"What's best for the baby..." part 1

Everyone says that your life changes when you have kids...boy is that an under-statement.  My parents always did things based on making a better life for me.  They moved to America!!!  So naturally I've adopted the same principal.  I've done things that I never considered or thought were important before Elizabeth came along.  (Like I've made my living will and bought life insurance.) I think Chris gets it but doesn't get it.  I know sometimes he thinks its over-kill (like searching through ratings and descriptions for the car seat that has the highest rear-facing weight capacity and safety score). But being the dutiful husband he is, just goes along with my whims under the premise of "what's best for the baby".

The first thing we did with this in mind was move out of our cozy 2+2 second floor apartment and into my old bedroom with my parents.  This was what was good for the baby because at the time I was leaving my horrible old job without a new one in sight and we could save tons for getting our own place.  So we said good bye to all our stuff and put it in storage for the next year.  This would prove to be a stressful time for us as new parents but it was also good to have the help. 

The next big "What's best for the baby" came days after her birth.  The average hospital stay for a natural vaginal birth without complications is 2 days.  We, however, spent 5 days 4 nights in the hospital; not because there was anything wrong with the baby, because I had something called a spinal headache.  I'd never heard of this before it happened to me.  I went into the hospital praying that they wouldn't need to do a C-Section because everyone says that it's very painful and the recovery sucks because you can barely do anything to take care of the baby.  And I wanted to be there, to be present for everything with her.  Little did I know...

The spinal headache is caused from spinal fluid leaking out of your spinal column and causing you to basically not have enough to cushion your brain in your head. This was caused from the epidural I had nicking the sack surrounding my spine.  The morning after giving birth, they removed the epidural needle and I started to get the worst headache of my life.  Every time I went past a 30 degree angle my head throbbed and spun.  The couple of times I got up to go to the bathroom was torture and I tried to make it as quick as possible because it felt like I'd pass out.

It was the most miserable I'd ever felt and not because I'd just pushed out another human being.  I felt like it was taking me away from my baby. Poor Chris was not only taking care of her all by himself but he had to take care of me too. And for the first 2 days they didn't even realize what the problem was. So when our night nurse finally figured out what it was we talked to a doctor who gave us our treatment options: 1. Wait for the hole to heal on its own. Possibly taking up to a week. 2. A Blood patch where I have them go back into the area and inject my own blood to form a clot and patch the hole. Neither sounded like great options but being that messing around in my back had caused it in the first place I wasn't exactly excited for option 2.

I chose to wait it out with IV drips to help keep the fluid levels up while I stayed down.  So another day went by with no change and no end in sight.  It was awful. Late the 4^th night, miserable and depressed, I decided that staying like this was pointless.  I was completely useless to Elizabeth and I needed to do what was best for the baby.  We paged the nurse and told her to let the doctor know that I wanted to do the blood patch.  Frustratingly though, we’d have to wait until morning. That morning Chris and the baby had to leave the room when the doctor came with two nurses.  One nurse held me up while the doctor worked on my back and the other nurse took blood from my arm.  It was excruciating just sitting up let alone having the blood injected by my spine.  But I kept telling myself that this was “what was best for the baby” and I could do it for her.  

To let the blood clot properly, I had to lay motionless for at least an hour.  It worked and afterward my head felt much better but my back was stiff and sore.  When the doctor came back to check on me, she said that it would hurt because it was basically like a strained muscle but I could go home anytime. After a few more hours, we took our baby home. So what do you do when you have a strained muscle? At home that night, my back still hurting, I laid on a heating pad for awhile.  Little did we realize that of course this attempt to relieve the new pain would lead to the return of the spinal headache because it was dissolving the blood clot.  A day latter we headed into see my OB/GYN to confirm that the headaches were back. We headed back to the ER for another 8 hours to get a new painful blood patch.  "Whatever was best for the baby." 

So long story short, after an absolutely miserable first week with my baby I permanently have what Chris calls the constellation of needle punctures on my back to show for it. But whatever was best for this beautiful baby.