Sore Wife and a few pictures

One of the reasons I have been so slow to post all the exciting details of our beautiful new baby is that, in addition to the normal exhaustion of newborn in the house, Angie had an epidural that went badly. The anesthesiologist apparently nicked the spinal sac and dosed the epidural directly to the spine fluid. This is not the normal method. In fact, only about 1 in 150 births that use epidurals have this complication. This complication ends up being essentially a spinal block. The two biggest problems are that, first, the test dose for the epidural is about 10 times stronger than the dose for a spinal block so all feeling below the block is gone for 8 to 12 hours instead of being manageable, as an epidural would. Second, the resulting leakage of spinal fluid from the spinal sac causes extreme headaches, similar to a raging migraine, and back shoulder and neck aches. So needless to say, poor Angie has been suffering. In the hospital, she received multiple morphine doses to relieve the pain, and when the head ache waned they released her on Sunday. Unfortunately, on Wednesday, the headache returned so on Thursday, after a quick checkup for the baby which went well, we went to her doctor to see what they could do. Her doctor recommended a blood patch ASAP, so off we went to hospital to have the procedure done. This is very similar in process to the epidural/spinal block, but instead, they insert some of Angie’s blood into the spinal column to assist the clotting and stop leaking. It took about two hours, and it may not solve the headaches completely, but it is the only real option. So far it has helped, but Angie is still struggling in the evenings with an aching head. I will keep you all updated.

The baby is doing well, and her baby checkup indicated she was gaining weight already. She is sleeping quite well and twenty minute crying spells are the exception not the rule. She has been a remarkably unfussy baby, and we are considering ourselves blessed, but are weary of the other shoe dropping. Here is what you came for, more pictures: