December 20, 2005, China Times
Liang Xiaoyu (Taichung City)

When I was pregnant with my first child, my father-in-law's business in Malaysia faced a crisis. My dutiful husband resigned from his job and returned to Malaysia to help out, so I had no choice but to follow and prepare for childbirth there.

In Malaysia, there are no postpartum care centers, but there are "confinement nannies." These nannies come to your home and provide services for a full month. Their job is to prepare three meals a day plus snacks for the new mother, wash her clothes, and take full responsibility for the baby. Essentially, the mother's only tasks are to eat and sleep!

Confinement nannies are in high demand. As soon as you find out you're pregnant, you need to book one immediately, or you might miss out. I was too late in making a reservation, so I had to rely on my mother-in-law for help.

Taking care of everything myself left me physically and mentally exhausted.

At that time, the whole family was busy dealing with debt issues, and often I was left alone at home. My mother-in-law cooked a pot of sour vinegar pork trotters, and whenever I was hungry, I would heat it up and eat it with rice. This dish, made with a slightly sweet local vinegar and old ginger, was quite tasty. I ended up eating it for an entire month.

I had to handle everything else on my own. The weather in Malaysia is hot, and locals usually take cold showers. Although my in-laws had installed a water heater, the water temperature wasn't warm enough. When bathing my child, I had to boil water first. As for my clothes, since they couldn't be washed with the rest of the family's laundry in the machine, I had to wash them by hand. After a week, my hands started to ache terribly.

One memory that stands out is when the whole family went out again, and I finally managed to get my son to sleep. I was so hungry that my whole body was shaking. I hurried to the kitchen to fry some ginger egg fried rice. Just as I finished cooking, a heavy thunderstorm started. My son woke up crying from the thunder, and I had to hold him with one hand while trembling and eating the fried rice with the other. Thinking about how lonely and difficult my postpartum period was in a foreign land, tears streamed down my face like the rain outside.

When I was pregnant with my second child, I insisted on giving birth in Taiwan. My mother was too frail to help me with postpartum care, and after inquiring about the prices of postpartum care centers, I found them shockingly expensive. To save money, I boldly told my husband, "I'll take care of myself during the postpartum period!"

At that time, a close friend of my husband's knew we were looking for a place to stay and offered us his vacant two-story apartment for a symbolic rent. Since the bedroom was on the second floor, after giving birth to my second child, I had to run up and down the stairs constantly. What made it even more exhausting was that, like my first child, my second child often cried at night. I had to carry him and walk around to soothe him, and sometimes he wouldn't fall asleep until dawn.

As a result, my second postpartum period didn't go well either. I didn't eat or sleep properly, and I developed a new issue: whenever I sneezed or exerted a little pressure on my lower abdomen, I would experience urinary leakage.

With the help of a confinement nanny, things were much easier and more pleasant.

Three and a half years ago, I unexpectedly became pregnant again and struggled with whether to keep the baby. My husband, remembering how poorly my previous two postpartum periods had gone, decided we should have the third child and make sure I recovered properly this time.

This time, we decided to return to Malaysia for the birth and booked a confinement nanny well in advance. With her help, things were indeed much easier. The meals she prepared for my postpartum recovery were criticized by my mother-in-law as not being tasty enough, but I enjoyed the pig stomach soup and sesame oil stir-fried kidney.

Additionally, during the postpartum period, I wasn't allowed to enter or exit through the main hall because my in-laws' house had a shrine there. My mother-in-law said that during postpartum, women are considered "unclean" and it would be disrespectful to the gods. So, I had to use the back door. If I absolutely had to go out, I couldn't expose my head to the sun and had to use an umbrella or wear a hat. I wasn't even allowed to hold my husband's hand.Having experienced three postpartum confinement periods, I truly understand why some say "women are just 500 years short in cultivation." Besides enduring unbearable labor pains, one also has to tolerate the inconveniences of postpartum confinement. I can only say: women really go through so much hardship!