Quinn's Blog

Surviving Week 2 & 3

So, my mom came out to help us. And lord did we need the help.

To me, it was like a bizarre episode of “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy”. Accept instead of five queer guys I had one straight mom. About a day after she arrived we bought a bunch of groceries and she went to work on the kitchen. It was amazing in hours the kitchen was cleaner then it’s ever been, and it hand the nice smell of something cooking in the oven. It felt like home again. I can’t tell you how much help she has been. We wanted some time off between family members coming out so we had a few days between Allison’s mom and my mom. I have to say, those few days were the hardest days we’ve ever had.

Anyhoo I’ll let Allison tell you more.

I created a new photo album with some new photos of Quinn. My mom also brought Allison and I some birthday presents and made us a birthday cake. I took pictures of them and you can find them here:

http://www.packthecat.com/Baby/pictures/QuinnWeek1and2/

Also, for those of you with fast connections I have some new videos of Quinn, just look at the bottom under "New":

http://www.packthecat.com/Baby/Quinnqt.html

I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about how tough it has been on Allison and I and would like to find out more about Quinn. I’ll try and post more about her next time.

Greetings from the Red Bull Zombie

We’ve been living like Zombies around here. Well...Zombies but without all that brain eating stuff. Quinn has been a lot of fun but she’s also been a lot of work. We’ve been bonding with her but we’ve also been trying to work out a routine. As you might guess, right now all she wants to do is eat, poop and sleep. (Kind of like a tube that cries.) Unfortunately we have run into one problem, Quinn likes to be held when she sleeps.

Currently, she eats every three to four hours which means that the cafeteria (Allison) has to open just as often. Which means at best, Allison gets about four hours of sleep max. I’ve been trying to share the load by changing Quinn’s diapers and putting her back to sleep after each feeding. But, as I said Quinn likes to be held when she sleeps, if she notices that she’s not being held she wakes up and complains (loudly).

I made the mistake thinking I could handle all of that. I rediscovered Red Bull, the energy drink that “gives you wings”. I tell you, that that drink works! I’ve been living off of 3-4 hours a sleep a day for the past week thanks to a flat of Red Bull that I picked up at Cosco. While Allison would feed Quinn I’d straighten up the house while Allison slept I’d hold Quinn. I wouldn’t get much sleep but I have to admit I’d get more sleep then Allison.

That plan worked until Thursday then I crashed. No amount of Red Bull could keep me up forever. Today I just feel like a Zombie, recovering from my week long Red Bull marathon. I was doing good job at keeping the house clean, now I just want to stair at the TV with a puddle of drool forming around my shoulder and chest. It’s a true Zombie like state because there ain’t nothing good on daytime TV.

We kind of realize now that we can’t do this forever. Even if Quinn wants to be held as she sleeps, we just can’t keep it up. So now we’re trying to figure out how to train Quinn to sleep in her crib or bassinet. We’ve had very little success so far but we’re going to keep trying. Hopefully by week six we’ll have something figured out.

Quinn’s other Grandmother is coming today. She’s driving out from Boulder CO. She’s going to be a big help I’m sure of it. I didn’t realize just how much help Allison’s mom was until she left. An extra set of hands is something we can really use right now.

I have a lot more pictures of Quinn on the way. If my mom helps me get out of this Zombie mode for at least an hour I’ll post them.

Wish us luck, there will be more from us soon.

Home...Finally!

On Friday they let us take Quinn home. We were very eager to get her home. Now that she's here we’re finding that it's a lot easer and a lot more fun take car of her.

But I have to say that first night was weird for me. Allison and her mom went to sleep. I was left up watching TV with Quinn in my arms. I wasn't sure what to do. I thought I could just go to bed. But if I did, this would be the first time that everyone around Quinn would be asleep. That just seemed weird to me.

Ever sense Quinn was born there was always someone awake watching over her. If it wasn't one of us, then one of the nurses at the hospital. Not knowing what to do I flipped around channels on the TV looking for something that would keep me awake. I found the classic film Shaft. I sat up trying to explain the whole " Blaxploitation" issue to Quinn. All the equality issues, social concerns that were connected with it. How power and strength didn’t exactly make for a equal nation. But I don't think Quinn really understood the finer details of the argument.

I resisted asking her if she was born yesterday.

Mostly I talked to keep myself awake. But in the end I realized that I was going to have to go to bed eventually. So I brought Quinn to bed with us, (we have a co-sleeper that lets Quinn sleep with us without fear of rolling over on her) and went to sleep. When I woke up I discovered that was fine.

I still feel weird about going to sleep with Quinn, but it's something I'm getting over.

We also have more quicktimes, I added them to Allison's list, just look for them on the bottom of the page.

http://www.packthecat.com/Baby/Quinnqt.html

An update...

I was going to wait to post this until I knew exactly what to post. But it looks like we may never know.

Allison is doing great, Quinn is doing great. Allison has been discharged but we haven't been able to bring Quinn home yet. They did some tests on Quinn, just your general routine tests to see the health of the baby. They have to do them before they can discharge Quinn. She did great on all the tests except one. I forget the name of it, but it’s a general infection test. A good rating is on this infection test is between 0.0-0.9 Quinn's test came back at 12.5. Unfortunately this test doesn't tell you anything more then there's an infection and you should look for it. It doesn't tell you what the infection is or where it is, just that it is there. So they've been doing more tests. To confuse the matter all the tests were coming back positive, if one came back negative then they’d know what it was and would be able to treat is directly. Add that to the fact that Quinn doesn't look sick at all. She's healthy and alert, good skin color and is showing a lot of personality. But they did have to check her into the nursery where we could visit her for as long as we want, but we can’t take her out due to monitoring and testing.

So what they have been doing is giving her antibiotics. And they seem to be working! At the second test, the test came back at 5.4 then the next test was 4.0. Then 1.3 was the latest number. That’s a lot better then 12.5 but still too high. I was going to wait until they figured out what the infection was before I bogged it. I didn't want to needlessly worry anyone. But it looks like we may never know, just that the infection went away. If all things work out we should be able to bring Quinn home on Friday morning.

The whole thing has been really hard on us. We’ve never liked the idea of Quinn being infected with an unknown something, and no one could tell us how serious it was. Also we’re eager to get her home so we could bond, we’re allowed in the nursery but it’s not the same as having her with you all the time. But at the same time, I'm glad they caught it what ever it is. So never fear, everything is looking good and we’ll be home soon. (It’s hard to complain because there’s other babies in the nursery that are a lot worse off then Quinn is, but all the babies in the room seem to be on the road to recovery and doing great.)

I've been taking pictures every day, and I'll be posting everything as soon as we’re home.

Happy Birhtday Quinn Parker Hurd!

On Thursday August 5th 2004 at 3:10AM Quinn Parker Hurd (pictured on the right) was born. Both mother and baby are healthy and happy.

Allison and I will describe the labor and birth in detail later on. It is safe to say that it was a long and tough labor, but with a very happy result: Quinn. She’s a very cute baby. Despite how tough the labor was we feel like it was an overall positive labor process. Not the way we had planned it, but an incredible and moving experience over all. Allison had a cesarean birth so we will be at the hospital until Monday. Allison is doing quite well and is sitting up, talking and joking around.

If you would like to wish us well, we will be at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City until Monday. You can be patched through at the front desk, just ask for Allison Mussell or Allison Hurd in labor and delivery.

http://www.sequoiahospital.org/

Yahoo Map





Also, I have posted some pictures on our website. You can browse some of them here:
http://www.packthecat.com/Baby/pictures/QuinnBirth/
There are two pages of thumbnails, make sure you see them both, just look at the menu on the left. To see a larger image, just click on the picture.


These are scaled down pictures so that they can be seen on the web. Go ahead and download any of them by right clicking-> Save as
I will provide full size versions later.

Ready Or Not...

I can't spend much time on this entry so forgive all the spelling and stuff. I stopped by at home to pick up a few things. I don't think I can call all of you at once so I thought I should post something before heading back.

Today we went to Ikea to walk around, hopefuly to start something. Walking is supposed to help start labor. Halfway though the place Allison started to get concerned. The baby wasn't moving around as much as she was the day before. She was moving, but not as much as yestorday. So we went to the hospital to be monitored. The doctor was concerened about the baby. We talked about it and agreed that it wasn't worth risking the well being of the baby. So we have decided to slowly start the induction process and see if natrual labor can get a kickstart. We're spending the night at the hospital being monitored, everyone is doing well, but it looks like we will defenetly have a baby sometime tomarrow. I'll try to keep you as informed as possible.

Wish us luck. We will call once we have time. I don't think I can answer all your phone calls so please don't be offended if you don't hear from us.