in between pumping

My first Monday I pumped twice and each time took over a half an hour.  I got five ounces in total.  Tuesday I brought pictures and pumped 10 ounces.  Wednesday 12 ounces, and from then on it varied between 8-12 ounces in total.

I would arrive around 9 am, pump around 11 am, eat lunch around 12, pump again around 2 pm, and catch the bus at 3:30 pm.  In between pumping I drank tea and washed my equipment.  It was hard to focus or care about anything else.

I was leaving in the middle of meetings to pump milk, as my timing was out of sync but I appreciated being able to escape.  I was constantly watching the clock.  Turkish law also provides a two hour leave - so I could come to work 2 hours late, leave for lunch, or leave early each day for the baby's first year.  Wow!

But for now, I was just trying to manage leaving Teoman at home, pumping at work, and working.  I never did get a desk, and I never did do any work.  I was starting all over in the new building - not knowing where the copy machine was, the kitchen, the bathrooms.  Not knowing the principals.  Not knowing what my department head expected.  I was teaching fifth and sixth grade, and the rules were changing .I was starting over here.

I only work with one other Native now, from Scotland.  In the first meeting I sat in, she offended everybody in the room with a smile - criticizing the death of creativity in our English program.  Our English Coordinator (also a Native) supported her, but she realized immediately no one else did.  She told me later,
"I'm too blunt."
"Maybe you just need to be more tactful," I said.
"But doesn't it depress you that our school magazine published an opinion article by an eighth grader - who writing about why she likes Starbucks coffee, used transition words like furthermore?"

Um...not really.  I'm more disturbed by her boring topic.

"She learned transition words, and tried to apply them.  It's all part of the learning process," I said.
"But she applied it wrong!  This is a good student, that we gave a formula and this is the culmination of our teaching!  Where's the creativity?  James agrees with me!"

Um...who's James?

"I guess I looked at it as she made a great effort considering English is her second language."
"But she did it wrong!  And it was approved by our department!"

This is where the tact might have gone a long way.  The people that put all the hard work into the magazine - teaching, correcting, providing feedback - it was being attacked.  I didn't know if she was right or not, but I surely didn't feel her passion.  I kind of wished I shared her passion and wondered if I was one of those bad teachers killing the creative process as well.

But I couldn't think too deeply about the problem - she was making me tired, and I had to pump some more milk.

first week back

We were all stressed.  Tolga was leaving in the morning for Kayseri.  It was my first week back and first week leaving Teoman.  It was my mother-in-law's first week with her grandson, alone.

I kept telling myself: It's only two weeks.  It's a good trial run.  It's only two weeks.  Just two weeks.  Two weeks two weeks two weeks.

The night before I tried to explain to Tolga directions for his mom about what to do for Teoman - but the translation didn't go very well.

I tried to explain about the life-span of breast milk: you can only warm it once, it can be out for 6 hours maximum, it shouldn't be put back in the fridge.  Try to warm up 4 oz at most and you can use the leftover for the next feeding if you don't put it back in the fridge.  Thaw the frozen milk in the fridge, not on the counter - unless you're going to use it . . . We had been working on it all week - but the night before my work started I made the directions as simple as possible.  I pumped what I guessed would be a days worth of milk and showed her the frozen milk as back up.  I only asked that she write down the time and amount of milk that he drank.  We'd deal with the rest as it came up.

I mean, she raised three boys . . . She's not going to do anything absolutely crazy . . . So she'll hold him too much, not be able to nap him, struggle with the milk, put the diaper on wrong, leave a trail of wipes/dirty diapers/dirty clothes in the changing room - but she'll learn, right . . . She's his grandma, and loves him as much as anybody in this family, so what was there to worry about?

She offered to write down his naps, and to call me during the day - but I said no to both.  I knew it was going to be harder than she thought, and when she called me - the only thing I'll assume she is saying is "Come home now!" - because I've found that when it comes to Teoman, I don't understand any of her Turkish.  She uses more difficult Turkish and speaks in an indirect way - so I've temporarily given up on communicating with her about Teoman because it makes me crazy.

So the first day, around noontime, Tolga called her to see how things were going.  Then he called me to say she didn't answer because the home phone wasn't working but he was sure everything was fine.

I was on my way to a taxi.

Tolga called his friend at work, and she stopped by the house then called me before I had even left - to say everything was fine.  She also fixed the phone problem.  When I got home, my MIL showed me he had drank 4 grams.  She kept calling it 4 grams because she doesn't know the word ounce even when we say it to her or look at it on the bottle.  There's milliliters there too, which she does know, but she kept preferring to count by "grams".

He had eaten okay, but not slept at all.  We both went to bed as soon as I got home.

The second day, Teoman didn't eat all day long.  My MIL called Tolga, but Tolga didn't call me because of my rule - only if I need to come home - to which I was really upset when I got home and found out he hadn't eaten.  (No one could win with me this week).  Tolga hadn't called me because Teoman hadn't cried.  When he fussed, my MIL offered (or more likely shoved) the bottle into his mouth and he gagged on it.  When I came home, I tested the milk and found it cold.  I warmed it some and then offered the bottle to him and he took it, but intermittently gagged.

I left out three bottle options - two different brands, two different nipple sizes.

I didn't want her to boil water to heat up the milk because it kills the nutrients.

She complained that it takes too long.  She had been warming the big bottle in a tiny bowl so I pulled out a big bowl for her to put it in trying to explain that it would work 

She used the big bowl as storage for the bottles all week long and I kept finding a pot of boiled water still hot on the stove when I got home. 

Goodbye nutrients.  

The third day, he eventually took the bottle and got a good nap in.  But we still both needed one when I got home.  

If I were to recap the week as to what I accomplished at work, it would solely be in terms of how many ounces of milk I pumped each day and how long it took.  

only two weeks - only two weeks - only two weeks

back to work

I went back to work with only 2 weeks left at school.  The first person I saw asked me,  "Why are you here?"

I don't know.

I didn't want to be there, but there I was and the only thing on my mind was where, when and how many times I would pump milk.

I had heard I'd been switched to the middle school, and since new teachers had taken my old desk - I wasn't sure where to go.  So I sat in the department head's office and drank tea and showed pictures of Teoman.

I sat down and was asked questions about the baby.  I must have been overwhelmed, or maybe its from being away from English speakers so long, or maybe being around the baby all the time - whatever it was, I was having a hard time holding a conversation.  I was out of social practice and I kept forgetting what I was talking about.

I was quickly excused for my brainlessness ("You're mind is on your little one now!"), and  I was told over and over how thin I looked.

Now that was a flat out lie.  Granted - 9 months pregnant and you begin holding water weight even in  your cheeks, but I was far from normal.  But, I appreciated the lies and chose to believe them.  Maybe it's my shirt that's hiding the pouch - maybe its not that noticeable and I was just being over critical of my body.  Maybe I'm actually thin - woo woo!


Eventually, I had another teacher show me where the middle school office was because I didn't know where to go.  I had already been given a hard time in the primary school office for moving to the middle school and I was almost regretting the decision.  My solace was that there would be at least four or five people that had made the switch with me.  And, I was kind of tired of all the Native teacher drama in the primary school, so in the other building there would be only one Scottish Native teacher.

But it wasn't a good start.  They had no desk for me, no locker, no place to sit.  And the Scottish teacher turned out to be a real downer.

Most my time was spent in the counseling office - the only room I could lock the door and work on double pumping my milk.

hospital malls

I have never been to the hospital or doctor or clinic so much in my life.  Granted, I don't go to the doctor normally, going in itself is a new experience for me.  Just before my last insurance ran out in 2008 I crammed in regular check ups from all types of doctors as a last hoo-rah - so that totaled about eight or nine visits, and two surgeries (I'm counting a mole removal as "surgery") - and that really was the first time I took initiative to even see a doctor.  

This past year I have been to the OBGYN for over 20 visits, the Pediatrist 7 times, the orthopedist 3 times, and the dentist 3 times.  I have had so many blood tests and ultrasounds.  Tolga has been going monthly as well for prescription refills and checkup for his hair infections/cysts.

It's kind of like going to a medical mall.  We are at the hospital at least once a month, and we try to schedule all our appointments in order to save some trips.  That's the convenience of going to the hospital for a regular check-up - all your doctors in one place, most of the labs are right there.  

Even a dentist and eye doctor is there - but my experience with the dentist was he looked at my teeth - said they looked fine and I could go.  

"Go where?"

"You're finished."

"But you didn't do anything."

"Your teeth look fine."

"I figured they were fine, but aren't you going to at least clean them?  Or X-ray for cavities?"

"No.  Plus your breastfeeding so we shouldn't X-ray."

"Tell that to the orthopedist."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind."

I highly doubted that X-Rays were a contraindication to breastfeeding, but I didn't fight him on it because if he believed that, than I didn't want him working on my teeth anyhow.

All three of us have government insurance.  Tolga and I also have private insurance.  His pays everything, mine pays 70% - minus pregnancy related visits.  (How's that for discrimination against women?)  We pay cash for Teoman's private doctor.  The government health office in my neighborhood calls me regularly to be sure I've completed Teoman's checkups - which is and interesting conversation that I try to hold in Turkish, reporting  his weight, height, length and shots received.  

Medical services at a private hospital are about 1/4 of the cost of what they would be in America.  My labor and delivery cost 4300 turkish lire (about $2400), and that was expensive compared to other private hospitals.  

I had to get an MRI as well for my shoulder.  In America it cost about $1400.  I know because I had one on my knee.  They first accepted my insurance, and then later rejected it because it was a New York insurance rather than New Jersey.  Here it cost about 500 TL (about $280).

I went to the hospital with Tolga for the MRI.  I didn't think it was really necessary as I was no longer in pain, but decided since I'd dislocated my shoulder so many times, it might be good to have it looked at.  

I had forgotten how scary those machines were.  All the same emotions came back to me when I was preparing to go into the machine as they had when I had my knee done.  The same emotions, that is, wild images of some hidden piece of metal in my body being superheated and sucked through my skin.  I can't help it. I see it on TV, an episode of House or something, and all I can think of is, did a doctor put metal in my body?  Maybe they did and I didn't know?  Can I get sucked across the room by the clasp on my bra strap?  They said no, but I'm not so sure.  Come to think of it, this isn't really necessary at all - I've changed my mind, I don't need an MRI.

And then there's the noise.  Because it was my shoulder this time, the machine was right over my head.  If I panicked I wouldn't have been able to get out because of the contraption on me - they had all sorts of fittings for different limbs and joints.  They played music over large earphones, but the jack-hammering of the machine drowned everything out.  Even my panic.  I couldn't even think.

The end result was without incident.  We saw an orthopedist who said they can fix my shoulder with surgery.  I didn't believe my shoulder could be fixed and said as much.  I don't know one person who has only needed one surgery because that's how unsuccessful shoulder surgeries tend to be.  But technology is always improving, and he says it can be done now - less invasive, faster recovery, higher success rates.  My injury isn't urgent, so when I'm done breastfeeding - we could have it done.  

But the doctor spent most of the time talking about all the places he's been over the world, the famous people he's worked with, and apparently his kids go to school where I teach.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

What I really wanted was the doctor to write me a standing prescription titled, "How to put this shoulder back in" so I could give it to any doctor and not have to suffer through all of their attempts.  

The doctor was unsympathetic, saying, "It's the risk you'll have to take until the surgery.  But here's my card - I always knock my patients out."

Great.

the weight of unemployment

My brother-in-law has always been asocial.  Partly because he stutters.  My MIL thinks he stutters because when he was three years old he was scared so badly by a dog that it permanently disrupted his speech.  She brings it up occasionally.

My BIL asocial tendencies have gotten worse this past year as he has been jobless.  Unemployment is perpetually high in Turkey, and those that have jobs, are perpetually underpaid, or simply not paid.  It is a frustrating and hard life.  For my BIL, it has made it hard for him to even socialize with family because of the embarrassment of not having work.

My husband has endless faith in his brothers.  He is proud of them and is never too proud to defer to their expertise in different areas.  Sometimes, he'll even ask questions he already knows the answer too just to build their confidence.  We both identified with my BIL's frustration and low morale at being unemployed.

Though, Tolga was more gracious than I.  My BIL's asocial tendencies made conversation with him exhausting as his quirks seemed aggravated.  Within a five minute space of time, he may discuss the military, a job interview, mention that life is hard, Ankara is better, Kusadasi's sea is great, going to the mall on the weekend, life is hard, a project he was working on, and swimming in Kusadasi.  It was hard for me to even have a conversation with Tolga because he was so quick to interrupt with off-topic comments.  When I would complain to Tolga about this, Tolga would say,
"Part of it is because he doesn't have a job.  It's hard to focus on anything when you don't have work."

Tolga can be a lot more sympathetic than me, but I knew he was right when he said this.  We both experienced it.

My BIL came back to Ankara in the middle of May for more job interviews.  He's been out of work for a year, even more if you count the jobs that haven't been paying him.  Since coming to Ankara, he has been getting lots of interviews, but no offers worth taking.  I couldn't even keep up with his job interviews because he would swing so quickly from being excited, to nervous, to depressed.

The last week in May, while I was in Kusadasi, he returned to Ankara for another interview.  (And complained that he couldn't swim in the sea, life is hard, a project, Ankara is better for work, etc.)

But, in the end, he got the job.  He has a salary.  He is working.

home not alone

Having a 15-day extension on medical leave, on top of my maternity leave was a perk to getting injured.  Teoman had to have is four-month checkup and shots, and I wanted to be home after this in case he had a reaction.

 But it was also letting some hysterical emotions live a little longer than they should.  I was dreading going back to work, and the more I thought of leaving Teoman at home with my mother-in-law . . . the more clingy and jealous I was becoming.

My MIL is a great person, but I have this growing discontent with her.  Our apartment is comfortable, but small.  There's not a whole lot for my MIL to do except watch TV or watch Teoman.  Or both.

We don't have a yard.  She won't go out on her own.  She's afraid to walk because of her leg.  So, she's at home with me, watching her favorite gossip channels during the day and dramatic shows in the evening.

I go for walks and half-heartedly invite her on my errands.  She offers to watch Teoman, and my stomach clutches and most times I took Teoman with me justifying it in my thoughts with we only have two more weeks together.  We walked to the mall, the post office, the bank, the market.  We met Tolga at his work in the evenings.

I think I am just getting tired of living with everybody.  Everybody only consists really of two extra people.  My MIL and BIL, and since my BIL got a job - its just me and my MIL at home.  Weekends, if Tolga is home, we may go out - but even then we usually take someone with - I mean, I feel like we have too because what else is there for her to do all week?

I have a friend who lived with her MIL and she went for full day walks to get out of the house, packing food and walking from park to park around the city.  Some days, I can see why she did that . . . 

workers comp

The SGK offices are Turkey's equivalent to social security.  When you are sick and cannot not come into work, Turkish labor laws require a doctor's note.  Even for one day.  If I were to not get a doctor's note, the day's wages would be deducted from my salary.  If you are sick for more than five days, the SGK offices pay your wages in full, a form of worker's compensation.

Once my maternity leave finished, Tolga had to bring my many papers to the SGK offices to show where I worked, my wages, and various reports from the hospital showing I worked up until the 37th week, when I had the baby, and so forth.  The papers were stamped by officials, and the salary compensation was approved.

Two weeks after the approval, I collected my money with my ID card from the post office, carried it straight to the bank and deposited in my school's bank account.  I'm not sure why we had to go to so much trouble, but my work still paid my salary while I was on maternity leave - so essentially, I had to pay them back with one exception:  I got to keep 89 turkish lire referred to as süt parasi, or "milk money".

I have no idea what 89 TL milk money is supposed to buy me . . .

At the same time, I had to file another claim for my shoulder injury.  I had gone to a private hospital emergency room, but claims from the SGK offices must be approved by SGK hospitals - that is, government hospitals.  Tolga had to bring the report to a government hospital for approval and signatures before filing the second claim.

Government hospitals are required for government claims to avoid corruption.  This is because as frequently as we are required to go to the hospital here and get reports, it is easy to get a report from your private hospital excusing you from work.  In my case, alls I had to do was ask.  So, upon returning to Ankara and getting an MRI, we asked my doctor for an extension on my medical leave, and he added fifteen more days.

separation anxiety

My MIL and I came back to Ankara on a Wednesday.  We took the day bus and it was terrible.  Teoman has passed the stage where he sleeps through everything, and he is awake longer periods during the daytime, so things started off great, but deteriorated when he got tired.  I was also trying to breastfeed him on the bus . . . which was awkward and still difficult with my injured shoulder.  He has grunting out of frustration and kicking.  In all, he probably only actually cried about 45 minutes, but it felt like all day.

To make matters worse, my MIL kept offering to take him.  She meant well, but who takes a crying baby from  his mother?  Did she think I was a bad mother?  Did she think she should be the one to comfort and soothe my son???

Actually, this is far from my MIL's intentions - rationally I knew this, rationally, I really did need her help.  However, my emotions have been out-of-control of late and it all has to do with having to go back to work.  Dislocating my shoulder gave me an extension on my maternity leave.  I thought it would help, but instead, I could only focus on how it separated me from Teoman.  I realized I was going slightly crazy, so I had forced myself out of the house - leaving Teoman with my mother-in-law.  I would be okay for about an hour, but then I'd start to feel on edge, borderline panic attack.  I'd rush home and find that my MIL had done EVERYTHING wrong.  Diapers were on the floor, outfits had been changed, he had been fed even though it wasn't time, and to top it all off, she was obnoxiously hovering over him swatting flies saying, "Bitanim benin!  Olum?  Nerede sin?"  (My bright, my son, where are you?)

He's MINE!

I don't know where this crazy came from, but I could see it.  And, the more I tried to temper it with reason and practice, the worse I seemed to get.

We went to the doctor on Friday for my shoulder check-up and he wrote a 15-day extension on my medical leave.

At this point I think we could call it a mental leave.