The hospital stay

Oh the hospital stay. How was yours? Ours certainly wasn't enjoyable.

So after Leo was born and they took him to the NICU, I was finally able to eat. The hospital gave me a turkey sandwich, potato chips, grapes, and Oreos. This was hospital food, so the sandwich had a skinny piece of turkey and a leaf of lettuce smooshed between two pieces of plain bread. And let me just tell you that it was the absolute best sandwich and the absolute best dinner I have ever had in my entire life and I am not kidding about it one bit. I guess giving birth makes you kind of hungry.

Once I finished my dinner they took me and Talon down to the recovery room. Talon went with one of the nurses to be with Leo while they gave him his bath and all that jazz. I stayed in the room with the other nurse who made me answer all kinds of nonsense questions like my pain threshold and specifically what I needed my nurses to do for me, to which I replied "ummmmm, what you're doing is fine," and apparently that was not the right answer  because she told me to be specific and so I said, "ummmmmm, be nice?" And apparently that was an acceptable answer, she even wrote it down. We then proceeded to check off a bunch of other uncomfortable post-labor things, which I won't get into here for obvious reasons.

It seemed like Talon was gone for hours. My in-laws had all come down to the hospital and they had been waiting for several hours while I was in labor and the NICU trip and a few other things postponed their stay and I felt bad they were waiting for so long. But they got to see Leo through the window in the nursery and saw him get his bath and all of that so that was good. I talked to my mother-in-law and then sister-in-law for awhile and then Talon finally came back with the nurse and with Leo. Leo! My baby, who I hadn't seen for more than twenty seconds since I gave birth to him was finally mine. I was too exhausted to have one of those unforgettable moments between mom and son but I will say that it just felt natural with him in my arms.

Shortly after my in-laws all packed in to our teeny-tiny room and everybody took turns holding Leo and taking pictures of him. The joy in that room was palpable. It was so late, like two in the morning, by the time they left. And next thing I know I woke up the next day when my nurse came in to check on me. Apparently Leo only slept for 19 minutes that night and Talon stayed up with him the rest of the night. I didn't know, I was knocked out, haha.

The rest of the stay was just stuffy, cramped and painful to be honest. It was nice to have our visitors who were just my parents, my older sister, one of Talon's aunts, and our good friend, Travis. Aside from their visits we were visited by nurses every twenty minutes. And yeah I get that it is their job but we had two nurses who were not communicating at all because they would alter coming in our room and asking the exact same questions and we really just wanted to be alone so we could rest. If it wasn't the nurses coming in every minute it was the lactation consultant or the pediatrician or someone from the hospital asking me to take a survey for them about my experience. It was just too much for us after what we had just been through and we were dying to go home.

We would've gone home had it not been for the complications that came up. So of course I wasn't feeling great after just having a baby but probably around midday of Wednesday (the day after I had Leo) I started getting a headache. I thought it was just because our room was stuffy and I had hardly gotten any sleep in two and a half days so I didn't say anything about it, but it began getting progressively worse in a very short amount of time. I finally said something to my nurse about it and she just brushed it off like it was no big deal. I told her about it a few more times and she still didn't think much of it (we weren't big fans of her). That night the migraine was unbearable and so I told Talon who told my nurse, and this time we had a different nurse because they had switched shifts, and she actually took it seriously and gave me a stronger medicine to help me sleep.

I woke up on Thursday feeling better and so I thought that was the end of that but only about an hour later I had another unbearable migraine. By this point we were back to the other nurse who wasn't taking it seriously and we weren't too happy about that. I mentioned it to her again and finally this time she listened so she got me some stronger medication and then left me and Talon alone for hoursssssssss and let us sleep. When I woke up I again felt better but this time just a few minutes of the light and an attempt to walk around sent with it another blaring migraine and I knew that something was wrong and that this wasn't normal. When I told the nurse she mentioned something about my charts saying that some of my spinal fluid may have leaked while the epidural was being administered and that she would go get the anesthesiologist to check on me.

The anesthesiologist came and explained to me that while it's rare, there are times when spinal fluid leaks during the epidural procedure and that it can cause migraines just like what I was having because apparently spinal fluid is toxic to the rest of your body. He wasn't the same anesthesiologist who gave me my epidural so he had to go get in contact with him to see what had actually happened. All of the waiting was excruciating. I've had migraines before and I'd say I typically have a high tolerance for pain but I couldn't handle these. Unfortunately, all I could do was wait. When he came back he confirmed that my spinal fluid had leaked and that that was what was causing the migraines.

He gave me two options: 1. I have a blood patch, which is basically the same procedure as an epidural except they take some of your own blood and inject that into the same spots where the epidural was injected. The blood is supposed to act like a scab and seal the area so that spinal fluid doesn't continue to leak. The downside to this is that it's extremely delicate and can easily pop open. If I decided to get the blood patch I wouldn't be able to lift anything or do anything remotely strenuous for a couple of weeks. Even coughing, sneezing, and going to the bathroom can pop it open. If it pops open you would have to get another one or suffer through the migraines. When he told me this I immediately dismissed the idea because no sneezing? Seriously? It just didn't seem like a realistic choice. Until he told me the other option. 2. I lay flat on my back in a completely dark room with no noise whatsoever for two weeks. Seriously? This was even more unrealistic than the first option. So, I went with the blood patch.

The anesthesiologist administered the blood patch and then I had to lie down for an hour before I could move or do anything. Once the hour was up my nurse came in and mentioned that in her two years of working she had never had a patient that this had ever happened to. I guess that's why she wasn't taking me seriously. But I found that odd, that I was the first patient of her's to have this so I looked it up and the chances of getting a post dural puncture headache are minuscule. And when I say minuscule, I mean like less than one percent. So if I scared you about getting an epidural, don't worry. Anyways, after the whole thing Talon and I kinda laughed about it, like honestly, what are the odds that I would be a part of the half percent out of like the bajillions of epidurals that are administered.

Anyyywaysss, after the blood patch we were so ready to go home but it took awhile longer before we could leave. We finally got out of there close to 10 p.m. and were so relieved. We both felt awful at this point. Me, because I just had a baby, obvi. And Talon, because he got a really bad headache because of teeny-tiny, stuffy hospital room. The second we stepped outside and breathed the fresh air we both felt a ton better. My parents drove us home because Talon was so exhausted.

It was so surreal to carry our new baby inside of our apartment. And even though I felt absolutely terrible, I was so extremely happy to finally have him with us.