Hospital, visitors and an epidural patch, oh my!

During my pregnancy, I toured both Menorah and St. Joseph Medical Centers to see which one we would deliver at, and was highly impressed with both. I hadn't known anyone personally who had delivered at either, but I was confident that either one would be a good fit for us. We decided on St. Joseph Medical Center because both my doctor and Grace's doctor were officed just down the hall from the labor and delivery ward, definitely a convenience factor if anything were to go wrong. The nurses and doctors were all very helpful and took care of us so well while we were there.

We also had wonderful visitors during our two days at St. Joseph.

Uncle Jeff

Grandpa Ron and Grandma Barbara

Ali, Jeff's girlfriend

Aunt Laura, Uncle Matt, Ella and Will

Emily and Cho

And we had a few visitors that I didn't get pictures of: Kathy and Jeff Arbuckle, Aunt Shirley Ernzen and Aunt Dorothy McDermed.

The only hiccup at the hospital for me was that I had an epidural headache that started about 4 or 5 hours after the epidural wore off on Friday and lasted until Sunday morning when I finally had the epidural patch procedure performed. I didn't know it was an epidural headache, or even what that really was, so I just kept asking for more pain medicine. I thought it was just a part of the recovery process. I thought it was also from nursing Grace and trying to get the latching on process down. It was more than just a headache for sure; it was a total head, neck, shoulder and back ache. When I finally mentioned it to my OB on Sunday morning, he brought an anesthesiologist back in and we discussed my options. I could just drink plenty of fluids and it would go away in a week. OR I could have another epidural and they would "patch" it with blood from my arm. Not being scared of needles, I went for the epidural patch, and it worked immediately!!

Now nursing was a lot easier and I felt tons better. I didn't even need the pain medicine prescription that my doctor had written.

I was a little anxious about leaving the hospital because now we would be completely on our own, but we are adjusting just fine and we are figuring out what works and what doesn't with baby Grace. More to come soon.