No Allowed Going Out For 30 Days

That's what my mother told me after I gave birth to my firstborn.  This after going through 38 weeks of her reminding me that I wasn't allowed to move furniture, use scissors, or eat watermelon.

large and in charge and far away from scissors and watermelon

Traditional Chinese post partum rules mean confinement for 30 days or a month following birth and no washing your hair.  The confinement itself is filled with good intentions to provide the new mother ample time to rest, bond with baby, and ensure you eat all the required authentic foods to help your uterus shrink.  The hair washing is because back in the day, they didn't have blowdryers so I'm guessing people died from washing their hair?  Not sure. .... For a month, I may or may not have zuo yue zi or in English, "sitting the month." The Chinese believe that maternity doesn't end at childbirth and that there is actually a fourth trimester, and this my friends, is what it means to be confined.  The 30 days are heavily believed by traditional Chinese to be a time of recuperation, rest, and ultimately helps you produce more breast milk and revitalizes and rejuvenates your body.  Or so we're told...

For me, this meant I was forced encouraged to consume fish soup, black chicken soup, pork liver, fried pig feet, red bean soup, rice wine soup, peanut soup, sesame soup, and a plethora of soups made with traditional Chinese herbs such as red dates, dried longan, huang se, eucommia ulmoides bark, dong guai, and gou gi.  Sorry, I am not sure what any of these items actually are either, but since I was so accustomed to the taste of such traditional herbs from my childhood, the tastes of all these foods was actually warm and welcoming, like a taste of home that I had grown apart from as I became more American with time.  And maybe a part of me actually believed that the qi or energy I would regain came from some of these foods.  So the apple doesn't fall so far from the tree after all...

 yummy chicken soup with chinese mushrooms

red bean soup.. good for increasing milk supply!

But the truth is... I am American now.  So staying home for an entire month without hopes of walks outside in the California sunshine drove me insane.  I didn't exactly want to go out to a ball game or a theme park, but I didn't mind a walk around the block or even a trip to the local grocery store.  Of course I didn't tell my mom.  I didn't even think she was really that serious about it anyway.  I did have to go to the doctor for my firstborn's weekly check-up before 30 days came anyway.  But I also didn't offer up the information that I did walk around the block or did wash my hair (in my defense, I used a blowdryer and in ancient times, they didn't have blowdryers so OF COURSE they didn't wash their hair for 30 days after giving birth!).

confinement wasn't that bad.. there were moments like this...

I'll never forget how completely irate my mother was when she found out I had gone outside before my 30 days.  And of course, all my aunts congratulated me for making it 30 days confined when we had our traditional one month celebration and coming out party (of confinement that is), meaning my mom had not told them of my complete disobedience and lack of respect for our Chinese culture and tradition.  We celebrated with smiles, hugs, photos, good authentic Chinese banquet food, red eggs and ginger candy.  We had made it.  My child was now past the 30 day mark, a milestone that not many made in ancient times.  (If you're wondering, the eggs are symbols of life changes and life while red is good luck in Chinese, and ginger helps to balance the yin and yang or cold and hot.

After my first child, there was no absolute way I could truly be "confined" for 30 days because he was in the NICU for a month.  The red egg and ginger party celebration also didn't happen since I had moved away from my family.  With my third child, who was also in the NICU for a month, confinement was also looser and there was no one month celebration after.  In a lot of ways, I don't think my mother would ever say it, but she just might be thinking it's because I didn't take my confinement seriously the first time around.

We don't really talk about it.  In fact, we sort of made fun of my cousin's confinement when her mom demanded that she not drink any water because she had read it in a Taiwanese book somewhere.  So maybe we both became a little more American along the way.  Either way, we both will never admit it.  Me that I didn't take it seriously and she that she may not take it as seriously anymore.

As for the food?  I still eat it.  She buys it from a place and mails it to me (yes, businesses are made with this stuff.. it's legit).