The Arrival of Sir William

11.14.13

     My next oldest cousin got pregnant about 8 weeks after we did. Sam and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for the last year, but they had kept their struggles private and announced their pregnancy in mid-March. Sam worked as a NICU nurse in Houston, and she had seen a lot of babies filter through with various illnesses and defects that would not allow them to have a full life. But, of course, its different when its a family member that loses their child.
     Sam had talked to her OB and decided that they would deliver her little boy in week 39 by induction. I hadn't talked to Sam a whole lot over the past few weeks, mostly because I knew she was very anxious about her own birth and that talking to me probably wouldn't have helped that anxiety.
      The morning that she went in to be induced I was working at one of my not-so-frequent hospitals with a doc I work with maybe once a week or once every other week. He knew what had happened, and when he saw me he gave me the saddest look and asked how I was doing.
       My mom had decided to not text me updates with Sam until I asked for them. Things went a little funny in our case and we had a delay, so I texted her around 9 AM to see what was going on. I knew that Sam was going into the hospital at 7 for her induction. My mom replied that Sam was asked to come back later because they were having a lot of emergency births at that time and couldn't get her set up for a voluntary induction.
       I lost it. I. lost. it. I excused myself from the case and walked down the hallway where there were these large windows that look outside. The doc had taken a minute to go see another patient and I passed him in the hallway with tears streaming down my face. "Are you ok?!" he asked. I just replied with, "My cousin is having her baby today..." and he said, "Take all the time you need." Thank you for grace!
       The hospital is laid out in a figure 8, and I made it around one of the loops before I figured out that walking was not going to make the tears stop coming and I needed to just give in to it. Luckily, I knew this hospital well enough to know where the one-holer bathrooms were so I snuck over there and locked myself in. I let the emotions overcome me for a minute. I just sat and cried because I didn't want this to happen to my cousin. Not that I thought that anything was wrong with her baby, I just didn't want her to be going through the anxiety I knew she was going through. Why couldn't they just let her hook herself up and watch his heart rate?! Her sister was a Labor and Delivery nurse, for pete's sake! Just let them borrow the monitors so we know he is ok!
       After I got done crying, I looked at myself in the mirror (waterproof mascara rocks, just a little red and swollen around the eyes... can't help that at all) and washed my hands to give me something to do. Then I headed back out to the case.
        Later that afternoon, I decided to make my first trip back to the hospital we delivered at as a representative of my company. At this hospital, everytime a baby is born they play a little lullaby over the loud speaker for everyone to hear. Naturally, I walked in and within about 5 minutes that song started playing. I had cried so much that morning that it didn't make me cry, but I did get the pit in my stomach with the memories of of how excited I was to hear that song played on September 18.
         I walked in the lab and had the same reaction from everyone, "How are you?" "We're glad to see you" "I am so sorry that happened to you". I walked into the room where they were doing a case with another one of the docs I work with, and they were just finishing up so everyone was standing around watching the patients EKG. One of the CRNAs at this hospital is named Dawn, and I had gotten to know her pretty well over the last five years. She has a daughter of her own, and we had talked about our faiths as her daughter wanted to go into the peace corps and serve in Africa. After I had said hello to the doc and all the lab staff, I went over and got a hug from miss Dawn. She is so pretty, she has green eyes and long mid-back red hair. Probably some kind of Irish, because she can be fiery, too.
        One of the lab staff's name is Gary, and Gary and his wife had just given birth at this hospital about 2 years ago. When they did, Dawn had recommended that they request one specific nurse that she knew very well to help them with labor. In the last few months of my pregnancy, I asked Gary a lot of questions and Dawn gave me the name of the nurse she had recommended to Gary. Somehow in my pregnancy brain, I had written down "Dawn Lastname" in my phone instead of the correct first name. (I won't disclose her last name here just because I haven't ever told her that I am writing about her and I don't want to be disrespectful of her privacy.) Anyways, on the day I returned to that lab for the first time I pulled Dawn aside and asked her about the name that she gave me for the nurse because I knew I didn't have it right. "Her name is Gail." she replied. Oh. My. Gosh. Gail was my nurse! She was the one that was training the younger girl in the prep area and she was one of the first to look for Kaitlyn's heartbeat. I told Dawn that Gail had helped us, and Dawn's eyes started to brim with tears as she said, "I prayed for you that morning." God is so awesome that even when we are too fragile to remember a simple thing like a name, He gives us exactly what we need.
      After I was done at that hospital, I went and sat with one of my coworkers at a coffee shop to catch up on all the progress we had made from a sales standpoint. When we got done talking about that, he asked how I was doing with everything. At this point, I had texted Sam's sisters for updates a few times and finally gotten to the point where Ash said, "We will keep you updated." Which is the nice way of saying, "Please stop bugging me, you're making it worse." So I left it alone. It was about 4:00 in the afternoon at this point and I was trying not to freak out again. I shared with my coworker Mike everything that was going on with Sam and I remember I shook my phone a little bit in frustration as I was saying, "Just get him out! Just go for a c-section and get him out! Ugh!" (If you haven't figured this out yet, I am a bit of a control freak.) Mike had asked me if I had gotten the book that he had sent up while we were still in the hospital after Kaitlyn. He and his wife had gotten a book called You'll get through this by Max Lucado. I am a huge Max Lucado fan, but I haven't even cracked that book yet. I think we got about 10 books from various friends and family members and I haven't read a single one yet. Anyways, I did tell Mike that we got it and I thanked him for it, and I teased him about not coming up to see us (its literally one flight of stairs from where we work to where Alex and I were). He turned a little red and said, "I'm sorry, I just didn't know how to deal with that." Mike has four kids of his own, and I have to tell you I fell a little guilty for razzing him and making him feel bad. I just shrugged at his embarrassment and told him, "Nobody knew how to deal with it. Its ok."
       I had wasted as much time as possible with work that day and finally decided to head home around 5. I hadn't heard any updates about Sam, and I was still trying to control myself and not freak out. I called my Mom and she said the same thing; that she had not heard any updates from her sister, Sam's mom. I got home, tried to eat something for dinner, and started writing. I tend to write when I get overwhelmed or when I just need to get some details down on paper.
      Around 6pm I got the text from Ash and all it said was, "Pushing now." I lost it again. I went and sat in Kaitlyn's rocker and just sobbed. There were so many emotions about the safety of my cousin and her baby, but also a deep, deep sorrow that my birth story wasn't more like hers. I had planned to go all-natural with miss K, not getting an epidural or anything and pushing her out naturally like an aborigine. Of course, I knew 3 weeks out that I was not going to be able to do things my way just because my little miss stubborn was breech. I wanted Sam to get him out as soon as possible, and it had already been so long that I was just a wreck of emotions. It felt like it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. for me to get the text from Ash that he was finally out. Realistically, I think Sam only pushed for about 30 minutes, but they didn't text me until about an hour later. I was so relieved that everyone was ok. Ash asked if I wanted a picture of my new nephew, and I responded that I would. William Glen came out with a full head of hair just like his cousin, and he was absolutely beautiful. The picture I got had him with his little hat on his head and his skin bright pink because he was so new to the world. I cried over that picture. I wanted a picture of my girl looking angry for being removed from her comfy place of growth inside me. I wanted to be able to hold my girl one more time. Above all, I wanted to hear my daughter's voice. I wanted to feel her rib cage expand as she got ready to let forth a wail into the world, her opening speech for things to come. I missed my daughter, but I also had a joy that God had kept his promise that this would not happen to our family again. Those dualing emotions on complete opposite ends of the scale just exhausted me. I decided it was time to call it a night early, and I cried a little as I fell asleep that night.