Girl, Interruped.

I made my first 911 call yesterday.
I had just fed Veronica and was holding her up on my shoulder when she started making a new noise. It was sort of a wheezy high pitched squeal and I remember thinking, "Oh how cute, a new little cooing sound". A minute or two later, the sound repeated; then repeated again. Soon the wheezy sound was regular, like hiccups and seemed to be bothering V. It did NOT seem normal, so I went and got the phone to call the pediatrician. While I was still on hold, V started to wheeze every 2 or 3 breaths and seemed not to be able to catch her breath. When she did breathe, it was shallow and she was looking pale and dusky. I immediately called 911 and couldn't even get my address right, as I was absolutely horrified watching V struggling to breathe. While I was on the phone with the 911 operator, Veronica stopped breathing all together. I had to give her mouth-to-mouth (2 breaths) and I got her crying again. Then her eyes sort-of fluttered close and she went limp and stopped breathing AGAIN. I gave her 2 more breaths, which resulted in a weak cry. This happened one more time and by that time the EMT's had shown up and gave her some oxygen. She was still not moving much, so they turned her on her side and she threw up a little bit. At that point, she began to pink up some and they moved her to the ambulance. I rode with her to the hospital; she maintained her breathing the entire way and although she was asleep on the ride, she perked right up at the hospital. By the time we got there, she was acting fairly normal. My neighbor was the ER doc working at the time, so he came right over when he saw me and took great care of Veronica. They kept her on the monitors and did a chest x-ray to make sure she had not aspirated any sort of solid object into her lungs. She had not. She was able to keep her oxygen level steady, so they let me take her home that afternoon.

She has done just fine at home, though I kept her right by my side the rest of the day and through the night. Other than being quite lethargic, she has been her normal self. I saw the pediatrician today and he doesn't have a clear-cut answer why this apnea episode occurred, but suspects it was related to either a seizure or (more likely) a constriction of the throat similar to "swallowing down the wrong tube" that is related to reflux. He said that the throat constriction is a reflex that can be triggered by reflux and that it can be quite forceful in infants, even causing cessation of breathing for over a minute. So maybe that was it, but no one really knows at this point.

I am feeling okay about her; that's kind of just my gut reaction. I think (hope?) that it was just a fluke occurrence and that we won't see it happen again. Really, I just want to pretend it didn't happen because thinking about it makes me paranoid. I've worn her all day in my new mei tai carrier (which I love and will post a pic of later), just to monitor her breathing.

My poor other children were pretty traumatized watching me perform mouth-to-mouth and having the paramedics rush in. Madelin and Megan each had some friends over, so there were about 6 or 7 girls standing there, watching this all happen. As I got into the ambulance, I remembered that I had another 2 1/2 month old still at home and Mark was still 15 minutes away. They told me that they would keep some policemen there with the girls to watch them for me. One of the policemen was the father of Madelin's visiting friend, so it worked out pretty good. I guess they were caring for Roxy and Jane when Mark walked in the door.

Very dramatic stuff. And I hope I never have to experience any of it ever ever again.