Today is Baby Quinnlan's 1st birthday! I am amazed at how quickly this year has flown by! It's funny what a different 1st year she and I have had compared with my 1st year of being a mom with Mia and Chloe! It's so true that with the 2nd (or 3rd, in my case) child, you are so much more relaxed. I have been able to cherish all of those little moments (that now I know fly by!) that I may have missed with Chloe and Mia because I was stressed out about not knowing what I was doing, much less the fact of having twins and not knowing what I was doing!
We consider her our little miracle baby because from the beginning of my pregnancy with her, there seemed to be one complication after another---everyone said that I was spoiled by all of the ultrasounds I received with Mia and Chloe, and that I would miss them being pregnant with a single baby, but not with Quinnie! I saw her all the time up through 20 weeks! Then she was pretty much a mystery till she was born.
Here is her story (just like for Mia and Chloe's, this is mainly for my benefit, so it may be a little long):
Our 3rd child (we did not find out the sex beforehand) was due to be born September 4th 2008, which happened to be my 34th birthday, but we scheduled to have a c-section on Friday, August 29, so neither of us would have to "share" :)
On Monday, August 25, I went about my day as usual and had planned on having my last pedicure before our big day (it's nice to have pretty toes when everything else about your body has grown-literally-out of control...also it had been ages since I could reach my toes myself!).
Kevin came home early and took over watching Mia and Chloe ride their bikes in the parking lot behind their preschool across the street so I could run up to the local nail salon. I stopped at Publix to grab a Luna Bar and a Vitamin Water to have during my pedicure since it was getting close to dinner time and I was already hungry. I remember thinking, "While I am sitting still in the chair, I know my belly is going to be moving around like crazy after eating this." But during the 45 minutes that I sat still, I didn't feel the baby move once. Then I started wondering, "when was the last time I felt the baby move today?" and I honestly could not remember.
When I went home, I went to see Kevin in the office and told him my concerns and when he told me that I should call the doctor, I began crying out of nervousness. I had to wait for the doctor on-call to call me back because it was after hours. Dr. Lee (not my regular OB) called back around 6:30pm and I explained my concerns to her and she said to go ahead and come down to Piedmont and they could hook me up to a fetal monitor to make sure that everything was OK.
We went ahead and packed up our things in case we were going to be staying at the hospital and called Mom and Dad and told them that we would be bringing Mia and Chloe to their house while we headed to Piedmont. I was so worried in the car and Mia and Chloe didn't really know what was going on...so in their nervousness, they were a little hyper. So I just leaned my head back and closed my eyes and through my tears, I kept praying that our precious baby would be OK. Then, out of the blue, Mia starts singing in her sweet 4 year old voice a song from a Kids Praise CD that we have, "Trust, trust in the Lord, lean not on your own understanding, in all, all of your ways acknowledge Him and He'll make your paths straight"...well, she didn't know all of those words, but she had most of them right and I just cried thinking that God had given me that word of encouragement and peace through the song of a 4 year old.
We dropped off Mia and Chloe at Mom's and went down to the hospital and when we got there, Dr. Lee had us admitted and they went ahead and hooked up the fetal monitor and it was a tremendous relief to see our baby's little heartbeat on the screen and to hear it as well. I can't express the way your heart stops as the nurse is hooking everything up and turning on the monitor as you wait for the first sound of a heartbeat.
Dr. Lee wanted us to be monitored for a couple of hours to make sure that everything was OK and so Kevin called and let all of our family know what was going on. Once I knew that our baby was fine, I did not want to go home...I was ready to have this baby. I mean, what's the big deal of doing my c-section 4 days earlier than planned? If you've ever been pregnant, you know how those last weeks and days creep by and you are SO ready to be done with that pregnancy and meet your new baby---especially with all the excitement about if it's a boy or a girl!
As the hours passed, the nurse came in and asked if I felt the contractions that I had been having (they showed up on the monitor as well) and I honestly did not feel anything except for a little discomfort in my back. Dr. Lee came in to see how things had progressed and I just told her that I really did not want to go home just to come back in 4 days to have this baby and she said that I was having contractions 3-5 minutes apart at that point and that if I went home, I would just be back in the hospital in the morning, at least, anyway. So we scheduled my c-section for after midnight so we would get that extra day in the hospital (a.k.a. "The Mont") from our insurance. Nice...
After that decision was made, the whole family came to wait for our baby's birth. Everyone except for my mom voted that they thought we were having a boy. I really had no feeling either way...I was just excited to finally meet this baby that I considered a miracle.
We found out that we were pregnant on Christmas Eve 2007. I had some 1st trimester bleeding at 6 weeks and found out that there was a blood clot in my uterus along with the amniotic sac. Then there was more bleeding as the blood clot came out and when we went in about that, we found out that their had been another amniotic sac (twins again?!?) that had been hidden by the clot. My OB, Dr. Fisch, said that nothing had developed in that 2nd sac, and it should just reabsorb into my body. Then at 9 weeks, I experienced such a horrible incident of bleeding where we thought that there was no way that I was not miscarrying again. (Between Mia and Chloe and Quinnlan, I got pregnant and had some spotting at 11 weeks and with the ultrasound, they told me that our baby had stopped growing at 9 weeks) I will never forget laying on my grandmother's bed at Mom's house waiting for Kevin to come and get me to take me to our OB to see why I was bleeding so badly and having both my parents lay their hands on my belly and just pray and plead that God would please let this baby be OK. I have to admit that I didn't have the faith that I should have had at that moment. I just thought that there was no way that everything was OK. Even on the way to the doctor's office, Kevin and I both thought that it was over. But, when we saw Dr. Lee (she seems to be our Dr. in crisis!), she did the ultrasound and our sweet baby was just fine! The bleeding had come from the other amniotic sac coming out! It was such a relief. My faith is so small sometimes. Thank you, Lord for showing us that even when things seem dire, You are in control.
OK, back to the delivery...Kevin and Mom (I thought it would be awesome to have my mom experience this with me---I would love for any of my daughters to ask me to be in with them during their childbirths!) went to get their scrubs on as I went to the operating room to have my epidural and to be prepped for surgery. I was much more nervous than I was when I had Mia and Chloe. I think it was because I was not in pain as I was with my first labor. I have no idea why I didn't feel any pain with this labor, but I'm not complaining! I had some initial nausea and light-headedness that was relieved by the anesthesiologist, and the remainder of the surgery went beautifully. As Dr. Lee pulled out our baby (butt 1st...our little breech baby), she asked Kevin to stand up and announce what we had...Kevin said, "It's a girl!" and it was amazing. I just cried knowing that our little Quinnlan Greer was here---August 26, 2008 at 1:08am. She weighed 6lbs 8oz and was 21 inches long. Just beautiful.
"Another Girl?!? Really?!?"
After they cleaned her up and gave her the APGAR test, Kevin went with her to the nursery to have her 1st bath and to announce to our families that we had another baby girl. Mom stayed with me as Dr. Lee sewed me up and I went to the recovery room to wait to see our sweet baby. When Kevin brought her to me, she was ready to eat! He said she screamed like she was starving from the time they took her to get her bath until they brought her to me. She latched right on and then fell asleep in my arms. This is what I had been waiting almost 10 months to do...hold our little one and look at her and marvel at this miracle of life.
Proud Sissies
Quinnie has been so great,except for her hating bedtime those first few months---definitely different from Mia and Chloe who were incredible sleepers pretty much from Day 1---my mom said that they slept better because they had each other in the crib, but I kept thinking that there are millions of singleton babies in this world that sleep well and they are alone in their cribs!...Anyway, she finally gave up the fight and now she is a great sleeper for all of her naps and nighttime sleep! She is pretty laid back, but every once in awhile we can see her strawberry-blonde irish temper flare up when she really wants something... I love her laugh and her smile, which is changing because she is FINALLY getting some teeth! She has 1 that has broken through on the bottom and 2 that have broken through on the top in one week! Poor thing!
She has completely blossomed over the past 3 weeks since Mia and Chloe have returned to school and we have so much one-on-one time together to play. She is doing really well with her signs ("more", "water", "please", "milk") and words---most are only recognizable to me :) ("Dada", "Mama", "Sissy", "Ball", "Please", "Doll", "Thank you", "Nana", "Banana").
I pray daily for abundant blessings in her life and that she will choose to follow the path Our Lord has set for her. I am so proud to be her Mommy and I look forward to seeing her grow into a fun toddler over the next year! What a difference a year makes!
A few days old compared to...
...now!
