Kara Renee Dickinson

Hey, this is Michelle. I'm home now from the hospital with little Kara. She is very similar to my other girls, though a little darker hair and slightly fuller lips.
I went into the hospital around 3 pm on the 10th, and had her at 6:26 pm. It was all quick and went with no complications, except with the epidural. While he was doing it, he got a "wet tap" which means that he knicked my spinal column and some fluid came out, so he warned me that I was in for a spinal headache within 12-24 hours. As we talked about all this my blood pressure dropped real low, so they gave me some medication to help raise it and pumped me as full of liquid as they could. Fortunatly, the actual delivery went very well, I was happy and was having no headaches or blood pressure problems by then.

Kara gurggled out a bunch of amniotic fluid at birth and cried quite a bit. She was beautiful. I didn't need any stitches or anything. She wasn't very interested in nursing until the middle of the night. The next day, the headache came, though it is very mild compared with how horrible I have heard it can be. I can stand or sit up completely for short periods of time, then I have to recline or lay flat for the headache to go away. (So, I'm sitting with really terrible posture to write this). It is a dramatic difference from a base-of-the-neck headache that really hurts while standing to instant relief and no pain while laying. I am expecting the headache to last about a week, from what I hear. Apparently I have to wait til the hole in the spinal column heals and fills up with spinal fluid (right now it's kind of like an underinflated tire). So, I'm on doctor's orders to drink lots of caffeine and fluids and take Motrin for the pain. Bring on the Mountain Dew! I feel totally great, except for the headaches.

Thanks for all the congratulations, everyone. She is doing great and I am doing well and have an excuse to lay around and watch TV, so life is good. I will post more pictures later today!