Thanksgiving and the Very Bad Cold

Happy Thanksgiving! Howie and I spent the holiday with my sister, brother-in-law, and 7-month old niece. Dinner was full of many carbs I craved but couldn't eat. I have been waiting for Thanksgiving dinner since my first trimester. The turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie!!! I was only able to eat 3 servings of turkey, one bite of mashed potatoes, one bite of stuffing, 3 bites of green bean casserole, and one bite of cranberry sauce. My sister didn't have pumpkin pie because she doesn't like it, but she did have pumpkin cheese cake, which I still couldn't eat. She also had chocolate cream pie and apple pie, those aren't allowed on my diet either. After watching people eat their yummy desserts while I drank two sips of black tea that seemed to have pregnancy friendly ingredients I decided that I was going to have a tiny sliver of chocolate cream pie. Two hours later my blood sugar was fine. That doesn't mean that I'm going to run around eating sweets like it doesn't matter, it's just for one meal. Ok, and maybe if my blood sugar is low on Chanukkah and Christmas I'll have one tiny piece of dessert again.

On Friday morning I woke up to Aislinn kicking me like crazy and wasn't able to fall back to sleep. That was fine, I cuddled up with Howie and started to think about things that needed to be done around the house. The night before when we were at my sister's house watching our niece crawl around their living room floor I think Howie and I both realized that Aislinn is going to need room to have tummy time and eventually crawl and walk around. Things were pretty tight in our living room/dining room area the way it was set up. I started to rearrange the living room furniture in my head while Howie slept. When he woke up I thought I had it all worked out. We were going to have to move the bar into the dining room area, the couch had to go against the wall and we needed to move the whole entertainment center to another wall. Luckily Howie was up for moving furniture after he woke up. We moved the bar first. When we stood back and looked at the bar next to the sideboard I decided that the china cabinet had to be moved to the other side of the sideboard in order for things to be even. After Howie moved the china cabinet, which was very scary because it's so old and almost completely made of glass and contains lots of glass, I kind of thought that maybe that wall looked too crowed. Howie said that he thinks it looks good mostly because if he was going to have to move it back again he was going to lose his mind. I decided to ignore that wall until we finished moving the rest of the furniture. The next thing he moved was the couch, then the entertainment center, and then finally our chair, side table and small chest of drawers. I wasn't so sure about the new layout at first. I sat on the couch kind of unhappy with things but now it's starting to grow on me. Howie seems to really like it. We now have room for the playard, diaper champ, swing, playmat, and ExerSaucer. Yes, all of that and eventually a crawling baby. We also managed to reorganize my desk, the chest of drawers, and clear out the junk that we've been keeping in the baskets in our coffee table. Instead of random computer junk and CDs that I no longer listen to, the baskets now contain things like extra receiving blankets, burp cloths, bibs, onesies, small books, and some toys. That way we have a few things we'll need downstairs so that we don't always have to run up to the nursery to get something.

While we were moving things around and kicking up dust I thought I was having an allergy attack. When it hadn't disappeared by Saturday I realized that I actually had a cold. Our plan for Saturday was to head down to New Jersey because Howie's parents were serving Thanksgiving dinner, part 2. I was looking forward to seeing Howie's friends that I haven't seen since June. His parents wanted us to stay overnight so that we could all go to Pottery Barn Kids today to buy the baby furniture we had hoped to buy a month ago. When we got to Howie's parent's house I felt pretty awful but I tried to socialize with the guests while also keeping a safe distance. After everyone had arrived Howie's brother brought in the gift that he had bought for us. It was our travel system!!! We were so excited to get that because without it we can't bring the baby home from the hospital. We love it! After that I sat down at the kitchen table to have some pregnancy friendly tea. I guess I was looking especially shitty because Howie and his parents decided that I needed to lay down until dinner was served. When I came out for dinner I felt like I had a huge brain cloud. I was so out of it and not at all myself. Eating and drinking a bunch of water did make me feel a little bit better though. Once people finished eating and started chatting Howie encouraged me to go lay down again, which I did. He woke me up for dessert. I cheated again by having one small oatmeal raisin cookie with some water. It was tasted REALLY good, and my blood sugar was also good when I tested it two hours later. Howie was worried about me so he told his parents that we were going to head back home after their guests left. That way we'd be close to my doctor and our hospital if my cold got worse.

It was good to be home in my own environment. The first thing I did when we got home was take a really hot shower. That cleared my head a bit so that I'd be able to breathe when I went to sleep. Howie had already filled the humidifier and put it next to the bed for me. When I got into bed he lotioned and rubbed my feet. Before I completely passed out he brought me some toast and juice. Yes, juice! I know that my endocrinologist said NO JUICE but screw her. I have a cold and drinking milk and water doesn't help. Ok, water is good, but it doesn't soothe a sore throat. Milk only makes me more congested. So, yes, I'm drinking LIGHT orange juice. Howie had to sleep on the couch so that he wouldn't catch my cold. I didn't sleep well at all. I slept for maybe 15 minutes at a time until about 5:00 am and then I was out cold. Howie woke me up and served me breakfast in bed. Eggs, toast, and orange juice. About five minutes later I was coughing quite hard which at first made me lose control of my bladder and totally pee myself so I ran to the toilet to take care of that situation. After I flushed the toilet I started to cough again, but this time I coughed so hard that I was sure I was going to throw up. I called for Howie and told him to quickly distract me with a story, maybe then I wouldn't lose my breakfast. He started to tell me the story about how he was attacked by a duck somewhere and that someday he'd like to take Aislinn to this place with the angry ducks. When he asked me if I'd like to bring her there to I threw up my entire breakfast in the sink and then cried. Other than that I think I'm starting to feel a little bit better. Howie has insisted that I stay in bed all day. He says he wants me to rest up and get better, but I know that I've been quarantined so that he doesn't get sick before his interview tomorrow. So far it seems to be working out for us both, but I'm finding it hard to stay in bed. I've started nesting and all I can think about are things that need to be done around the house. Oh well, at least it's just for one day. I shouldn't complain because I know there are women out there on bedrest and it's much worse for them.