September 16th: Ambien and Fetal monitors are not my friend. I only slept 4 ½ hours that night due to having to pee, readjust my fetal monitor and Ambien not working on me. I was not allowed to eat or drink until I delivered, which I don’t believe I could do even if I was allowed to eat. I also made the terrible mistake of dropping my new book in the toilet. This left me with two things, my work laptop and infomercials. I spent the first part of the morning cleaning up my soon to be filled inbox and poked fun at for doing work hours before delivering. I also sent out an email telling everyone what was going on with me at work and on Facebook.
I later had the lovely distraction of our Family friend Cindy coming in to visit with me and talk about her experience with her twins. It is amazing who god has us speak with or hear from at just the right time. She kept me company and helped me keep laughing about stories of her children and my brother. Next in were my mother and father who were ready to get this baby show started, unfortunately though two emergencies came in before me, since Dukes heart was stable the wasn’t as big of a risk as the other two. Dr. Wells came in, and though I tried to talk her into letting me take a shower before the surgery, it was a no dice deal. She informed me my C-section got moved back from 2:30 to 4pm, giving me more time to work on emails and check out Facebook (I had started to receive a lot of notifications that people were praying for me). I think Dr. Wells was more irritated with this than I was.
My nurse came in, who turned out to be a school classmate of mine from high school, small world. I know sometimes you see people you went to high school with and you think, oh crap, not the case, we didn’t know each other very well then so it was perfect. She really helped me with preparing on what was going to be happening and understanding what the procedure would be like. If you ask my parents they will discuss how I was cracking jokes and being spirited right before getting ready for my C-section. I figured if I didn’t help is I was in my room moping about something I couldn’t control. 
My mother was going to go in the room with me since C-sections only allow one person and my father certainly does not want to see his daughter get sliced and diced if necessary. My sister called multiple times that day to check on my and see what was going on, if I was delivering regularly she would have been in the room, but what can I say my kid already likes to be early as a friend of mine told me.
The operating room was not as I imagined it, I.E. in the movies, and I was so happy when they asked if I wanted music. Yes the more music the better! The room was brightly lit and was pristine white. My anesthesiologist was a very funny man and I had to keep myself from laughing a lot as I was getting ready for the party to start. Getting the spinal block was not painful, in fact it was lovely. They got me really situated on the table and started to deliver John. During the delivery I got light headed once as I was adjusting to the medication, but after that I was talking with the anesthesiologist as mom popped her head over the sheet every so often to see what was going on. I declined the mirror….didn’t need to see any of that. Again I was poked fun at because I was joking and having conversations rather than worrying as I was being operated on.
John Wayne Williams was born at 5:19pm silently. They told me he was a boy, and my mother watched as they started to clean him up and see how he looked. She told me he was very tiny, which was a very odd thing for us, since we have large babies in our family (let’s just put it this way, the smallest weight in the baby pool was 8 lbs.) They wrapped him up and wheeled him over to me to send him to the NICU, I didn’t get to see his face. Looking back on it, this seems very sad, but logically I knew I was going to see him again so I wasn’t worried.
They burrito’d me up in blankets and took me into recovery. Mom went to talk with dad and show him the pictures she took and I told my nurse to eat, she hasn’t eaten in a while. The head of the NICU came into my room and told me that John was in need of special attention their hospital could not give him (they are meant more for just observation and helping cook the babies a little longer). They asked if I wanted him to go to Children’s Hospital or Johns Hopkins. I told them since there was a shooting at John Hopkins today….I was going with Children’s. The nurse overheard the conversation and found my parents. Because they needed to move him quickly they pulled me from recovery early so I could see Duke.
I was wheeled into the NICU and I was able to see him, or his feet actually. He looked like a little bird with his arms and legs spread out because they were so tiny. He wasn’t moving except for his chest, which was a relief. They put me at the bottom of his bed so I was able to touch his feet, but that is all I could reach. His feet were tiny and not moving. They had no measured him yet, so I wasn’t sure how much he weighed or how long he was. I told them to let my parents in to make sure they got to see him too and they wheeled me out and I will admit I cried a little. I knew he was in good hands, but I didn’t get to see him as much as I wanted to.
They got him prepared to air lift out of the hospital and it took an EMT taking a picture with my camera for me to see his face, which was so tiny. I jumped online to let everyone know how I was doing. I got a lot of flak for this too, but I didn’t have a child to care for so I needed to keep busy. They set me up with some pain medicine and I sent my parents home (that couch was no place for anyone to sleep). I fell into a deep pain free sleep.
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