Behold our family of hand turkeys:

Yesterday, once Wesley went down for his morning nap, he slept for THREE HOURS. This is… unusual. Lately he’s been napping for shorter lengths, 45 minutes or an hour, so I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. I ended up writing a bunch of stuff in his baby book and putting a million photos into a photo album, as well as clean up the sewing mess from Halloween and taking a shower.

He was hot when he woke up, but he often is. I didn’t think too much of it until I talked to Daniel at the end of his shift and he said Wesley probably had a fever since he was pretty sure he had one – he just felt “off” all day and felt freezing cold but was burning up. I took Wesley’s temperature and, sure enough, 101.4. Poor little bub.

Daniel came home from work and looked DREADFUL. He kept falling asleep on the couch (at 7pm!) so I sent him to bed, put Wesley to sleep, got some stuff ready for work and went to bed myself.

Today, Daniel is still dreadful and is having someone cover his shift. We kept Wesley home from daycare to recover and not infect others, but OMG. Remind me never to do this again. Solo parenting a sick baby while working from home while your compatriot is napping it off in the other room is NO FUN AT ALL. DO NOT RECOMMEND.

It’s a good thing they are both cute.

Me: “Awh dang. Well… hm. I guess I can… partition my milk in peace?”

Daniel: “Hahaha!”

Me: “Thrilling, right? I didn’t get as much today as I usually do.”

Daniel: “Awh. We can have oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow.”

Regardless whether it helps or not, I just love that he knew to offer.

Dr’s appointment yesterday didn’t offer a lot of great news – my blood pressure is elevated (140/90, up from 140/76 two weeks ago) so they want me to come back in Monday for another blood pressure check just to make sure it’s not continuing to go up.

I don’t seem to be spilling any protein in my urine or having any hand/face swelling or dizziness, so I don’t think I have preeclampsia, but they want to err on the safe side. Right now, I’m hoping for two things:

1. Blood pressure either stays the same or goes down. I really, really don’t want it to go up. This also contributes quite a bit (I think, anyway) to the foot swelling so any improvement here would be welcome.
2. I continue to not have protein in my urine. The midwife mentioned something about maybe doing a 24-hour sample collect, where you have to keep all your urine for 24 hours in a jug and then bring it in so they can test it. DO NOT WANT.

I keep joking with Daniel that he’s going to start feeding me only salads and gruel to try to keep my BP down. Somehow I get the impression that he is considering it.

They also wheeled in a terrifically ancient-looking ultrasound machine to verify Baby’s position, because at this point, they really should be head-down to prepare for labor. Just to be difficult, Baby was transverse. Argh.

Daniel gave him a pep talk to try to get him to turn, and I’ve been hanging out in Cat Cow to try to give him a bit more room. I have basically no torso so I don’t blame him for stretching out sideways across my tummy, but HEY. BABY. There is this thing called “birth” we have to go through, and best to not make it more difficult than necessary for the both of us. Head: down. Now.

Breastfeeding Class

This went well. I was surprised to discover that I knew several of the points the instructor made just from reading so many parenting blogs over the years. Internet win! We got a book to refer to and lots of handouts, and we practiced some nursing positions with plastic baby dolls.

I made the class giggle during introductions because we were supposed to mention a concern or fear we had regarding breastfeeding and I said I was afraid my boobs would suffocate my baby. And then I turned bright pink, because HELLO, the only person in this room I know is my husband and now I have basically just said hi! My name is Meggan and I have ridiculously large boobs, nice to meet you.

Sleep

I actually haven’t been doing too poorly in the sleep department, but apparently poor Daniel is being woken up by my outrageously loud breathing and/or snoring. Whoops. My nose gets kind of snuffly in the evenings so by the time I go to bed I can’t breathe through my nose very well and I guess I make a lot of noise? Occasionally I’ll wake up to him elbowing me but that’s about all I remember.

Lucky

I just wanted to mention how much I lucked out with Daniel as my husband. He will volunteer to squish my feet if they are painful, he does all our laundry and dishes, handles a lot of the grocery shopping, makes me dinner, and is great about cleaning the apartment.

He is excited about preparing for Baby and wasn’t a bum about going to classes or participating once we were there. This past weekend he told me he’s looking forward to carrying Baby around in a sling, and if I hadn’t already been sitting I would have keeled over from the cuteness.

OMG SO ADORABLE.

He turns 25 on Sunday and I am so pleased that I’ve gotten to share the last 9-ish years with him. Love you, Danbob!