Quinn William

Quinn William Sullivan was born May 11. He is such a beautiful little baby and we're so happy to have him in our family.

If you're not into details, just skip down to the pictures. Quinn was born 10 days early. At my checkup the week before he was born, my doctor told me that my platelets were low. I had issues with this between my two pregnancies, but they were okay earlier in my pregnancy with Quinn. The doctor wanted to retest them, but told me I might have to deliver early if they were still low. At the next appointment, he told me they were still low and that the baby and I were both ready to go and there was no need to wait and that my platelets would likely just get lower as the pregnancy continued and it could lead to having to have a c-section if they got too low.

The doctor told us to show up at the hospital two and a half hours later and they would start inducing me. I was already at 4 cm and 90% effaced and labor went fairly quickly with Claire, so I was anticipating that it would go fairly quickly with this one. They started the pitocian about 2:30 and contractions started slow as they had it on a slow drip. They kept turning it up slowly, but it was pretty uneventful. They were waiting for the doctor to show up. He had been called to another hospital with a natural labor. We waited until he got there about 8:10 and broke my water. After that the contractions came on really fast and strong. I was ready for my epidural then. Because of my low platelets, the epidural was more risky. The anesthesiologist wanted to do a spinal instead of an epidural because the needles are smaller and there is less risk of bleeding. However, they only last two hours and then its over. He wanted me to wait as long as possible before getting it. When the doctor broke my water I was at a 6, and by 9:00 I was at an 8 and progressing fast. They called the anesthesiologist back in to give me the spinal. About 20 minutes later I was at a 10 and ready to push. It only took about 4 pushes and he was out with very little effort.

After the birth, my blood pressure went really low and I almost fainted lying in bed. I was shaking really bad and felt awful. They gave me some medicine to help, but it took about 3 hours for me to feel normal and good enough to hold the baby. We made it though, and he is such a great baby. We're so happy to have him as part of our family!

Claire loves being a big sister.

She loves to hold "baby brother's" hand and give him kisses and rock him.
Quinn came home on Friday. Even in the hospital he was not a good nurser, but when we got home, he got even worse. He would just scream and not latch on, or he would be calm and just not interested. He was only eating about every 4 hours on average. When we took him to the doctor on Monday morning, we found out he had lost 17% of his body weight. The doctor was very concerned. She said we could do some blood tests, but she was fairly certain he would need to be admitted to the hospital and recommended we just take him straight to the ER at Primary Children's. We found out he was really dehydrated and was slightly jaundiced. We ended up staying over 2 nights while he got IV fluids and got the jaundice lights. Once he got rehydrated and healthy, he became a totally new baby. He is so mellow now and actually eats when he is hungry with no fuss. He is wonderful. Now we are just working on getting him off of formula since he had it after every feeding in the hospital to keep him hydrated and get his weight up. We're so glad to have everybody home happy and healthy.