Oh, here is a photo of Stacy on the phone. This was her last call before she signed up for  Cingular's new Motherhood minutes calling plan.

Representatives from the hospital showed up around 2pm to show us what to expect our baby to look like in a few months.

At about 3pm, a delivery room opened up, so we all walked to the new room. 

I pretended that the bag-holder was a droid, named C3AB-negative.

On the way to the delivery room, we passed this vending machine in the hallway. 

For the next seventy hours, this would be our only source of food.

The actual delivery room was huge and wonderful. It was so strange to see a huge, plush, comfortable room inside a hospital. This was like finding a hidden honeymoon suite inside a  prison.

They had a powered, transforming bed for Stacy, four chairs, a small couch and a gliding rocker.  There was also cable television. 

Stacy's parents, Baby Dan, Gene, Amanda, Jonas, the Amys and I waited with Stacy.

Waiting for the pushing to begin, I walked around the room inspecting the birthing equipment. I wondered, would they boil the water here, or bring a pot of it up from the kitchen?

In the ceiling, there were two extremely powerful lamps focused on the area below Stacy's belly.

This little electronic pump controlled the rate of flow for the Pitocin.

We scared Stacy with this cervical dilation chart. She showed us 4 centimeters.

Not long after this photo was taken, fun and games were over for a while. Stacy's water broke, her contractions became stronger, and her nurse called for the anesthesiologist. 

This all happened in the middle of Oprah, so I hardly noticed.

Within a just few minutes, the contractions were very strong and painful. It was surprising how quickly the pain escalated from uncomfortable to very painful.

The anesthesiologist arrived and began to administrate the epidural. 

The epidural is a funny kind of pain-killer. I say funny because it isn't a pill or an injection... well, it is an injection, but they put it into your spine.

A thin, flexible metallic tube is pushed through a fat needle into your back and in-between two of your vertebrae. Then, a local anesthetic is squirted into the area just outside the spinal cord called the epidural space. This anesthetic halts messages along the nerves, in this case, the message that is blocked is "AAAAAHHHHHHHH MY UTERUS IS IMPLODING!!!!".

The thin metallic tube was left poking out of her back, just in case a little more anesthetic needed to be squirted inside. They carefully taped the tube down so that it wouldn't be pulled out. You can see how the tube winds its way down her back to that red spot above the pink belt. For an animated graphic of the epidural, scroll down to Şekil 3 on this Çukurova Üniversitesi webpage.

The blue and pink velcro belts held on Stacy's contraction monitor and baby heartbeat monitor.

Please continue reading page three of the Hospital Childbirth story