Meet My Nephew! – Baby Kingston

A couple days ago, my sister called the house phone at my mom’s house. I happened to be sitting on the couch watching some mindless show, and they were out on the patio, talking to their neighbor, so I answered the phone. My sister had actually texted me earlier in the day, and once she realized that it was me that picked up the phone, she said, “did you get my text?”. I had forgotten, earlier in the day I had recieved a text that said, “what are you doing this weekend, I am bored out of my mind”. It was one of those texts that you open and look at, and then get busy and forget to respond. So I told her yes, I did get it. She asked me what I was doing, and she was making suggestions to go to downtown Sacramento to go to the Gold Rush day festivities that were happening down there. That SO didn’t sound like something that she would want, let alone suggest to do… I figured she MUST be bored if she was suggesting it at all. She said, “so I’ve literally cleaned my entire house and So yesterday was a normal day. I went to work, and knew that I was going to get off early – (every Friday or day before a holiday, they let us off 2 hours early – pretty cool, huh?). I happened to glance down at my phone while at work, and I got a text message that read, “Your sisters is in labor (early), but she’s probably going to be in full labor by 5pm”. I had told my boss about 3 weeks earlier that my sister was pregnant, and was going to be going into labor soon, and that when that happened, I was going to need to leave. I looked down at my phone again – I realized that I still had an hour before my 2 hours early was up. I told my boss, and she said, “just go”. So I shut down my computer, and took off out the door.

I called my step-dad, Tom’s cell, and when he picked up he said that him and my mom were already on their way down to the hospital. I told them that I was off work early, and they said that they would wait and meet me at a restaurant right off of the freeway. I explained I had to go home and get my camera, and then I would be right there.  I rushed home, fed Bailey, and took off. I met up with mom and Tom, hopped in there car along with my camera, camera bag, overnight bag that I had quickly packed with a change of clothes (JUST IN CASE) and my eagerness and emotion to meet this new nephew of mine.

I have to admit, I am a very emotional person… I mean I cry over the show Long Island Medium, sappy songs, and sometimes even over peoples’ words that are eloquently spoken… I’m a totally softy! On the drive down I heard the country song, Hey Pretty Girl by Kip Moore – and just started crying uncontrollably as soon as he sang the line that goes like this:

“Hey pretty girl, you did so good
Our baby’s got your eyes
And a fighter’s heart like I knew she would
Hey pretty girl, you did so good

Hey pretty girl, when I see the light
And it’s my time to go
I’m gonna thank the Lord for a real good life
A pretty little girl and a beautiful wife”

Ok, so even though its a boy, these lines got me going good! I mean the people in the cars next to me probably thought I had just got done coming from a funeral… I really have no shame. I guess I really let it out this time. LOL.

So we got down to the hospital – my dad and Paula (stepmom), Lennie (Nick’s dad) and then the 3 of us were there.  We went up to the room where Taunie was, and went in to say hello. She was hooked up to her epideral, and looked like she was feeling pretty good… I mean, she could hardly even keep her eyes open. I stayed in there for a few min, and then Nick told us that only 2 people could be in there at a time, and there were other people. I went out in the hall, and then we all decided to go down to the cafeteria to get something to eat.  I decided on a fruit and cheese bowl – due to my clean eating that I have been doing the past few weeks, and we went to find a table in the cafeteria lounge, which was caddy corner to the little gift shop where they want to charge you $7 for a bottle of water and $41.99 for a teddy bear!! That was crazy! I did see that there were a pack of playing cards, and I picked those up for $2.95 and I did find an adorable stuffed giraffe, that played “Twinkle, Twinkle little star” when you pulled it’s tail for $14.99.  I got that for Kingston.

Everyone had come back to the table, including Nick, so I decided that I would go back up to where Taunie was and see how she was doing. She was the same… she was having her contractions, but could barely feel them. I wne to get her a refill on her Sprite, and we talked for a while. She was pretty tired, so Nick came back in the room, and she tried to sleep.

She was in the waiting room – and was later transferred to a birthing room. Once this happened, we all went in to see how she was doing, and how things were going. The contractions seemed to be getting stronger, and they said that she was dialated to about a 7 or 8 – we were thinking that she was going pretty fast, and it was going to be happening pretty quickly after that.  She had everyone leave except for me, and they were going to break her water. This was at about 8 pm.

At about 9, they broke her water, and told her that she was dilated to a 9 and that it would be soon, like within the next 1 to 3 hours. Now we were just waiting for her to get to 10, and then she would be able to start pushing.  I went out for a cigarette with Paula,and then we came back in and sat in the waiting room for a while.  About 1/2 hour later, I went back to check on her, and sat in her room for a while and was waiting for her to get started. It was really special to me that my sister was going to be ok with ME being in the room while she was giving birth. I thought that was REALLY special. She wasn’t progressing, and her water was already broke, so they wanted to make sure that the baby still had fluid to move around in there, and they gave her an amniotic infusion – where they put saline up where the baby is to give him more buoyancy to move around, and so that he wasn’t crushing the umbilical cord.   They said that she was still at a 9 and that the baby was still a little high… it would be a little while.  I went back out to the waiting room with everyone else to let them both try to rest.  Nick was going to call me or text me if anything changed.  It was around 11 pm.

So I sat out in the waiting room with everyone else, and I looked at Pinterest, and my stomach was growling and I was SOO exhausted. I could only imagine how Nick and Taunie were feeling.  At around 12:30, Nick called me. I stood up with my camera and camera bag, and was ready to get down that hall to get some of the first pictures of baby Kingston in his first minutes. I answered the phone. Nick said, “They are taking Taunie in for an emergency c-section, please let everyone know” – I froze.  I stood there, and just frozen for what felt like a minute. I looked at my mom, dad, stepdad, stepmom, and Nick’s dad, and I told them the news.  My dad and mom popped up out of their chairs, I automatically followed them down the hall, heading straight for her room, we opened the door to her room, where there were about 5 doctors in there, and one of the nurses came to the door, and told us that we would have to wait in the waiting room, and that the baby was stressed and they had to get this procedure done. The nurse informed us that both Taunie and the baby were fine, but that the procedure needed to be done and would take about 20 to 30 minutes.  They pushed us out, all of us worried, and we walked back to the waiting room where I paced for a minute or two… not only was I not going to be in there for the birth, but now I was extremely worried about Taunie and the baby. My dad said something that made me feel a little better, he said, “they only call it an ’emergency c-section’ because it wasn’t a planned c-section – if it was planned, there would be no emergency about it”. This made me feel a little better, because I knew what he was basically saying was that the doctors and nurses do them ALL THE TIME. It’s totally routine for them, but for us it was worrisome.  We waited for what seemed like forever. My dad got a call on his cell phone – and he started smiling from ear to ear and even got teared up!! He repeated, “He’s here?”, and then told Nick to send him a picture.  I’m sitting next to my dad chomping at the bit, wanting to get in there like 10 minutes ago.

Then he gets a text. It’s the picture. My dad starts getting all teary-eyed with a big smile on his face. He showed me the picture, I saw a GORGEOUS baby with defined facial features, 10 fingers and 10 toes, a little newborn diaper and a little pink and blue generic beanie. He was born at 12:51 am on 8/31 *Virgo baby*  He was 6lbs 4oz and 18 1/2 in long. Just a little guy!  Nick told my dad that it would be a little bit until we could come and see her and the new baby.

Nick came out to the waiting room, we all gave hugs and congratulated him. We walked back.  Taunie was holding him, still shaky from the drugs, and how weak she felt from being awake for the past almost 40 hours, the put a pillow under her arms, and laid the baby on top of her chest. Kingston went right on to nursing. He was so perfect. Gorgeous. Lovely. Absolute perfection in every way.  We visited for a while, all of us extremely exhausted, and I took some photos, and then we let them be for rest and relaxation. I am so excited to be a part of this nephew’s life. He already means the world to me. I love you Taunie, you are so strong – and thank you Nick for being by her side and being such a great dad already! You guys are truly blessed and I am so happy that you finally got to hold your little man in your arms. Godspeed.