Part 3: Epidural

I don't know much of what happened in the room for the next 45 minutes or so. Cindy said that Tina was sleeping between contractions and even during them -- must have been exhaustion. My dad and I went downstairs to get a drink and fresh air. The drink went fine. Going outside went fine. Getting back into the hospital went less fine. The door, which opened well enough to let us out, was locked from the outside about 3 hours ago. Um. Oh. OK. So we had to walk around to the under-construction emergency room entrance. Halfway there the sprinklers on the hospital lanw soaked my dad, who apparently didn't think to look forward when he walked. So he was drenched. Thus we walked into the emergency room admissions area and had to get a guard to let us up to see Tina. I didn't think he was going to let us in -- why would a baby's dad and grandpa be coming in the wrong entrance late at night and soaking wet? But he did.

A nice staffer at the hospital took pity on my dad and gave him a change of shirt to wear while his shirt dried.
I don't know why he's looking even goofier than normal in this picture, but the janitorial scrubs look so so wrong on him.

About 1:45AM, I went down and found Tina sleeping soundly and Cindy watching her because her blood pressure was really low. That's a standard side effect of epidurals, and Tina's BP is low anyway. But for the next few hours it went down to liek 89/32. Not good, but no permanent harm seems to have befallen mama or baby.

Tina was in a pretty good mood now. No pain, just a little pressure. Bliss.





About 6:30AM, Tina started feeling more pressure and the beginings of an urge to push. This was good, of course, but a bit disappointing for Cindy. She'd worked with us her entire shift through the night and wanted to see the baby born. We would've liked for her to be there, but we also knew Dr. Pastoriza would be in at 7AM and really wanted him to be there. Happily, we heard him walk in just after 7 and we got a new nurse, Mary Lynn, who was also great.