Quinn

I love Baths!

We couldn't have been more surprised when we were sent to the hospital immediately following a routine 32 week ultrasound when I was pregnant with Quinn. Up to that point things had been going great. In fact, I had felt even better during this pregnancy than my first with Quinn's big brother, Spencer. We were told that the baby had stopped growing. They didn't know, and still don't, why.

I spent the next 5 days in the hospital trying to will little Quinn to start growing again. I received steroid shots and we began preparing for a preemie. He was born at 32 weeks 5 days on February 2, 2004 and weighed in at only 2 lbs 5 oz and 14.5 inches long. I had never seen something so small.

Quinn spent five and a half weeks in the hospital and came home at just a smidge over 4 pounds. His ASD was diagnosed in the hospital, but we were told at the time that they normally close on their own and we shouldn't worry. We scheduled a follow-up with a cardiologist when we were dismissed and didn't think another thing about it.

Life with a preemie is very different than life with a full-term baby. Quinn had surgery 2 weeks after his discharge to fix a hernia and we struggled with feeding problems for many months... we still do.

Our cardiologist confirmed the ASD, but decided just to watch it. We all still had hope that it would close on its own. It wasn't until Quinn was almost a year old (and still struggling to put on weight at only 15 lbs 7 oz) that our cardiologist scheduled a cardiac catheterization to make sure there wasn't anything else going on. That's when we learned of the Partial Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return (PAPVR).

We are currently waiting to receive a date for the surgery which will fix both of these problems. I'm trying to gather as much information as possible in the meantime!

October 2005 Update

Quinn had open heart surgery on 3/24/2005 to repair his ASD and PAPVR. The repair was a success and he came home after a 5 day hospital stay.

We have been doing regular follow-up appointments with our cardiologist. He recently made a new diagnosis of a subaortic membrane, which was not present 6 months ago at the time of surgery.

At this point Quinn's SAS is non-obstructive, but we will be following it closely.