1st few days with Elin at home

Thomas was a little iffy on holding Elin at first.   He liked to touch her, kiss her, and know where she was at every moment but didn’t want to get too close.  This is the first time he held her and he was so proud (it was May 2nd).  He was also pretty confused about the lack of baby in my belly.  He kept pointing to my stomach or rubbing it and asking “baby go?”   Another funny thing was when he wanted attention from someone who was holding her he would instruct someone else to hold her by saying “Dada hold baby E.”

As always Stella was a great big sister from the beginning.  She gets extremely worried if Elin is crying and will go into the room to make sure she is o.k.  She had a week full of attention from her dog sitter, Kristi, taking her to the park and walks with Grandpa and Grandma. 

The week was rough for me.  I had a spinal headache from the wet epidural that made me quite a treat to be around. When I stood up I could almost black out in head pain and the coughing from my lingering cold about made my head feel like it was going to pop off.  I really felt completely and was debilitated.  I stayed on the couch, went to the bathroom and did the best I could to take care of my kids.  Thank goodness my husband and parents were here to help. 

I also had 2 trips to the ER to have blood patches placed to try to help my body replace the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).  One anesthesiologist explained it like a bathtub being filled and emptied.  When I was standing or sitting the bathtub (my csf) started to drain causing decreased flotation to my brain and increased strain on all my cranial nerves.  When I laid down their was more pressure and therefore some relief from my symptoms.  My main symptoms were neck/shoulder pain, throbbing headache, all sounds/noises/people talking had a robot sound to it, lights were difficult on my eyes and my vision was blurred.  Before leaving the hospital the anesthesiologist instructed me to do conservative treatment which is drinking massive amounts of caffeine and lay reclined/flat as much as possible. 

By Thursday night I was in so much pain that Mike and I decided it was time to say that the conservative treatment was not working.  We put the kids to be and left them with Grandma and Grandpa and headed into the ER for a blood patch.  The anesthesiologist at the hospital placed another epidural needle in my back and then drew blood from my arm and injected it into the epidural space.  This was to patch the hole caused from my original epidural.  I then laid flat for an hour and got up.   After this procedure I felt about 50% better but still had the neck pain and robot sound in my head….boo!   We decided it was time to go home and lay down and see if there was more healing.

Friday I was ok and was able to move around a little bit more but by Friday night it was getting bad again.  After sleeping/laying down all night didn’t help we called my OB and 2 other anesthesiologists who all agreed that I would need to have a repeat blood patch.  So we went back to the ER this time knowing it was going to be a longer trip Elin came with and Thomas went to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa.  At the ER we waited and waited and finally I got the 2nd blood patch.  It was a bit trickier this time and Mike and Elin had to leave the room.  Thank goodness for my male nurse Abod who let me hold his hand and would give me a hard squeeze each time she put the needle in my back and for my IV.  It took her 7 rounds of lidocaine and 7 epidural needles to find just the right spot.  The 7th needle went in, there was not tingling, pain, or other weird feeling and we were in the right spot.  She drew the blood and put it into the epidural space.  Then again I laid flat.  This time I could almost immediately see things in the room clearly and the neck/shoulder pain disappeared. The robots however remained . 

Long story short it took 19 days for the spinal headache to be gone.  From the 2nd epidural on everyday I got a little bit better and was able to do more without needing to lay down.  What a crazy headache, it almost was like going crazy because when laying down I felt mostly normal and when standing I could hardly take it.  Every morning it was like a sick joke when I felt great waking up only to stand up and be hit with a slamming headache.  I am so glad it is gone and will never have another epidural again my spine apparently has a little different epidural space according to the doctors.