Mother of the Month - Payton
1. Tell me a little bit about yourself and Kwok, how you met. How you decided to have kids, what are your hobbies, what you do in your free time, etc.
My husband and I met through work.. the cliche boss dating employee relationship, haha. But that was the only cliche about our relationship. When we first met I can only describe my feelings towards him as curiosity. He was so mysterious, a man of very, very few words. It is very much in my personality to pry at the quietest person in the room. At first he didn’t really want much to do with me and I honestly felt like he thought I was annoying. I eventually got him to open up about himself and the things he did for fun, if he was single or married. Eventually I got his attention and the rest is history.
I will say on our very first date he put it all out there. Relationship expectations, life and family goals and he did explain that he felt as if he doesn’t have any time to waste to start his family. Me being a young woman still in college wanted absolutely nothing to do with kids. After three short months I eventually had to end our courtship, because I truly cared for him and I didn’t want to delay him fining his wife and family. Little did I know..
For two months I was miserable. Dodging his calls and at home on furlough during April and May 2020. When I finally came back to work in the beginning on June, we talked. And the conversation was more of me trying to convince myself he wasn’t what I wanted. It ended in tears and drunken “I love you’s” on the street next to the parking lot of the restaurant we had went into to talk. About a month and a half later I had a key to his place and was staying over maybe 3 or 4 nights a week. I finally worked up the courage to tell my mom I was moving in with him and after about a year of enjoying life, traveling, and falling deeper into love I decided I wanted to try to conceive. He was so happy, he was waiting so patiently and even told me if kids weren’t in our future he would love me the same regardless if we had children or not.
During our time trying to conceive we were doing our research on parenting techniques, child development, and just laying out all of our expectations for each other as parents. We were in agreement for mostly everything, (I truly feel like we were made to parent our daughter together). Once I became pregnant with our daughter in April 2021 we were on a roller coaster of emotions. A lot of ups with a few downs and definitely a big reality check as my belly swelled. Once she was here it was pure bliss. The circumstances of my pregnancy caused me to deliver 9 weeks early so she was hospitalized for 4 weeks and 2 days.
I remember when we finally brought her home and set her down to sleep we both just hugged each other and cried. The fight was finally over and we did it. I don’t know if that was my favorite moment with him or the moment we heard our daughter cry for the first time. Such a potent time in our lives, and still is! Who would’ve know this mysterious man at work would be crying in my arms because our daughter laughed at him for the first time and absolutely just melted him.
2. Parenting wisdoms... As you are navigating this journey, what advice have you found useful or have you gleaned as you are becoming parents?
As I am navigating my life as a new parent my advice is to make sure you are having kids with someone you know will support your parenting decisions. There are very few things in this world that you can control, how to treat your children and how you choose to take care of their needs is one of those things. Having a partner that backs you up in these uncertain and sometimes scary days of early parenting, makes all the difference. I have people, in-laws, friends, and even strangers who want to question my parenting choices, something as simple as breast feeding for example. I don’t even need to think of a response because my husband has it covered. As simple as “She breast feeds our baby because the baby is hungry and that’s how she eats.” (as if that wasn’t obvious enough)
3. Please feel free to include anything else you like that is interesting about you or your parenting philosophy. AKA books you read, or like whatever.
One of the biggest ones bings for me as a mother was that my baby wouldn’t have to “cry it out” or worry that their needs weren’t going to be met. I read a lot about how psychological damaging that is for babies not to mention totally confusing. “Why does my mom/dad only meet my needs sometimes?” This creates an insecure attachment, the baby then worries constantly about their parent leaving their side, worried their needs won’t be met. Luckily my husband agreed as many people do not agree with attachment parenting in Western culture.
Another piece of advice: TAKE ALL THE PICTURES! They are only this little once, which everyone says but you don’t realize it until you’re the one experiencing it! I just had her last week and now she’s 7 months old!
4. If you want, please tell us why you decided to document this special time in your life and have professional family or maternity photographs, and if you want to, why you trusted Jen to take these special photos.
I have always wanted family portraits done from the moment we were able to bring her home from the NICU. Unfortunately with her being premature she was also immune compromised.. in the middle of a pandemic, so her father and I just weren’t comfortable having someone come do her portraits or comfortable taking her somewhere to get them done. Eventually when she was around five months old I decided it was time to look into some photographers. I loved Jennifer Loomis photography on instagram! She kept popping up on my discover page and I just absolutely fell in love with how timeless her B&W photos were.