As you can tell by now, there's no posting for yesterday - but there's a reason for that. After completing our last update on Friday afternoon I took a short nap since I really wasn't feeling much better. By the time I woke up, the fatigue and body aches were much worse, the sore throat had progressed to major throat pain, my lymph nodes were tender, and my temperature had spiked up to 102.4 degrees (F). I grabbed Sean's pen-sized flashlight and looked at my throat in the mirror. Sure enough, there were white patches and blisters on the back of my throat and tonsils (sorry if that's TMI). Since there was no way for me to get a rapid antigen test or throat culture done ASAP, I took it upon myself to start an antibiotic (azithromycin) because I wasn't taking any chances. The weird thing is that I don't recall ever having strep throat before, but I guess anything is possible. I spent the next 24 hours alternating between acetaminophen and ibuprofen to keep the fever from climbing and napping on and off. Sean and James, however, are both fine without any symptoms. So, Sean went by himself for both visits with Michael yesterday.
Fortunately, my fever started to break late yesterday afternoon, and by the time my second dose of antibiotic was due last night I was feeling so much better. When I awoke this morning, I actually almost felt back to my old self. After Sean's morning visit with Michael yesterday, our interpreter, Juliya, took him to the "аптека" (pronounced ap-TYE-ka), which is the apothecary (pharmacy). There, Sean picked up some throat lozenges and sore throat spray for me. Actually, I recognized the throat lozenges from when Sean was sick the last time we came to Kazakhstan for James. The fever is still pretty much gone, and, theoretically, if I had strep throat I should no longer be contagious since it's been over 24 hours since starting the antibiotic. I only feel a little tired, and my throat still hurts when I swallow, but that should hopefully go away soon. With today being Sunday, there is only one Baby House visit today, and I was able to finally make a visit.
Michael continues to do well. He is really crawling around now. On the first day when we put him down to crawl he didn't venture too far. Now, if you put him down he goes everywhere, and he's attracted to the toys that are yellow (James was like that, too) so those are what he aims for. We also play the sit-up game with him, like we did with James. I think his strength is getting better. The first day we met him he was sitting up some, but would still mostly use the tripod position. Now it appears he is supporting his own weight when he sits up and is playing with a toy. His leg strength seems to have improved, too. He has pulled himself to his knees before, but a couple of times now he has used us as anchors to pull himself to standing, although, he is pretty wobbly when he does get to the standing position and ends up dropping back into a sitting position if we don't hold him up.
When we met with his doctor the other day she told us we could start bringing Michael additional baby food to eat, so yesterday Sean brought some carrots for the afternoon visit. After the initial "what are you giving me to eat"-face he gave Sean, he actually seemed to like it. I got the same reaction this morning when I gave him some bananas after his porridge. We've also been giving him some of the banana flavored Gerber baby snacks, the kind that melt in the mouth. We don't give him many, only about 5 or 6 at each visit, but at least we're introducing him to a different textured food. He really gave Sean a look when he first tasted it, but he does like it. We also finally have a recent weight on him. When we came in this morning the caregiver and nanny were weighing the babies before feeding them breakfast so Michael got weighed before we fed him. His weight today is 8.46 kg, which is a little over 18 1/2 lbs.
Today was our 7th bonding day, which is the halfway point for our 14 mandatory visits. Once the visits are completed then we can file for a court hearing. Of course, we'll keep visiting after the mandatory visits are over until we go to court and then leave to go home.
After our morning visit, we went to a vendor to buy a rotisserie chicken and some flatbread (with Juliya's help), then went back to the apartment to eat our lunch and have a nap. Later in the afternoon we met up with the Kaplans and the Chinns at the park here. The park has a large lake in the middle with paddleboats, and there are also amusement rides, food vendors, bounce houses, and some children's characters - the characters walking around today were a tiger and Shrek. We let James and Jadyn loose in a huge bounce house, and the kids had fun in it. We got them some ice cream (and some for us, too!) from a couple of the vendors and talked for a while. James also took part in one of his favorite pasttimes - chasing the pigeons. Afterwards, we headed over to the Kaplan's apartment which was nearby for a drink and to chat some more before heading home (about a 30 minute walk to our apartment) to eat dinner and call it a night. The plan is to gather at their place next Sunday afternoon for pot luck, so that should be fun!
Our pictures from today...
Thanks for stopping by! Paka paka and love to all!
