It’s the Dawsons!

Well, things never got better.  They got markedly worse.  She developed a crushing headache that couldn’t be relieved by Percocet, Ibuprofen or anything else.  It really fired up around 4am Sunday and kept getting worse.  It peaked yesterday when she was unable to lift her head.  Literally.  As soon as her head came off the couch cushion, she had about 30 seconds before blinding pain and nausea hit.  She just couldn’t do anything about the pain.  I quickly became convinced this was more than just a neck strain and remembered something about the anesthesiologist saying something about 1% of people who get epidurals can get an “epidural headache” afterward.

I called Billy Jones, my freshman roommate at Marshall, all around good guy and 4th year resident in anesthesia at the Cleveland Clinic to get the download on these headaches.  Turns out, Kari was exhibiting EVERY symptom of one and he was a bit shocked that no one treating her figured it out.  We soon realized that the problem was that we kept describing it as neck pain and it just never clicked with anyone to ask about the headache portion of it.  We called her OB and he told us to head into the ER and get it checked out.

For everyone’s information, an epidural headache or, correctly termed - a post-dural puncture headache (PDPH) - is caused when the epidural puncture allows one’s cerebrospinal fluid to leak out into the soft tissue in the area.  The headache comes because the brain is cushioned by this fluid.  When someone suffering from PDPH sits or stands up, the fluid leaks out the puncture and the brain will drop with gravity - which pulls on all the membranes and blood vessels connecting the brain to the top of the skull.  Sounds pleasant, huh? 

Sue, Kari’s Mom, was able to come over to watch Elliott and we headed to the ER around 5:00.  After dodging the requisite homeless drunk guy in the waiting room, we were admitted and the doctor there quickly came to the diagnosis that Dr. Billy Jones came up with via phone from Cleveland - Kari had a PDPH.  The first attempt to fix it is a caffeine drip.  In less serious cases, the caffeine can mask the symptoms until the body can heal the puncture and fix the leaking/brain dropping problem.  Kari most definitely had a serious case so we were soon on our way to a room on the delivery floor for a blood patch.

The best way to fix a PDPH is a blood patch.  Simply put, the doctor takes blood from Kari’s arm (20 mL) and injects it into the same epidural spot she received the day Elle was born.  The blood essentially plugs the leak and most people get relief within 30 minutes.  Thankfully, Kari was in the 95% of people that the patch works for.  She was still sore in her neck and shoulders, but the headache was gone!  At this point it was 11:30pm and we needed to stay overnight for observation.  Back we headed to the post-partum floor we departed just 2 1/2 days before.

Our sweet little girl was at home in good hands.  Grandma Sue was taking care of her with an assist from Grandpa Gary.  Elle even got a visit from Uncle Boggs and she couldn’t have been better.  We’re blessed with a little girl that eats and sleeps well with minimal fussing.  She is also a pooping machine and Dad was happy to let someone else change a few of those bombs from our little stinkpot. 

Kari and I were able to get a decent night sleep, interrupted by a few nurse visits and pumping, but it was a good chance to catch up a bit.  Kari checked out around 9:00 this morning.  Her headache is completely gone, which is an immense relief.  She has some significant back pain in the epidural location, but that is to be expected and should get better over the next few days. 

A special thanks to Sue and Gary for taking one for Team Dawson and spending the night on our couches.  Thanks as well to Dr. Billy Jones (I just like to call my friends “Doctor”) - glad to see our late nights partying in Twin Towers East didn’t distract you from acing biology and chemistry back in freshman year and got your started on this path.  

We’re happy to be back home with our daughter and mostly I’m just excited to have my Kari back - the light is back in her eyes and she can’t wait to be feeling 100% and do all the things with Elliott she wants to do. 

Bonus Elliott Photo!!

Sleeping on Momma's chest...

The Dawsons left Sturtevant a family of two and returned a trio.  We were released from the hospital around 3:30 this afternoon.  Our insurance gave us 48 hours after the birth and with a snowstorm(!) on the way, we decided to get out of there a bit early.  Honestly, while it is nice to have the resources of the hospital right at hand, but the prospect of our own couches and bed beckoned all day.

We spent the past two night on the post-partum floor of West Allis Memorial Hospital’s Women’s Center.  As amazing as our nurses were on the delivery floor, the nurses we had the past few days left quite a bit to be desired.  If I have the energy, it could be its own post one of these days, but suffice it to say - none of our post-partum nurses will be getting any thank you cards, but I do plan on filling out a few comment cards.

Inept service aside, we’re doing as well as can be expected.  Elliott is doing great.  She’s an eager eater, extremely aware and alert and still cute as a button.  She does have a mild case of jaundice, but nothing out of the ordinary for a baby of her size.  Kari is recovering.  The biggest challenge right now is what amounts to a case of serious whiplash.  She pulled nearly every muscle in her neck and shoulders pushing little Elle out (see the “12 Hours Later” post on my blog to read the full story).  Because of that, she is unbelievably uncomfortable.  Do you know what the best cure for a muscle strain is?  Immobility.  Try nursing a baby while not moving your neck.  Doesn’t work so well.

While Kari is fighting the pain, I’m trying to do all that I can to make both girls comfortable.  I’ve changed about 20 diapers already (Elle hits a particularly unique note when that cold wipe hits her little butt) and trying to keep her quiet so Kari can get some sleep and rest her aching mind and body.  We’re all tired and at times all confused at what to do next, but we can’t help but smile at our little girl.  Even when she’s testing out her lung capacity at 3:30am.

At the request of many, here are a few more photos…

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Whew.  We made it.  We have 1,000,000 emotions right now and could write for hours, but we are worn out.  I’m working to collect my thoughts and I’ll get some up on my “Thoughts from Homer” page, but for the time being we are ecstatic to introduce you to our daughter, Elliott Dorothy Dawson.  She’s beautiful.  She’s perfect and She’s absolutely healthy.

She was born at 7:11pm weighing in at 6lbs, 14oz and measuring 19 1/2″ tall.  Both Kari and baby Elle are doing wonderfully, but both very tired and sore.  See the mini slide show here to see some pictures from night #1.  I’m sure there will be many more to come.  Thanks for all the text messages, e-mails and voice mails.  We’ll get back to you as soon as we can - we’re sure you understand that we’re a bit busy right now

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So Kari’s cervix must’ve taken offense to all the names it has been called the past few weeks.  Once she start dilating, she isn’t messing around.  She just roared past 8cm and delivery is coming any time this afternoon.  I think our daughter wants to come out in time to see the basketball games tonight.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

Just a quick update from the hospital.  Kari has been a rockstar so far.  She got her first two doses of Cytotec at 5:30 and 11:00 last night.  The next dose was scheduled for 3am, but Dr. Bear (her OB) decided to skip the planned third dose of Cytotec and start the Pitocin around 2am.  Then at 3:15am, Kari woke me up with news that her water broke! 

There wasn’t much progress on the cervix front at that point, but around 4:30am the contractions jumped up a notch.  At 7am, Dr. Bear arrived and checked - the cervix had softened, but wasn’t dilated at all.  The contraction intensity just kept climbing and an epidural was administered around 8:15 this morning.  Now that she’s not delirious from the pain, Kari is much more comfortable and we’re hoping she’ll be able to get some rest this morning (she didn’t sleep at all last night). 

The encouraging news is that between 7am and 10am, Kari went from no dilation to three centimeters!  The nurses were blown away and it just reconfirmed how hardcore the contractions were.  I sit here trying to type quietly as my tough-as-nails wife gets some much needed rest.  We’ve got a big day ahead of us…

Well, we’re about to depart for West Allis Memorial Hospital and get this baby here!  After a doctor’s appointment Monday, Kari’s OB decided that he didn’t want to wait for her cervix to cooperate (it’s been called all sorts of names recently, but the moral of the story is that is isn’t effaced or dilated at all).  Kari’ll be put onto a Cytotec dosage throughout the evening and night with the hopes that Ms. Cervix cooperates a bit more.

If all goes well, they’ll induce tomorrow morning and at some point our little girl will come into the world pink-faced and screaming.  If the Cytotec dosage doesn’t improve the cervix, the doctor will have to decide if we wait another day to try it again or go in and get her via C-section.  We’re excited, nervous, giddy and bit scared.  All-in-all, the exact emotions you’d think we’re going through right now.

Once Baby Dawson arrives, we’ll be sending out pictures (and yes, revealing the name) via e-mail, Facebook and on this site.  For those of you in Milwaukee, we’ll let everyone know if/when we’re ready for visitors.  We’ll be posting when we can.  Love you all.

Hello and welcome to the Dawson corner of the web.  We are preparing to welcome our first child and for our lives to change forever.  We wanted a place where we could share news and notes about the two of us, our new daughter and our experiences as parents.  We hope you all enjoy coming along for the ride on this exciting new journey.

This site will grow and develop along with our little girl.  Right now it’s pretty simple.  On this page you’ll see general posts about our family - specifically our daughter.  We’ll be posting pictures and videos here quite often - just wanting to show off our daughter as much as possible - while also sharing stories about her and our family.  We’ll also both have our own blogs. 

Both Kari and I have our own little sections of the site and you can get to those on the sidebar to the right.  We’ll be writing about our experiences as new parents (no promises on frequency of posts - we’re new to this whole parenting thing).  We welcome comments and suggestions to make this a better experience - please join in the discussion!

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In the slideshow you’ll see pictures of Kari’s pregnant belly from weeks 4, 6, 13.5, 16, 20, 25, 29.5, 31.5, 34, 36 and 39!