure,” I gasped.

“Oh, OK,” the nurse said, floundering. She started explaining that because my water had broken, she was hesitant to do too many cervical checks, which increases the risk of infection. She talked about getting an epidural, but I’d need to be able to sit still to get it, she said, eyeing me uncertainly as I twisted the bedsheets in the midst of a whooper of a contraction.

“You don’t have to get an epidural if you don’t want to,” David told me, which I believe he learned from a YouTube video titled “Support Tips for Birth Partners for an Empowered Birth.”

I was only half-listening. “I feel a lot of pressure,” I repeated.

The nurse slapped on a pair of gloves. “OK, we can do a cervical check now,” she said.

I was a 10. Now the nurse looked and sounded frantic. Nothing was ready, nothing was prepared. “Don’t bear down yet,” she yelped, paging her ob/gyn and her team to bring in a table or whatever it was they needed. It was all background noise to me by then.

I knew what was going to happen then. I was no longer moaning but bellowing. As I felt another contraction, this one so familiarly uninhibited and powerful, like a tsunami of pain and force, I flipped over, got on my knees, grabbed the headboard of the bed, and let my body go.

Fluids gushed out, like guts from a fish. Then a searing pain.

I heard someone– David? The nurse?– screaming, “I see the baby!”

Another contraction. Another ripping pain. And it was over. Shouting, but not from the baby. A hatter patter of activity– thundering footsteps, squeaking wheels, exclamations and mutterings and orders.

Then I heard the cry. Woori. They laid a sticky, wailing purple little thing into my arms. I pulled her to my thudding chest, adrenaline and blood still pumping through my veins. I did it. It was done. And the delivery itself couldn’t have been more than 4 minutes. She had come even faster than Tov.

As my cousin marveled, “Faster than Uber Eats.”

Or as my friend in London remarked, “Faster than Yuriy (her husband) pooping.”

About 15 minutes later, the ob/gyn strutted in, very late to the show. I could have had this baby at home. Oh well.

About thirty minutes later, everyone left the room, leaving David, Woori, and I to enjoy silence together. The sun was setting, and the room was shimmering blocks of shadows. I had finally wound down, and only then did I properly look down at my daughter to meet her.

She was beautiful. She had a full head of light brown hair, like Tov did, and bright blue-grey newborn eyes that peered up and around in surprise. She refused to grab hold of our thumbs like Tov did. Perhaps she’s got an independent streak, like me, but from her tiny semiformed features, I saw a petite, prettier David, with his furrowed brows and expressions.

My second child, and I’ll never get over how beautiful, how sacred, how astonishing it is to meet the child you’ve carried in your womb unseen for nine months.

Woori Grace Lee-Herrmann. 7 lb 1.1 oz, 19.45 inches. Welcome to the family, our Woori. You came just in time.

They turned him into a teenage punk and I’m not OK

Published on by Sophia Lee1 Comment

I’m currently 37 weeks pregnant.

It’s the longest I’ve been pregnant, though I recognize that’s a silly thing to say, as this is “only” my second pregnancy, and perhaps my last, depending on whether David’s threat to get a vasectomy plays out or not.

At 37 weeks pregnant, I am sleeping surprisingly well, despite waking up a few times at night to pee. The baby is sitting so low in my pelvic region that the ob/gyn has a hard time finding her heartbeat. And because this baby is essentially crushing my bladder like juicing a lemon, every drop of liquid I consume is squeezed out of me in about five minutes. I have a dull, throbbing ache on my lower back that fires shooting pain down the front of my leg if I stand still, which makes cooking, grocery shopping, even showering painful and uncomfortable.

Really, my symptoms aren’t that bad, but already I am over it. I have new respect for women who have carried their child (or children) for more than 41 weeks. I am more than ready to push this baby out. You can come out now, baby! Out out out!

But then, other times, I wonder: What’s the rush? Am I really willing to trade backaches and leg pain for weeks of sleep deprivation and soreness and exhaustion? And also…just as I couldn’t imagine Tov as a human being before he was born, I still have a hard time imagining my unborn daughter as a real person– someone with her own personality and voice, her own features and desires, someone with whom I will fall in love as fiercely as I did with Tov.

When Tov was first born, I was emotionally numb. I didn’t feel that overwhelming sensation of love, of claiming him as mine. It took a few days for my emotions to finally awaken, for me to look at his red, scabby little face and think, My son. It is really hard for me right now to imagine loving my second as much as I love my firstborn, though I’m sure that love will come just as powerfully and unconsciously. Even so, there’s a part of me that’s mourning a little, because I know I won’t have as much time and energy for Tov once this baby is born. He’s growing up so fast, and I’m not even ready for that.

I think that’s why I felt this sharp pang of sorrow when Tov came back from the kids hair salon one afternoon with a drastically different haircut.

Tov has dark, straight, thick hair that falls in shiny curtains around his face. The last time we cut his hair was in May, and since then, his bangs have grown past his eyes, and he looked like a young Justin Bieber. David took him recently to a kids hair salon and asked for a trim. Just a TRIM, he said. Instead, the woman picked up a buzzer and shaved off all his locks down to a fuzzy crew cut within three minutes.

I had just finished showering when David arrived with Tov. I turned to greet my son as he walked into the bathroom, sucking on a cherry Tootsie Roll Pop, and I could barely recognize him. Gone was my cute Asian boy with a bowl-cut acorn hair. In sauntered a teenage punk with a buzz cut. He now looks more impish than cute when he smiles, more like he’s about to go set the woods on fire than draw on our white couch with a blue marker. He went to the hair salon my sweet little Tov; he came back a stranger.

I was horrified. I was upset. But mostly, I am sad.

It’s been five days since his haircut and I still can’t get used it. I think the fact that I’m already anticipating so many changes and transitions to our lives, to Tov’s life, makes me react more strongly to his new look. I love this 27-month-old Tov as much or even more than the 24-month-old Tov and the 12-month-old Tov, and I will love the 30-month-old Tov who will by then be a big brother, but I miss all those old Tovs, too.

Looking at Tov’s suddenly grown-up face reminds me of all the great changes to come: the day he loses his little boy’s voice, the day he loses the baby fat in his cheeks, the day he sprouts whiskers and fur on his legs, the day he no longer runs to hug me around the legs, or cackle when we play “peekaboo,” or giggle at the silliest things, or worship me, or cry about things that don’t matter like not having his truck in his crib, or collect acorns and pinecones in his blue bucket, or cuddle with me in bed watching Miss Rachel sing “Wheels on the Bus.”

This new face fast-forwards me to a strange, unknown, grown-up Tov. Will he still look up to me with adoration, or find me annoying and ignorant and old? Will he still want to hang out with me, or prefer spending all weekend and holidays with his friends and eventually, disappear to create his own family? Will he still be sweet and affectionate and cheeky and bright, or will he be moody, troubled, angry, resentful, envious, unpleasant? The reality is, he will be all of those things at some point, and there’s nothing I can do about it, except intentionally enjoy and be grateful for each season I have with him.

It’s the greatest tragedy of parenthood, that we devote everything we have into creating and raising a life only to set it out into the cruel world.

I can birth two dozen babies, and I’ll nestle them into my chest as soon as they enter the world with a shriek, but the moment they learn how to walk, every one of them will learn how to scamper away from me, away into independence, away into their own lives and worlds of which I have little say and control.

If that’s the greatest tragedy of parenthood, the greatest challenge is to somehow be at peace with that fact, and entrust them into the Lord’s hands.

Why won’t you just EAT

Published on by Sophia Lee1 Comment

Two Sundays ago, we got together with two church families for our first book meeting, in which we discuss Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation. We thought the easiest way for us to be able to meet and chat was to hang out poolside, letting our young kids aged 9 months to 6 years old to splash around at the pool while we snack on fruits and sunbutter sandwiches and talk about the impact of social media and screen time on young minds.

We had a good discussion, but I also felt myself feeling rather agitated and frustrated– not because of the content, or the company, which was wonderful, but because I was watching my friends’ toddlers, both several months older than Tov, hang out close to the snack table while Tov was way more interested in splashing in the pool.

By then I knew that Tov had skipped breakfast, had eaten one mini dried fruit bar in the car after church, and then had consumed nothing else. Meanwhile, these two other healthy toddlers, both bigger and chunkier than skinny Tov, grabbed fistfuls of blueberries, downed a bottle of juice, and chomped on not one, but three, four pieces of sunflower butter sandwiches. All the while, Tov was expending all the calories he didn’t ingest by scampering and jumping around, totally disinterested in the food.

“Tov, you want to eat something?” I called out to my son, and he shook his head and said his new favorite word to every question: “No.”

Eventually he came by my side to the snack table, drenched and sunburned, and I was able to get him to eat some watermelon, on which he nibbled a few squirrely bites and then handed the rest of the chewed-up chunks to me.

“Try some sandwich,” I begged, holding out a small piece, and he shook his head, “No.”

He licked on some blueberries, spat some out. Nibbled on some watermelon, and then tossed most of it onto the table. The sandwich I had offered to him sat crusty and dry before me.

He was driving me INSANE. He’s got to be hungry by now! He’s eating 1/5 of what other kids his age eat, and using up three times the energy! Why the heck wouldn’t he just freaking EAT!

I had been noticing Tov’s declining appetite for a couple weeks by then. Because he still was his happy and energetic self, I didn’t worry much at first. He’s always been a good eater; some days he ate less, but he naturally ate more the next day. He’s been getting pickier about what he eats, but that’s pretty normal for toddlers his age, and I just did what the experts advised: Keep offering new foods, including vegetables and meat he won’t touch, but don’t ever pressure him. Simple breezy easy.

And then one day of not eating became three days, and then a week, and then two weeks, and by the time we were at the pool for our book club, I was observing every morsel touching his lips like a hawk. I was starting to do what the experts told me not to do: I was starting to stress, and the stress steamed off my pores like fresh-boiled potatoes, burning both me and Tov and others around us.

I told our nanny that he hasn’t been eating, and she shrugged. “He’s never been a breakfast person,” she said.

I gritted my teeth. “He’s not eating lunch either.”

“I don’t like fat babies,” she said. “He looks fine to me.”

“The doctor said he’s pretty underweight,” I said, feeling an irritation heating up into a volcanic rage. She sees how little he’s eating, doesn’t she? He’s not eating breakfast, he’s not eating his snacks, he’s barely touching his lunch. “He’s not really been eating much for dinner, either.”

“Oh!” our nanny said, starting to look concerned. “I didn’t know he’s not been eating dinner either. I didn’t know it was that bad.”

From then on, she made a concentrated effort to get Tov to eat. She chased him with a piece of bread in her hand, going, “Mmmm! Bread! You want some bread?” and it turned into a game for Tov, who ran in circles around the living room giggling, and of course refusing to even taste the by-then soggy, wretched-looking, wholly unappetizing bread. In the end, she would put him down for a nap with his stomach empty, his breakfast and lunch plates still full and congealing and attracting fruit flies.

A week after that poolside hangout, his appetite dropped even lower, if that was even possible. He didn’t even want his milk. He had a low-grade temperature and was clingy, simply wanting to be held and rocked. I took him to the doctor, and turns out, he has strep throat. His pediatrician said the back of his throat is swollen, which makes sense why he completely lost his appetite, but she said it doesn’t really explain why he’s been eating so little for the past few weeks. That just might be normal toddler behavior, she said. She put him on antibiotics and Tylenol/ibuprofen, and said he should be feeling better in about three days.

The next day, after a full day of not eating again, our nanny tried to wake him up from his nap, and he barely stirred. She rubbed his back, stroked his cheeks, called out to him, but he lay like a stone in his crib, eyes shut tight. She got frightened and called me and David. When David picked Tov up from his crib, his head lolled backwards, limp, but thankfully, he later woke up crying, and we were able to get him to drink some water and milk.

I took him to the pediatrician again, and we found out not only does he have strep throat, he also developed hand foot mouth disease. He had no sores or rashes on his body, but there were two painful-looking white ulcers on his tongue and uvula.

“No wonder he’s not eating,” the pediatrician said, eyes filled with pity. “He’s in a lot of pain.”

I felt my heart break, held the poor boy close. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Tov.”

Even then, I could not break from my obsession with making sure he eats something. I ran to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s and paid too much money buying things that I rarely let Tov eat: popsicles, juice, sweetened yogurt drinks, ice cream, soft white bread– anything that would be cooling and easier to eat. What kid doesn’t like popsicles and ice cream?

Well, Tov.

He licked the popsicle but then let the rest of it melt into a bright purple puddle. He would not even touch the bread. He took a few sips of the juice and then left it sitting on the table. He spilled the yogurt drink into another bowl and smacked his hand into the pink liquid, splashing the sticky substance everywhere.

My friends and the internet gave me advice on how to get a sick, low-appetite toddler to eat or stay hydrated, and I got frustrated because I had already tried it all. None of them works.

How does he not like popsicles? One friend exclaimed.

Because, I thought, he’s torturing me. He’s being a stubborn ass. He won’t even try it because he knows how much I want him to eat, and that makes him even more stubborn not to.

Stubborn…like his mother? one friend joked.

Ha ha. Touche.

But it was really eating at me. I was worried, but my love and worry for Tov stormed out in the form of rage. I wanted to throw a tantrum. I wanted to scream every time Tov said “no” to anything I offered him. I wanted to smash things when Tov left his plate untouched, when he squeezed the juices out of his watermelon without bringing it anywhere close to his mouth, when he spit out whatever I was able to put into his mouth.

And at times, I did throw a mini-tantrum. My voice sharpened. My face turned smoky. “Fine, just starve!” I exclaimed at him. I smacked his plate over the trash can to dump his food out and flung the dirty plate into the sink. I stormed into my room and banged the door shut before I completely erupt in front of Tov. I retreated to my desk, my body shaking with frustration and anger.

“Mama gone,” I heard him tell our nanny.

I sat at my desk, trying to return to work, but heart and mind swimming with mad, pulsating emotions and thoughts: Why won’t he even try to eat? What if his eating is always going to be like this, because I’m pressuring him too much? What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with me? Why am I so angry? Why am I acting like a bitch? What if he senses my displeasure and frustration, and gets scared of me? What if he develops an eating disorder because of me?

I knew Tov is sick. I knew it probably was uncomfortable for him to eat. He did nothing wrong, but for whatever reason, a part of me still blamed him, thinking it was a behavioral issue, for the simple reason that he was not doing what I wanted him to do. I could not bend his will to mine. He was his own person, and no matter how much I wanted to force something that I know is good for him on him, he ultimately makes the decision.

I got a bitter taste of parenthood then. So much of parenthood is accepting the fact that I cannot control my kid, cannot control the situation, and often, cannot even control myself. It’s also acknowledging how selfish I am. Even my love is selfish, and can oppress my kid in self-serving ways. I want Tov to eat for his sake, but also for my sake. I want to feel the relief. I want to be appeased. I want to feel the satisfaction of feeding my kid well.

It bothered me, how selfish I am even as a mother. I’d always thought with motherhood comes this supernatural, self-sacrificing, all-giving, all-encompassing holy love. A mother’s extraordinary love is fabled in the news and social media and novels and poetry and songs. I have a powerful, instinctual love for my child, but it’s also a broken kind of love. It’s a love that can get twisted, can oppress, can consume, because the lover herself is a broken person.

I thought about this a lot this week, praying through it, asking God for help and patience. I also repented.

Last night, before I went to bed, I crept into Tov’s room while he was fast asleep on his stomach, his little fist crooked beneath his chin. I stroked his unruly hair, his smooth cheek, his sweet eyelashes. Even though he was deep in sleep, he subconsciously sensed my presence, and he stirred, reached out, and grabbed my hand. My love might be broken, but he was still made to receive my love, and my love I will give, though Lord help me, purify and sanctify this love I have for him.

I sat next to Tov’s crib, holding my precious son’s hand, and felt tears drip down my neck.

“I’m so sorry, Tov,” I whispered to him. “Omma is so sorry.”

He breathed, in and out, in and out. And I sat there for a while, stroking his little hand, simply loving him for who he is.