Survived Thanksgiving!

Two dinners in one day is just too much, especially when you have a 2 year old and you are trying to keep your blood pressure under control.  But, I kept it down enough to be home in my own bed tonight.

My husband’s parents are divorced, so Thanksgiving consists of dinner at his Grandmother’s on his Dad’s side for lunch, home for nap and make the side dish for the next party, then, dinner at his Grandmother’s on his Mom’s side for supper.  It’s a very long day.  Plus, the political conversations are just terrible!

This year was even worse because I have GD and couldn’t eat hardly anything.  I couldn’t even drown my discomfort in wine or pie.  But, I have a beautiful daughter, a very loving husband, and a baby boy that keeps kicking my insides to remind me how wonderful life is and that it is ok to be uncomfortable for one day.

I am thankful for many things.  I am most thankful for my husband, who puts up with a lot of crap every day at work so that I can stay at home and spend my time with my beautiful daughter and soon handsome son.  We have a roof over our heads, food in the kitchen, and we don’t have to really want for anything.  We have everything we need.  I am the luckiest girl in the land, even without wine and pie.

How to keep your blood pressure down?!

Well, it has been a while since I posted, but things have been super busy around here.  Luckily, things are still good, and my daughter is happy as ever and my son is growing well inside, still.

But, my blood pressure is slowly on the rise.  It is responding very much the same as it did when I was pregnant with my daughter.  It had been low (10x/6x range) for the entire first two trimesters.  But, the second I hit the 3rd trimester it started to rise.  Now it is consistently moving up. It is still good (12x/7x), but definitely higher than it has been, which is exactly what happened last time.  With Jade, at about 30 weeks, I got my first “high” reading.  By 32 weeks I was on bed rest.  I’m 29 weeks now, and I’m getting a little nervous.

What makes things worse is the holidays are coming up.  This means lot of family parties and running around, which means lots of stress.  If only my husband’s family could get together and do one party.  But, on Thanksgiving, we’ll be spending the morning at his Dad’s family’s party, rushing home to get Jade a nap and to make a side dish, and then heading out to his Mom’s family’s party.  I’m trying to come up with an idea of something I can make in advance so that maybe I can nap between parties, but I’m drawing a blank as to something that would be good and can be made completely in advance.

Christmas isn’t so bad because the parties are on different days, at least.  But, there is currently a lot of tension between my little family and the rest of the family. Some others in the family have some beliefs about us that just aren’t true, and it has caused some hard feelings and tension.  Of course, just thinking about it makes me sad and stressed.  I wish everyone would just get along and stop projecting their insecurities onto others, but that just isn’t the way it is, and so everyone suffers.

So, meditation, playing with Jade, and resting are on the agenda for the next 9 weeks!  Hopefully, I will make it through that long.