Re: Hannah Quinn Update

[Guest guest]

A quote by Margaret Drabble

" I actually remember feeling delight, at two o'clock in the morning,

when the baby woke for her feeding, because I so longed to have another

look at her. "

A love affair with our children starts the moment they are born. For

some of us, it begins earlier. The closeness of carrying a child in the

womb makes separation seem strange.

Night feedings may be inconvenient. Yet we long for our child to awake

just to get another look. Though we don't yet know the traits of her

personality, she is like a close friend who has come a long distance to

visit, and we want to stay up all night just to be together.

Nothing can compare to the bliss that surrounds a newborn and her

mother.

from " Meditations for New Mothers " , Beth Saavedra

Hello everyone! I know you all have been waiting and I wish I could

have posted an update earlier but I am just now getting back my senses.

I am in love. My little Hannah Quinn is the light of my life. She is

as precious as they come. My poor husband thinks I have forgotten he

exists, but the real truth is that he is just as much in love with our

precious package as I am, and we both tend to forget each other. That

will pass in time.

In a nutshell, Hannah Quinn was born via an unscheduled c-section on

Sept. 1 at 8:32 p.m. We were induced into labor earlier that day as

scheduled, but after many hours of somewhat hard labor and a start and

stop of pitocin a couple of times to regulate Hannah Quinn's heartbeat,

my doctor and I decided we couldn't wait any longer. It was not an

emergency c-section, but it was pretty fast. Within a couple of hours

after the decision, she was delivered.

Her heart still has the defect, AV Canal Defect, and we knew it would

not repair itself prenatally. But her heart is pumping strongly and she

is otherwise very healthy. She came home from the hospital with me 3

days later. She was a bit jaundiced which disappeared after about 3

days. The cardiologist told us that one of the ductus valves in her

heart had not closed at that point (not related to the AV Canal defect)

and we needed to bring her back in in three days to have it checked and

it checked out fine. The NICU sent us home with a heart monitor for the

first few days also. The alarms didn't go off one time. After her

appointment they told us we didn't need it any more. Once a month

appointments between now and December, surgery will probably be

performed in December of January.

The genetics testing of her blood verified mosaic ds at 20% in her

blood. The original amniotic percentage was 30-50%. It doesn't make a

difference. She is our angel no matter what. We will be contacting EI

very soon and will take full advantage of all of the services offered at

this point. Assessment could be a daily thing, but I prefer not to

assess, I will treat her as if she were normal.

I am slowly healing, c-sections are no fun. My back is in the worst

shape - I can't be on my feet more than a few minutes at a time without

being in pain. But the swelling has come down a lot, my ankles finally

look normal again!

I will be updating my website in the next few weeks with a complete

detail of the labor and delivery. In the meantime, I have posted

pictures on the website of Hannah Quinn at

http://members.home.net/littleone.htm

I will keep in touch.

Cheryl