This morning, Quinn was 4 days old, and she woke up, opened her eyes and calmly looked around at the world for several hours with nary a cry to be heard. So far she has been a very calm and unfussy baby -- of course, she's been sleeping quite a lot so that may change. Still, it seems like her personality is shining through already.
A few comments on the labor and delivery. Laura Jean was completely and totally awesome - she did 20 hours of labor with no
epidural, including about 4 hours of extremely painful 'transitional labor'. I am 100% sure I would have cracked in under an hour; even
Chuck Norris would have been begging for drugs. It was amazing!
That said,
pitocin is not our friend. We were induced because the baby was at 41 weeks; the rap on induced labor is that it causes especially painful and intense contractions, but it does work to get the baby out soon. Unfortunately, the drug mainly seemed to make each stage of labor longer and more difficult. Laura Jean says she would definitely do natural childbirth again, but definitely not induction if at all possible.
We'd also like to give a big thumbs up to the
Bradley classes we took - they were very good in prepping us for all possibilities and giving us the tools to get through it. Laura Jean's sister, Amy, was also there with us for the entire labor and there's no way we could have done it without her - she's a natural at labor coaching as well as a massage therapist-in-training.
And in the end, we got this amazing baby girl with no health complications (apart from a minor case of jaundice).
Quinn has spent a good portion of her short life being held by a wide circle of doting family members. For more pictures, click below.
Grandma has been out here for a few weeks helping out with everything ...
... and Grandpa came out for the weekend to meet the new baby ...
... along with Auntie Jessica.
Here Quinn gets a good grip on Grandpa David's finger.
Auntie Amy and baby Quinn.
Uncle Eric and Quinn (and a penguin).
Grace gets to meet her little cousin.
Timothy and Laura are clearly baby-boomer names (although neither cracked the top 10), while Jean and Irene are somewhat old-fashioned and have been on the decline for years (the combination Laura Jean didn't crack the top 1000). Quinn, as a name for a girl, is rarer but growing more popular in recent years (Quinn for a boy is more common).
