Our sister in law took these fab pictures of us wen we were in california. We had a mini mini shoot down at the beach for like 10 min before it started to rain! Thanks so much Shari!

We tried so hard to wake him up, but he was out! we even took freezing ocean water to his neck and nothin! they still turned out great!

Cali, Texas, Lately!

So we have taken 2 trips in the past 2 weeks. We decided to go to california for a short visit because Matt had a 3 day weekend. Man, that drive is not as fun when you cant stop in vegas! But Brad and Shari got Shari's fam beach house for all of us to stay in and we had a blast!

Then after we got back from california, Dex and I left for Texas. I was doing market for the first time back. It totally sucked to work from 6am-7pm with no nap! Dexter had some major Grandma and Grandpa Vandiver bonding time. Thank you so much mom and dad for watching him so i could work

All the grand kids!

All the kids at the beach house.

Dex is totally a mini Matt.

Maddison was so funny with him. She was always playing with Dex and making faces at him, he throught she was hilarious!

Love these them!

This was at the doc we could not resist, his fat rolls were to cute!

All bundled up!

Dexters Blessing

Dexter was blessed on December 6 2009. We did it privately at Matt's parents house because dex still had his picc line in. I loved it privately! It was so spiritual and i loved that it was just a small group of friends and family. All of our kids may be blessed like this.

Matt is so amazing and was so in tune with the spirit. the blessing was great and it was so weird to think about his whole life ahead of him! Exciting!

real quick...

Well we actually got a call from the doc who reviewed dex's film from his bladder test and he said that dexter needs to be on antibiotics for 6 months as a preventive plan. So we are not sure why or what that means but he is going to call us with more details later this week. All we know is that he is healthy, and these are oral antibiotics and those are easy. Plus that will help reduce his chances of getting any of these winter sicknesses

Clean bill of health!

Ok so now that we know that our son is all healthy here is what happened:

First, the day we got released from the hospital we were told that dex's bili-ruben was slightly elevated and that we would need to come back and have it checked in the morning. Well it was still elevated so they said that he had to be in a bili bed for as much of the day as possible till it went down (4 days later) Well he hated it and it was so so sad to have to put him in there and see him all blind folded. Plus he had to be watched the whole time he was in there to make sure his blindfold didn't move, that meant 24 hour monitoring. We took 3 hour shifts between me, matt and my mom. (this was nothing compared to what we would have to deal with in a few days though.)

On the day of Dexter's 2 week appointment, Dec 1, 2009 he woke up with a fever. Matt is the one that noticed it when he picked him up. (such a great dad) He took his temperature and it was 102.2. We called the doctor, who told us to come in immediately. Matt and I both had no idea that this was such a big deal. So when we got to the doc, he checked a few things and then explained to us that babies under 2 months should never have a fever, it is the cardinal rule, there bodies just dont know how to respond. He then scared us to death by telling us that he needed to do a lumbar puncture and a urine culture right then and that after that we would need to go straight to the hospital and check him in. We were both pretty scared for our son and in an effort to calm us down the doctor reassured us that the risks of a lumbar puncture are really really low, he had only lost one child by doing so, yeah like that is going to calm us down! So while he was doing the tests matt and i call both sets of grand parents to have them meet us at the hospital.

At the hospital, Matt and both grandpas administered a priesthood blessing right away, which provided much needed comfort. Now at the hospital, since we had no idea what he had, everyone who entered the room had to be completely covered, no one could be around him with out wearing a mask, apron, hat and gloves. After that, they took more tests and we got the test results back from the lumbar puncture that showed his white blood cells (which means there is an infection somewhere in his body) were escalated, his liver was irritated and he was dehydrated. At that point we didn't really know what that all meant till we got more results and his cultures still had to grow. The next step was getting the IV in, which i left the room! Matt is such a great dad and stayed in there ad held him hand. Dex was a champ because it took them 45 minutes to find a vein! They started him on fluids and 5 different antibiotics to cover all possibilities and said they would take him off of those according to results. Then we were informed that the Pediatric Specialist of Infectious Diseases would be taking over our case. At this point we were totally freaked out, scared for dex and doing all we could to keep our composure. Now we were just waiting for doctors and more results.

The specialist Dr. O (his name is hard to pronounce) came in later that afternoon to talk to us. He explained all of the possibilities of what was going on, in worst case scenarios: Meningitis, Herpes( there were tons of diseases in this family) Mono, and the list went on. He also said that RSV would be the best case scenario. He said if dex did not improve by the morning that he would need to be moved to Primaries in SLC.

That first night was SO long. We were so worried for our poor dex. He was so hard to look at hooked up to all those wires. That night we got all the big diseases test results back and they were all negative, but the nurse did even come in and tell us! We didnt find out till the morning. That morning Dr. O came in and said he was perplexed, that he was sure that it was going to be something in the Herpes family but that he was very happy to see that it was not. But we were still waiting for cultures to grow, one for a UTI and one Meningitis. So we were just waiting...

By this time Matt and i were so unbelievably tired, but we didnt want to leave Dexter or the hospital! So my parents did a little investigating and found out that there was a parents sleep room at the hospital! They were amazing and came up to spend the night with dex so we could try to get some sleep. When they came for there shift, i was lying in the crib with dexter and matt was comatose on the pull out couch. When i say comatose he was so out of it, i could not even wake him up and when i finally did all he knew was we were going to sleep somewhere and while i was getting the code for the room, i turned around and matt was gone. I found him asleep in some chair down the hallway. So my parents were in with dex and we got a full 8 hours of sleep, it actually felt like 30 min, but it was still amazing!

The next morning Dr. O came in some news. Dexter had a UTI caused by E-coli which leads to Bacterial Meningitis but his meningitis culture did not grow (which happens sometimes) so they were going to treat him for both with a PICC line. This would be a small IV that would go from his forearm to the right ventricle of his heart and we would then administer antibiotics, ourselves (freak me out) through it every 8 hours for 21 days.

Now we just had to deal with the anticipation of inserting the PICC line. Matt had to go to school that morning so it was just me, good thing my parents were there because i was a wreck. The gave dex some medicine to calm him down and make him forget but we could still hear him screaming in the hallway, sad! The team that was inserting the line was down from Primaries and were really great. The whole process was only going to take an hour, well when the hour mark hit we heard and emergency page over the loud speaker to, please call pediatrics. I just looked at my dad and said "Um is that for my baby?" and at that same time matt was getting back from school and heard that as he walked into the hospital doors and thought "Um is that for my baby?" I was totally freaked but my parents stayed calm and my dad went to go check, as it turned out they needed to get the ultra sound machine (because they couldnt find a vein) from another floor that was not answering their phone. Someone could have warned us that was going to come on the loud speaker! By that time matt was there and they came out to tell us they were done. The man who inserted it came out to explain to us that "dex gave me a run for my money." He first tried a vein in his left arm and could not get it past his shoulder and then tried his right arm, the first vein, it kept curling at his shoulder and then the second vein was a success! Dex was totally a wreck when we got in there. Not only could he not eat for 6 hours before the procedure but the meds they gave him made him temporarily made him forget how to suck, and he was hurting. But the hard part was over! So now, Dex and his PICC line had to be observed for 24 hours and then we were good to go.

We finally got to leave! After 4 long days, we were sent home to do the whole PICC line thing on our own. I will not even get into the whole issue with the home care nurses because that is a long horrible story.

We are so glad that both sets of grand parent could be there with us to lend support. Thank you so much to family and friends for all the love and prayers sent our way!

For the next 3 weeks we had to administer meds through his line every 8 hours, plus his 2 1/2 - 3 our feedings made life very tiring for us. Dec. 21, 2009 he got his line out, it was crazy all they did was cute the stitches and pulled it out. they then put him on oral antibiotics till we had one last test done to check his kidney/bladder function. We just had that test done on Jan. 7, 2010. They had to catheterize him, fill his bladder with dye and then watch how it flushed out of his body. The results came back negative which means that everything was working right. We are so relived! ha ha the doc came out and said "Everything looks normal, accept for his abnormally long penis." we were dying laughing. I guess it normally takes 10 centimeters to cath and get to the bladder on baby boys and dex took 15, Matt was so proud :)

So now we finally have our healthy little boy, who we love to death!

Finally time to blog...

Finally time to blog... Let me just start by saying, Thank you Emily for the wonderful pictures! You are amazing! Everyone check out her website! emilylesher.com

So it has been a totally crazy past 3 weeks. Not only because we had a baby but also because he got sick. Don't worry, all is well now! I think that the best way to post all of what has happened is by topics...

39 Weeks. Nov. 17, 6:30am. On our way to the hospital.

The Labor: So Matt and I went to the doctor on Monday Nov.16 for our 39 week appointment. Ok so I was so so done being pregnant and for the past 2 weeks we had been doing everything we could to start something but nothing, no contractions, no nothing. So we were fully anticipating that at this appointment our doc would say that I was not dilated and that we would need to wait... Well we were happy to hear that I was dilated to a 3 and 70% effaced. After hearing that good news I said as a joke "Oh great, so we can induce say, tomorrow?" And so our surprise or doc said "Sure." So she called the hospital and we were scheduled for the next day at 6:30am. We were pretty freaked out! So of course we went home and cleaned the apartment, did laundry, dishes, even hit up walmart, and were up all night with anxiety.

6:30 roles around and we went to the hospital. We had the coolest room it was huge! we loved Orem Community! everything about it was great, especially the nurses, fabulous! So the nurse came in and got the IV all hooked up, checked to see where we were at and to our surprise I was dilated to a 4 and 90% effaced, so we were totally on our way. The nurse said that she wanted to start the patossin (sp?) Well I did not like that because I did not want to feel a thing, so I talked her into letting me get the epidural first. Matt was just laughing. The anticipation of the epidural really freaked me out and when I get nervous my teeth chatter and when i get really scared my whole body shakes. So I was shaking and chattering while the guy was giving me the epidural and Matt was just trying to hold me steady. Once I was all drugged up the doctor decided to just let us sleep, so Matt and I slept for 5 hours! It felt so good to sleep and relax!

At about 2:30 I had not made any real progress cause the patossin (sp?) just slowed me down. So the doc broke my water and then we went back to sleep. Well I woke up at 3:30 with horrible contractions, that i could feel!! What? I was not supposed to feel anything! Matt was so good and right there by my side...laughing at me because who knows what degree of the contractions I was actually feeling because I still had epidural in me but you would have thought I was dying! It hurt so so bad! But the reason the contractions were so bad is because I dilated to a 10. Yay! So the nurse came in and was checking me and said "Oh wow 5 centimeters in an hour, your next baby is just going to slide right out." and all I was thinking is "Yeah right not until I can have an epidural!"

So at this point I was completely dilated and ready to go... Well the doc came in and said that I have a low pelvis and that she wanted me to "rest and descend" for 2 hours and see if Dex would work his way down a little further and that they would have me try to push but that they would probably still have to use forceps. Cool. We were not so excited about that. But when the nurses came in and had me practice pushing and when I asked how I did they said "Mmm not so good." We figured we would need them for sure. So we just hung out "resting and descending." By this time i had the guy coming in every half hour to give me a booster to the epidural, that little button doesnt always work.

At 5:50 all the doctors and nurses came in and got us all ready to finally deliver. They totally transform your room into a delivery room, they crank up your bed to basically eye level, while your legs are completely in the air. All the sudden there are like 20 people in the room. The respiratory doc came in and he was wearing jeans and a t shirt and I was all "who is this guy, please say a doctor because my croch is completely on display here." Matt was so great! He was right by my side the whole time!

So I had Matt on one side holding my hand and my doctor on the other side holding one leg and a nurse on the other side holding my other leg and the forceps doc just pulling away, telling me that i need to spread my legs more... I dont think that Matt was planning on watching the whole thing but considering my knees were at my ears and he was by my head, he got a front row seat, he actually said that it was pretty cool to watch. After pushing, forceps, and a level 4 apisiotomie, Dexter Matthew Hanson was born at 6:03. When he first came out he looked pretty funny. His hair looked black and curly and his lips were huge! Matt and I both looked at each other and said "who's baby is that" But he was SO cute! Dex weighed in at 8lbs 11oz and 21 1/2 inches long! Matt and I were pretty shocked at how big he was. My doc looked at me and said " I had know idea that there was a baby that big inside of you" All the nurses agreed. I was just so glad that we were a week early!!

I would say that having the baby is the easy part. It is the recovery after that sucked! After he was born, they handed him to me to nurse and I looked down at him and basically passed out. When i woke up, I felt so sick! I was so nauseous so the nurse had to give me a shot for that so I wouldnt throw up the pain pills, which means they had to wait to give me the pain pills. So everyone cleared out, Matt went with Dex to get a bath and I was asleep waiting for the nausea to go away. Well when I woke up, the epidural was all worn off and I had no pain pills! AH, it hurt, it hurt, so so bad! I didnt know what to do, I was all alone and my body was shaking so bad from all the hurt. So I called Matt to see if they were almost done and by the time he answered i was totally crying and he is all "Call the nurse" So She came in with the drugs that took way to long to kick in, but they were amazing! Then not to long after that they come in and make you stand up and go to the bathroom to get somewhat cleaned up, well that opened up new realms of pain. After all is said and done, he is here and he is so much fun! (Well other then the whole sick part) Matt is so cute with him and such a great dad! I couldnt ask for a better husband! Or Better little family!

Mourning The Loss!

So lately i have been totally morning the loss! The loss of my body. It will never be the same!! I am so done being pregnant, and done getting fat! I dont even look a the scale anymore when we go to the doc. I turn around and say " Dont tell me unless there is a problem." I am SO glad that this baby is healthy and strong and has gone full term but... Yeah sure, I know I can totally loose the weight... But my body will never be the same, my abs will never, my boobs will never, it will never be the same. Everyone keeps saying, "Its ok, It is totally worth it" Well considering we dont have kids yet, I am sorry, but i dont believe you! But i am sure i will in 2 weeks or so... I just dont think my body can stretch anymore!

Less then 20 days! it better be less... Last week I had a couple contraction and we were thinking it was a good sign, but then nothin this week so we will see... The doc said that we are ready, that Dex has dropped and head is in the birth canal, so that is a good sign!