Diaper Changing

Before Dean came along I think I only changed one diaper in my entire life. And for the first few days of Dean's life, Jake was on diaper duty while I was recovering. But eventually it was time for me to learn and I've found that it's true that my own baby's diaper changes are much different than changing someone else's baby. I know this is true because I wasn't too grossed out by the following events:

For Dean's first diaper that I changed, Jake went in with me to instruct and explain what I should be doing. Dean peed on me in the middle of the diaper change and Jake was shocked and said he'd never done that to him before. He also assured me that this was not the norm.

The second diaper change he peed on me again. Jake assured me that this is not the norm. Uh huh.

The third diaper change he pooped when I put down the new diaper. Jake assured me that this doesn't happen often.

The fourth and fifth I came away unscathed. I'm getting comfortable and thinking that maybe the previous instances really are odd.

The next time Jake wasn't home when this happened. I went to change Dean's diaper which was only pee and as I lifted his legs to put the new diaper down, he let loose with a bowel movement. I don't even know how to explain what happened. Poop went shooting out of his bum, flying across the room splattering everything in it's path. I swear the wall five feet away was hit with runny poo. I put his bottom down as quickly as possible and A LOT more came out. Needless to say, runny poo was on everything. Next I tried to move Dean so that poo didn't get all over him and he started to pee which went the opposite way than his poo had. It got on my sweater as well as everything that he hadn't been able to get his poo on.

Jake now firmly believes that Dean knows it's me and will do this again. He had me wake him up tonight to change Dean before I fed him because he didn't want any messes in the middle of the night. So far Jake has not been peed or pooed on even once. Dean has been saving these special gifts just for me. :)

Labor Experience

On Wednesday, May 21st at about 10am I started having some pretty regular contractions about 10 minutes apart. I called Jake who came home, but the contractions never really changed and weren't very painful, so we decided to just wait until the next day since we were being induced anyway. On the way to the hospital the next morning, the contractions started getting a little painful, but again, didn't really get very bad.

We got to the hospital at 6am on Thursday, May 22nd and they induced labor at 8am. They began increasing the amounts of pitosin and the contractions began to get very painful. Sometime later, I began having extreme back pain and it turned out that it was back labor since he was facing the wrong way. They let me have an epidural at only 3 cm because of this.

After a little while, Dean's heartbeat was dropping during the contractions, so they took me off the pitosin and waited for two hours, then began again to see if it would help. This time things worked a bit better, but Dean still took forever to slowly work his way down. Eventually I was at 10 cm, but my water hadn't broken yet so a doctor came in to do it without waiting for it to break on it's own.

It's too long of a story to tell, but my evening nursing was absolutely horrible and kept telling me to wait an hour, then another hour, then another and so on until I finally couldn't take it anymore and told her to call the doctor to see if there was anything we could do that didn't require waiting for hours without anything happening. An example of my nurse's stellar abilities came sometime that evening when I told her that I would like to get more epidural because I was feeling pain. I could even move my legs a little bit and was starting to feel my lower body. She didn't really want to, but finally called the anestisiologist who told the nurse that when one of the lights was red, that meant the epidural had stopped and that she should call him. My epidural had been off for at least an hour or two. I was not impressed with her abilities or her attitude.

Another nurse came in to help out sometime later since nothing was happening and my nurse was not helping very much. She had me try to push to see what would happen. Dean's heartbeat would drop each time I pushed, so the doctor decided to come in at that point.

The doctor told us that she wanted to see if we could get Dean out in three contractions (three pushes per contraction) using a vacuum pump to help get him out. If that didn't work, we would need to have a c-section. The vacuum slipped off his head a few times. The last time, his head was part way out already and Dean's heartbeat was dropping, so she gave me an episiotomy (a pretty bad one) to get him the rest of way out. Poor Dean was born with a big lump of spongy blood under his scalp because of the vacuum. It will get hard and then slowly dissolve over the next year.

Otherwise, Dean is beautiful and a very good baby. I have some time to blog right now because he is sleeping. :) I'll add more if I can think of anything else.

Dean Jacob Hester

I feel very guilty about waiting this long to post some pictures, but I've been super busy, as you can imagine. :)

This is going to be short. I'll try to post more later....

Dean Jacob Hester was born on Friday, May 23rd at 3:27am. He was 7 pounds, 9 ounces and was 21 inches long.

Labor Will Be Induced on Thursday, May 22nd

Jake and I went to the doctor this morning and have set up an appointment to have labor induced on Thursday morning (May 22^nd) at 6am. Yuck, is the sun even out at that time?

We also confirmed that Baby Hester is indeed a boy. We got a good ultrasound view of that important part of his anatomy.

I'll keep everyone posted.

May 18th - No Baby

I have another doctor appointment tomorrow at 11am. I'll keep everyone posted.

Eye Infection :(

Poor Seven has an eye infection. Although she kind of opens her eye sometimes, she often ends up squinting and seems to have a bit of eye goobers. I'm wondering if I should bring her to the vet or not. It's probably something simple that will work itself out, but I'll feel really guilty if she gets worse and I haven't done anything about it.

If Melissa was here I'd ask her for some of her breast milk. :) For those of you who didn't read her blog, it seems that breast milk has been known to cure eye problems in infants, so hey, why not in my cat?

May 16 - Doctor Appointment

Today they checked the movement of the baby and the amniotic fluid levels. Everything looks great. I have another appointment on Monday to do the same thing. I have a feeling that they will induce next Friday if the baby hasn't come yet. I can't believe I'm only three days late right now. It seems like he should have come weeks ago. I suppose we are getting impatient. :)

May 15th - Still No Baby

I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow at 10:45am. I'll let everyone know how that goes.

May 14th - No Baby Yet

Just an update for anyone who's wondering. Yesterday was Baby Hester's due date but he's being stubborn and has refused to be born. Jake says he's taking after me.

For those of you who knew that I took a test for preeclamsia, the results came back negative, so we don't need to worry about that. Jake was a bit disappointed since I might have been induced and we could have seen Buddy sooner. :)

I'll try to remember to keep posting on Baby watch 2008. I know there are a lot of anxious people out there.

almost time

Target's Return Policy - It CAN Get Worse!

I hope everyone remembers my previous post regarding Target's crappy return policy - you can't return anything more than $20 and you can only return items twice a year without a receipt.

At the Target by my house they let me complete two returns up to $20.

Today I decided to get a few more things returned so I called up my dad and asked him to go with me to Target. But this time I went to the one by his house. I won't get too much into my experience, but by the end of the fiasco I found that the Target in Fullerton will only let you return two ITEMS under $20 twice a year. So at the end of that experience I finally told them to void the transaction that Dad was helping me with and I dragged him over to the Target by my house where they still let us return more items per transaction.

I really couldn't believe it could get any worse, but there it is, it actually can. Can you imagine needing to return items from a baby shower and only being able to return two items per person?! There's no way! I am so upset with Target right now. No one should EVER register there. I'm definitely warning people away from them in the future.

About Me

For the last three months I've been taking classes and getting ready for the baby. I've been sooooo busy that I really haven't had time to do a whole lot. Well, Saturday was the last day of my class and I have the next month off to get ready for Baby Hester and then to have Baby Hester. Next month I then start my next class.

Since I finally have time, I figured a blog a bit.

First, baby Hester has been pushing, pushing, pushing on my right side. When I drive or sit, I usually try t0 keep my hand there because it's so weird to feel him pushing that hard. I feel like I'm trying to hold him in.

He's been moving more and more lately. I even feel him sometimes at night even though I really couldn't before.

I just went to my last night working at West Los Angeles College and I won't be working there again now until this summer - if they hopefully have some hours for part time counselors. I'm glad to have the driving over with since I drive one handed and hold Baby Hester in with the other hand. Plus it's just not that comfortable to drive anymore.

Jake has been very nice to me and has been driving us most of the time when we go places. Neither of us likes to drive so it's been a treat to get to sit in the passenger seat and brace myself for bumps and turns when needed.

As far as taking off work from Cal Poly Pomona, I'm considering whether I want to keep working or take off at the end of this week. I'm due on Tuesday, May 13th, but if I stop working and stay home, that's just more days that I won't be able to take later. So I might just stick it out and keep working. I haven't really decided yet. I just hope he's born soon - I'm hoping for this weekend sometime.

That's all for now....

More Baby Shower Pictures

Thank you to Susan for taking these pictures at my shower!

Cat Fight at 1am

Last night Jake and I woke up at 1pm to hear a huge cat fight going on on our back patio. Jake jumped out of bed - I moved much more slowly - and ran out the door to save Seven. He saw the other cat go into our garage while Seven hightailed it out of the patio into the front yard for safety. Jake went into the garage while I got our squirt bottle and we proceeded to scare the living daylights out of the cat that had trapped itself in our garage. I actually felt really bad because the cat looked so scared, but I'm hoping that he won't be coming back to bother Seven and eat her food. And for those soft hearted folks out there, this cat did not look he needed Seven's food. It's obviously owned by someone who takes care of him.

So Jake used the water bottle and chased the cat around squirting him while I remained out of harms way. This lasted less than 30 seconds before the cat realized that the best escape was to exit the open garage door and exit back out of the patio through the hole. It was kind of funny to watch Jake running after the cat trying to squirt it as it lunged through the hole as quickly as possible. And again, for you soft hearted folks, the temperature probably was somewhere around 60 degrees, so I don't think it hurt the cat at all to be squirted. Of course, he probably thought we were trying to kill him.

I tried to call Seven to give her some comfort but she was nowhere to be found, so I figured she was probably OK and we went back to bed. Jake was tossing and turning for an hour and neither of us could sleep. Then just after 2am Jake finally got up (he couldn't sleep) and went back out the door to the patio and called Seven over and gave her some pets and sweet talk for a few minutes. I asked how she was and he told me Seven seemed to be doing really good and was actually pretty happy.

The next day Jake mentioned that he couldn't sleep for that hour and I said that the cat fiasco didn't help either of us to get to sleep. He then said that he couldn't sleep because he kept thinking that another cat could come back at any time to bother Seven and she shouldn't have to worry about that since it's her back yard area. He had been trying to think of what he could do to keep the other cats out. Now I think that's very sweet that he was so concerned about Seven that he couldn't sleep. It also could have been that he doesn't want another cat in the backyard eating the cat food that we have to pay for, but I like to think that it's because he was concerned about our cat. :)

Target's Policy Sucks - Warning Not to Register There

I just had my first opportunity to return some of the gifts that Jake and I found that we didn't need from the baby shower. There are always a few people who forget to tell the people at the cash register to take the gifts off of the registry, and there were some items that Jake and I realized that we really don't need since we got so many from other places.

Jake and I registered at Target because I've always loved them and I thought it would be very easy. I've heard a few bad stories about Babies R Us being difficult to deal with. Up until now, I've never known a bad thing about Target, however, after yesterday I'm ready to boycott.

For presents that were bought outside of Target, most we had to either keep, or donate if we didn't want them. Which kind of stinks, but what else are you going to do? But for the presents I knew came from Target, I thought, there will be no problems with returns - YA RIGHT!

We went to return our Target extras and were told that new store policy since August is that you can do a return for up to $20 twice a year (without a receipt). So what this means is that I could only return a couple of items (up to $20) for one return, and then another return (up to $20), and that's it - I could only return about $40 worth of stuff. Luckily, Jake was with me, so we were able to return up to $80 with both of us combined.

So today I called my mom who was able to return another $40 for us, and now I need to go with one more person who will be able to return the rest of the items for me. How much of a pain in the butt is that?!!!

All of this is extremely annoying, but at least I could complete these returns by getting around their horrible system. But there was one item I was given for $70 that we can't return at all. Two days before the shower a friend of ours gave us a used high chair, so I would like to exchange this item for something else, but I can't. I talked to the return counter, talked to their supervisor, talked to customer service for Target by phone, and talked to the gift registery by phone. I asked to talk to their supervisor and the person said they were a supervisor and there is no one in the entire Target company that can help me. How horrible is that?!!!

Now, I know that I could call my Uncle who purchased the chair for me to see if I can get a receipt, but that seems so tacky after he spent such a generous amount of money on me. So I guess we'll just keep it and get rid of the used one. It just really sucks. I suppose that I'm extremely lucky that that was the only item I had over $20 that I wanted to return.

Another thing that sucks is that I've made no effort to keep any gift receipts (although I really only got a few anyway) because I didn't think I'd have this problem. But there was one item - a car seat - that was sent to us by mail from one of Jake's friends. We registered for two since we have two cars, and I thought I'd just take one back later if it turned out we didn't need it. I didn't keep the gift receipt that must have come with the package a few weeks ago because I didn't think I'd need it. I just assumed that I would exchange it for Target merchandise since we ALWAYS shop at Target. Well not anymore! I don't know if I'll be able to completely boycott since they're my favorite store, but I will definitely get the word out that they are not a good store for a baby registery. What a horrible experience.

Lastly, when I went to Target today with my mom, they told us that soon they won't let anyone return anything without a receipt (rather than the 2 times for under $20 rule). Can you believe it? How could you ask all of your baby shower guests for a gift receipt just in case? You can't! How tacky would that be. So my final thought is.... Don't register at Target!!!!! You could end up regretting it. Maybe Babies R Us is the way to go?

I'm thinking about typing up a paragraph and posting reviews to the target site under their baby items to warn people. I wonder if I'll be able to keep my anger long enough to do that. Probably not, but I want to.

Baby Shower Pictures

I might end up with more pictures in the future, but I figured that I'd post the ones that I've received so far from my sister who was taking pictures for me at the shower.

Me talking to Jake's Aunt Barb, Cousin Cambria, and her son, River.

My step-mother's Mom and sister-in-law, Vanessa.

My mom holding my niece, Kiya.

Cameron's mom, Momma Pat.


A whole group of people.

My good friend Becky and her daughter, Lily.

Jake's Aunt Barb, Aunt Moe, Grandma Michie, and cousin Cambria.

Emilio's cousin, Carina, and two sisters Gaby and Kristi.

I had a really great time at my shower. Everyone was so generous and the day was perfect. My mom and step-mom were the main contributers and I'm so thankful to everyone who helped out and attended. I usually don't celebrate my special events, but I couldn't resist on this one. :)

Micah

I stole these picture from Wendy.... sorry Wendy!


Micah loved showing off his Disney tatoos to everyone - anything to get his shirt off. In fact, it seems as if he was happier the fewer clothes he had on - running around naked in the house. :)


And in this picture you can see that Uncle Jake was very forgiving about any drool that might have ended up on his shirt.

Eight Months - Egg Hunting

Here is a photo of us hunting for Easter eggs with Micah last weekend. I'm posting this picture because it's a good one of me at about 8 months. I'll try to post baby shower pictures soon but I've got to wait to get the pictures from everyone else since I wasn't taking any.

Jake's Sprained Ankle

We were playing tennis on Saturday morning and Jake sprained his ankle pretty badly - poor guy.

The picture below is later the first day...

The picture below is about a day later...

The picture below is about two days later...

Cow Birth

I was driving by the cows at Cal Poly on Friday when I saw a baby that had just been born so I stopped to take a look.