Big scare with little baby

Happy July!! What are you guys up to? This morning, before writing this I had a typical wrestling match with my 4 month old. He’s getting so strong and starting to figure out how his arms and legs work. Not to mention, heavy! He’s already 17 and a half pounds!

So sorry I’ve been MIA. Our little family had the scare of our lives Wednesday night. Baby Z decided, with his vocal alarm, that he was getting hungry. My Husband Zach (Big Z) ran upstairs to grab him a bottle while I changed his diaper. (We are currently communal living in our basement bc our air conditioning is out… but that’s a whole ‘nother story!) So, I’m changing the baby and the screaming stops, a couple coughs and he goes completely limp. My heart jumps through my throat. I roll him to his side patting his back thinking that he may be choking on some formula that’s decided to make it’s way back up. Nothing. I pick him up and begin semi-forcefully whacking him on the back. Still nothing. I turn him around and fishhook into his mouth/throat with my finger and he comes to.

**I learned at the hospital that the fishhook maneuver is a major no-no, for future reference**

My Husband comes running downstairs from what screaming he heard through the fans we have running. He finds me holding the baby with his diaper half attached. We gather up baby supplies as quickly as possible and head for the hospital. In the meantime, Baby Z has a frequent hiccup that sounds like hes trying to catch his breath and looks terribly zoned out. I’ve admitted before that if you look up the phrase “grace under pressure” you will most definitely never find a photo of me beside it. This event has turned me into wife-zilla and my husbands probably wondering who the heck he married and why he married her. My 7 year old is quiet and as helpful as possible. On the drive there, Jace (sweet 7 year old) keeps checking on the baby (he’s fallen asleep from the car ride) as I hold my hand on his chest to make sure hes breathing.

We arrive. Emergency room parking door is locked with a sign that says to buzz for security. We buzz. Nothing. (I’m losing what little s**t I have left) Hubby says we better go around to the main entrance, we start to walk as security answers our call and asks what we need. We’re inside.

We get to front desk. We’re informed we need to fill out slip to be seen and slide it through window. I do so. No one looks at slip because the nurses are busy with a lady who has cut her hand. (Momma-bear brain explodes as we wait. My Husband keeps giving me the “big eyes” so at least I’m not the only one about ready to kill someone.) Cut lady proceeds to have a conversation with the nurses after she has been fixed up and is on her way out. I begin pacing.

Nurse calls for us. They ask what happened. I explain. They take our babys heart rate, check his oxygen levels and temp. All are good. I’m a little relieved but still panicking inside that they are nowhere near as stressed about this situation as I feel they need to be. (To me, my baby quit breathing and they’re not too concerned.) They take us back to a pediatric emergency room. My Dad comes and picks up Jaceman so he doesn’t have to hang around the hospital all night. A little wait, but we are seen by numerous nurses, residents and doctors. All of which, want to know what happened. I give them my recount. They listen to his lungs, ask us more questions, do an xray. The doctors decide it would be best for him to be admitted.

(Great! We’re now spending the night…)

Around 4am they take us to our room in the pediatric section of the hospital. It’s a new addition to the hospital and is so nice. The nurses are all wonderful and dressed with cute children’s favs on their scrubs.. Well, all of them except the gentleman who has been sent to stab my child. Dramatic? Maybe. I learn that Baby Z has to have blood drawn before we can try to sleep for the night. My husband helps the bloodtaker while I go over all of our booking details with the “nice” nurse.

We spend the night. Well, we sleep for about 2 hours. During that time, around 17 people are in and out of the room. I get up around 5:15 to help the lady who’s attempting an EKG. She’s woken Zachary up and hes less than thrilled. (I second his emotions.) A little while later we are greeted by many Doctors. Another recount is requested. Lead doctor informs me that there are 2 possible diagnosis. Diagnosis 1, BRUE, is a not so uncommon occurance in children under one year old where they stop breathing and then resume breathing on their own with no real reason. Episodes last less than a minute. Doc believes that since the baby didnt turn blue, that diagnosis 2 is probably more likely. Breath holding is the other presumption. Apparently this occurs when a child is throwing a fit/gets upset and decides they are going to hold their breath until they pass out. The thing is, this is usually seen in children starting at the age of 6 months. Mine is only 4 months. Can he really be this stubborn already?? He’s usually the sweetest happiest baby on earth. I mean… so sweet that all the nurses and doctors wanted to steal him. He woke up smiling when they came in to examine him!

(Jace was thrilled there was a PS4 so he could play Minecraft while we waited!)

The doctors said that this is pretty much a thing that will pass. They said he looked great and that all of his test results looked great except for his EKG. We ended up stuck at the hospital until 5pm the next day not knowing why. They had told us around 8am that we should be getting discharged soon. Turns out, our little love had to have a second EKG for irregular results. The worst part is that his second reading came back the same way, irregular. He is showing having 4 inversions instead of the normal 3 that are seen in children. We are seeing a cardiologist on the 5th and are hopeful that it’s just from misplacement of sensors. If you dont mind, please pray that everything is ok. 🙏 The resident we spoke with said that the cardiologist told her the results would not be the reason for him going limp. I’m just hoping theres not something else going on that we were unaware of.

Hopefully this post can find someone who has had a similar experience or is going through the same thing. I’d love to connect & hear from you!!

❤ Bianca