Heber Weston

Our second baby boy made his entrance into the world on June 19th!

The day before Emmitt was born, I went into a cleaning frenzy and deep cleaned the whole apartment. Still two weeks before my due date, I didn't think for one second the baby would be coming the next day, but Tom came home from work and took one look at the house, then looked at me and said, "Are you going to have the baby tomorrow?" (I guess that says a lot about how often I deep clean: About as often as I have a baby.) He then put his hand on my stomach and said, "Emmitt, if you're coming tomorrow, kick me." And he did! This has been a favorite story of ours to tell, so about 3 weeks before my due date, I started trying to "clean myself into labor" and Tom asked Heber if he was coming the next day every night before bed. Heber was a much less active baby in my tummy than Emmitt was, and Tom never got an affirmative kick to his question. I was getting soooo impatient as the days went by. I had it in my head that all my babies should come two weeks early. About a week before my due date, I gave up on the notion and started thinking about induction, which was something that made me really nervous. But three days before my due date, when the house was messy again and Tom asked his question, wouldn't ya know it, we felt a kick. Tom was ecstatic but I was thinking, "Yeah right."

At about 5:00 AM, Emmitt woke up and crawled into our bed. About half an hour later, I woke up two seconds before my water broke. I scrambled out of bed and urgently whispered to Tom who had to take a minute to decide if he was dreaming, if I was sleep talking, or if something was wrong with Emmitt before he registered what I was saying. I ran out of the room and Emmitt got really upset. This made me feel awful, so I asked Tom to bring Emmitt to me so I could hold him while I stood in the bath tub. After we were all fully awake and Emmitt had calmed down, Tom called his brother Dave to come stay with Emmitt so we could get to the hospital. We were much more prepared this time around because Emmitt had caught us completely off guard when he was born. Like I said, I was really impatient so I packed the hospital bag multiple times to make sure we had everything we needed.

We reached the hospital around 7 AM and it was too early for staff to be at the front desk, so we went straight in to Labor and Delivery and checked in there. The nurses treated me quite a bit differently this time around. Since it wasn't my first rodeo, they didn't ask so many questions and I got into the birth room a lot faster. After the IV, Tom and I just waited. From there on out, everything was almost exactly the same as Emmitt's delivery. I had fun talking to Tom about this and that, we flipped through some channels on the TV (this time, we got to watch the World Cup), and my nurse would pop in every hour or so. Around 9, the contractions started getting pretty painful, so I took some medicine and got reeeeally drowsy. The nurse told me I could take more after about an hour. When she came in again to offer me a second dose, I thought, "But it's only been like 20 minutes!" but it had been an hour and 20 minutes. Let's just say, if I were a drug addict, I know what my poison would be. At 10:30, I started hurting pretty bad, so Tom came to hold my hand and play with my hair and coach me a little bit. Not long after, I told my nurse I needed to get this baby here. My doctor came in and set everything up and after 10 minutes of hard labor, Heber was born at 11:05. *I really don't know how some women go longer in labor. I needed every bit of encouragement and advice from the doctor, nurses, and Tom. About 5 minutes into it, I got pretty discouraged because I didn't feel like I was making any progress and I was so uncomfortable. Kinda wimpy. Good thing for modern hospitals and good husbands! They plopped a dark haired baby into my lap while they cut the cord. I was so surprised by this! In my head, I was just expecting another little blonde, nearly bald Emmitt, but Heber is anything but blonde or bald. But just the way it was with Emmitt, I thought "How can he be so perfect?" There's something to be said for the miracle of birth, but I really don't know how to say it. So I just cried and Tom and I enjoyed taking it all in.

 

Heber is such a content little baby. He was bright eyed and wide awake for about the first 90 minutes of life, but he didn't make a sound until he had to take a bath. He really likes to be held. I wanted to keep him with us in our room through the first night, but when he didn't want to sleep in his bassinet, I finally surrendered and asked my nurse (who just so happened to be my Relief Society president!) to take him for a few hours so we could get some sleep. I was so happy when he came back in. Those first few days are so precious, I didn't want to miss much if I could help it.

My mom was able to come up as soon as she heard I was in labor, so she came into the room soon after he was born. Then she went to take care of Emmitt who by then was with a good friend of mine (Maurie, thank you!!!). Then it was off to get cleaned up and move to the Mother-Baby room where they have comfier beds and a fridge full of pudding and a cupboard full of cookies and crackers! Woohoo!

Our first visitor besides my mom was Maurie. She is absolutely amazing. She took Emmitt shopping for a bunch of goodies that she brought to us. She put together a hospital survival kit and there wasn't a thing she didn't think of. She also decorated our apartment with "It's a Boy!" balloons and banners. I felt pretty special!
A few hours later, after slaving away in our kitchen and filling our fridge with several delicious meals, my mom brought Emmitt to meet his baby brother.

While Heber didn't keep his attention for too long, Emmitt was curious to see what all the excitement was about. He was soooo hyper! He had had such a fun day with Maurie and my mom, I don't think he could contain himself. He's such a lucky kid! Tom's mom sent him such a fun package and gave Heber an adorable outfit and then she ordered us a pizza since she lives 12 hours from here. Thanks, Mary, for being part of it all! My Dad came up the day we came home from the hospital. Weston is my dad's name, so I enjoyed seeing him hold his little namesake!

We are so happy to have Heber join our family. I'd forgotten how fun it is to have a newborn at home. Tom and I sometimes fight over who gets to hold him. (: Emmitt has done really well adjusting and sometimes he'll ask if he can hold the baby. I'll hold Heber out to him in my arms and Emmitt will put his arms under Heber then turn and say, "Daddy! 'ook!" Two seconds pass and then he says, "All done!" Haha!

Here are some great newborn pics courtesy of my awesome sister-in-law Becky.

Heh heh