Our TERRIFYING night in the ER

It's taken me two days to even write about this....first - everything is ok.
Our girls have reflux and have been sleeping propped up on boppys with the center filled in and surrounded by pillows on the daybed in the nursery. I sleep with them there and basically can't leave them alone ever because i'm afraid they'll roll off (they're getting bigger and more mobile) and will face plant into the surrounding pillows (there to keep them from hitting the hard wood floors) and suffocate.

Although their reflux isnt as bad as some (they are gaining weight beautifully), it means tht they can't be put down after a feed but have to be held up. I bought a reflux wedge online and was waiting for it to be delivered, in the interim i bought another one from someone on craigslist. My DH picked it up two days ago, brought it home and i put Danielle to sleep in it. The pic on the website and the tag on the wedge say "place baby in PRONE position on her belly".....so - i figure "ok, this is a medical device, they know what they're talking about, her head is to the side, it should be safe."

First time she slept beautifully for four plus hours. Then i fed her; she had gone almost five hours, which is her max, and she gobbled down as usual. Put her back to sleep in the wege (it has a sort of sling like a diaper that keeps them from rolling down). I'm sitting here online and go back to the website and read the fine print "consult w/your pediatrician about he amount of time baby should be on her belly; ideal is usually one hour after eating"

So, i get up to check her, and - it appears that she's not breathing. I snatch her out of it, hold her up, i'm calling her name "Danielle, Danielle", blowing on her face, shaking her a little (not like shaken baby, just moving her to see if she'll wake). NOTHING. I call out to my DH (it's now close to midnight), run in there and am still trying to wake her. She's completely non-responsive. We get a cold washcloth and put it on her face and head; she sort of wakes up but her eyes look pretty unfocused. DH says "she's ok, she's waking up", but i'm looking at her and it's like she's not THERE.

We had been to the pedi that day, who told us that her behavior is more like a 4 month old (they were just 3 months but are only 7 weeks adjusted); she is interactive, chatty, tracking....i of course thought that my stupidity had completely deprived her of oxygen and now i had a terribly brain-damaged baby....

Again, more cold water, dripping it down her sleeper - i would have expected her to be screaming (I would have been). By this time she's awake, but still not crying, nothing. We call the pedi who tells us to go to the ER to have her evaluated.

I was completely panicked. Such an adrenaline rush (from which i crashed terribly yeterday). So we get the girls ready (and somehow, in the midst of this, of packing EBM and bottles and binkies and their medication), i manage to have the presence of mind to bring my moby wrap (sling)....

We put them in the car, Tessa has still not woken up, Danielle is awake but quiet, and i am freaked. DH asks me if i'm breathing (i'm clearly not).....I'm trying not to have the image of my poor brain-damaged daughter running through my head over and over, knowing that that is NOT helpful.

Get to the ER, which is a mess, full of cops and fallen down drunks (we live in DC)....they do intake, and we wait. and wait. Finally a doctor sees us, talks to our pedi and they decide to admit her for observation. I sent DH home w/Tessa, and stayed. Waited for the peds to show up. They do. They go to write orders and soon a nurse comes to take blood and put in an IV.

"Why are you putting in an IV?"
"I don't know, i'm just stepping in here to help"
"why does she need an iv"
because the doctor ordered it (NOT good enough for me!)

"since it appears nothing is wrong w/her why do we need it? I'd like to talk to the doctor"

She comes back - no iv necessary, but she has to take blood. So she starts looking for veins in D's arms - in her fat little cherubic dimpled arms. No dice. I'm in such a state i'm not sure i can handle watching her having to stick my baby repeatedly, so I quietly ask if they could possibly get blood from her heel the way they did in the NICU. So she goes and gets heat packs to bring the blood to the surface, and then sticks her. D, who almost NEVER cries unless she's really hungry, screams bloody murder. The kind where their moths are open and you see their tongue vibrating...
This goes on for MINUTES while this nazi nurse is SQUEEZING her heel....She stops and i nurse D to calm her, which does the trick.

Then we wait some more to be admitted; I finally put her in the sling and got up on the table myself and laid down w/her on my chest. Finally at 6 am they bring us to a room..

By now i'm practically shaking because i hadn't eaten dinner (i was just about to when i checked on her) and have eaten my way through the snacks in teh diaper bag. The nice nurse brought me cereal, milk and crackers. D went to sleep (i almost crawled in the crib/bed w/her) and woke shortly to nurse and sleep in my arms til the parade of doctors came in.

You know you're a twin mom when you have to go to the hospital to get some sleep!

I of course told the story three times (dont' these docs talk to each other??)..they seemed to think that she was fine, no evidence of a seizure or a true apnea incident that would lead to what they refer to as a Life Threatening Incident, which is what they called it). Her color was always fine.

.Finally the Attending came by and reassured me that seh was fine (I knew this by now, as she was her usual charming smiley self). Basically, they thought she had been in a very deep sleep; a combination of the big feed and the fact that she was so comfortable on her belly, so she was walking the halls of Food Coma Land.

We both

Of course, my cell phone had died. We got discharged and i managed to carry all her stfff (ok, so i took half the package of pampers that they had in the room - i figured my insurance was going to pay for it anyway); put her in the sling and went down to meet DH

When this first happened, my thought was "if something is the matter with her, I don't know how i'll live. I'd want to kill myself (I know, i know), but then i thought "but i wont' be able to, because Tessa will still be alive"

I learned a few valuable lessons. First:

- check to see if the baby's chest is moving, and check her color. Sometimes they breathe so shallowly that it seems like they're not breathing at all

- STAY CALM, and do whatever necessary to keep your mind from running to the worst case scenario

- pack more snacks in your diaper bag then you ever think you'll need

- make sure you have a Dh or partner who can stay calm when you can't.

I can't express how AWFUL it was: i really thought that I was going to die. It gives me incredible compassion for all the people around the world who live in a situation where their children are threatened on a daily basis, just walking in the streets.

UGH, I'm exhausted even writing about it. OF course yesterday i kept checking that they were breathing...

 

Oh you poor thing! What an awful thing to go through. The best news of all though is that Danielle is just fine!! What a shock it must have been to have an unresponsive baby. And what an ordeal at the ER- my gosh! :blink: I would have lost it with the nurse or doctors. You handled things really well. I wouldn't have been so out of it that I wouldn't have checked about the IV---good goin'!!

That is probably my biggest fear though...that they are not breathing! As soon as mine were able to flip over, they have slept on their stomach, no matter what we do. And I always check on them with the video monitor and see them scrunched up at the head of the crib smooshed up against the bumper pads...and I always start freaking, telling hubby to go check on them. But they are always just fine and are pretty P.O'd that you messed with them to see if they were alive! Paranoid Mommy I guess!!!

 

:hug99: :hug99: :hug99: OMG you poor thing.
Glad everything is ok.
My Dh and i are always checking there breathing at night when they are sleeping and hubby always says he can't tell but i just lightly lay my hand on ther belly and close my eyes (it seems to help) and you can feel them breathing.

 

:hug99: I am so glad everything is okay. Try to get some rest.

 

I am so sorry about what happened. We had to rush our poor guys to the ER before. We got the same unorganized treatment. ERs need to get more organized!! I am glad she is better@@


QUOTE(Jordari @ Jun 23 2007, 09:48 AM) [snapback]304057[/snapback]
It's taken me two days to even write about this....first - everything is ok.
Our girls have reflux and have been sleeping propped up on boppys with the center filled in and surrounded by pillows on the daybed in the nursery. I sleep with them there and basically can't leave them alone ever because i'm afraid they'll roll off (they're getting bigger and more mobile) and will face plant into the surrounding pillows (there to keep them from hitting the hard wood floors) and suffocate.

Although their reflux isnt as bad as some (they are gaining weight beautifully), it means tht they can't be put down after a feed but have to be held up. I bought a reflux wedge online and was waiting for it to be delivered, in the interim i bought another one from someone on craigslist. My DH picked it up two days ago, brought it home and i put Danielle to sleep in it. The pic on the website and the tag on the wedge say "place baby in PRONE position on her belly".....so - i figure "ok, this is a medical device, they know what they're talking about, her head is to the side, it should be safe."

First time she slept beautifully for four plus hours. Then i fed her; she had gone almost five hours, which is her max, and she gobbled down as usual. Put her back to sleep in the wege (it has a sort of sling like a diaper that keeps them from rolling down). I'm sitting here online and go back to the website and read the fine print "consult w/your pediatrician about he amount of time baby should be on her belly; ideal is usually one hour after eating"

So, i get up to check her, and - it appears that she's not breathing. I snatch her out of it, hold her up, i'm calling her name "Danielle, Danielle", blowing on her face, shaking her a little (not like shaken baby, just moving her to see if she'll wake). NOTHING. I call out to my DH (it's now close to midnight), run in there and am still trying to wake her. She's completely non-responsive. We get a cold washcloth and put it on her face and head; she sort of wakes up but her eyes look pretty unfocused. DH says "she's ok, she's waking up", but i'm looking at her and it's like she's not THERE.

We had been to the pedi that day, who told us that her behavior is more like a 4 month old (they were just 3 months but are only 7 weeks adjusted); she is interactive, chatty, tracking....i of course thought that my stupidity had completely deprived her of oxygen and now i had a terribly brain-damaged baby....

Again, more cold water, dripping it down her sleeper - i would have expected her to be screaming (I would have been). By this time she's awake, but still not crying, nothing. We call the pedi who tells us to go to the ER to have her evaluated.

I was completely panicked. Such an adrenaline rush (from which i crashed terribly yeterday). So we get the girls ready (and somehow, in the midst of this, of packing EBM and bottles and binkies and their medication), i manage to have the presence of mind to bring my moby wrap (sling)....

We put them in the car, Tessa has still not woken up, Danielle is awake but quiet, and i am freaked. DH asks me if i'm breathing (i'm clearly not).....I'm trying not to have the image of my poor brain-damaged daughter running through my head over and over, knowing that that is NOT helpful.

Get to the ER, which is a mess, full of cops and fallen down drunks (we live in DC)....they do intake, and we wait. and wait. Finally a doctor sees us, talks to our pedi and they decide to admit her for observation. I sent DH home w/Tessa, and stayed. Waited for the peds to show up. They do. They go to write orders and soon a nurse comes to take blood and put in an IV.

"Why are you putting in an IV?"
"I don't know, i'm just stepping in here to help"
"why does she need an iv"
because the doctor ordered it (NOT good enough for me!)

"since it appears nothing is wrong w/her why do we need it? I'd like to talk to the doctor"

She comes back - no iv necessary, but she has to take blood. So she starts looking for veins in D's arms - in her fat little cherubic dimpled arms. No dice. I'm in such a state i'm not sure i can handle watching her having to stick my baby repeatedly, so I quietly ask if they could possibly get blood from her heel the way they did in the NICU. So she goes and gets heat packs to bring the blood to the surface, and then sticks her. D, who almost NEVER cries unless she's really hungry, screams bloody murder. The kind where their moths are open and you see their tongue vibrating...
This goes on for MINUTES while this nazi nurse is SQUEEZING her heel....She stops and i nurse D to calm her, which does the trick.

Then we wait some more to be admitted; I finally put her in the sling and got up on the table myself and laid down w/her on my chest. Finally at 6 am they bring us to a room..

By now i'm practically shaking because i hadn't eaten dinner (i was just about to when i checked on her) and have eaten my way through the snacks in teh diaper bag. The nice nurse brought me cereal, milk and crackers. D went to sleep (i almost crawled in the crib/bed w/her) and woke shortly to nurse and sleep in my arms til the parade of doctors came in.

You know you're a twin mom when you have to go to the hospital to get some sleep!

I of course told the story three times (dont' these docs talk to each other??)..they seemed to think that she was fine, no evidence of a seizure or a true apnea incident that would lead to what they refer to as a Life Threatening Incident, which is what they called it). Her color was always fine.

.Finally the Attending came by and reassured me that seh was fine (I knew this by now, as she was her usual charming smiley self). Basically, they thought she had been in a very deep sleep; a combination of the big feed and the fact that she was so comfortable on her belly, so she was walking the halls of Food Coma Land.

We both

Of course, my cell phone had died. We got discharged and i managed to carry all her stfff (ok, so i took half the package of pampers that they had in the room - i figured my insurance was going to pay for it anyway); put her in the sling and went down to meet DH

When this first happened, my thought was "if something is the matter with her, I don't know how i'll live. I'd want to kill myself (I know, i know), but then i thought "but i wont' be able to, because Tessa will still be alive"

I learned a few valuable lessons. First:

- check to see if the baby's chest is moving, and check her color. Sometimes they breathe so shallowly that it seems like they're not breathing at all

- STAY CALM, and do whatever necessary to keep your mind from running to the worst case scenario

- pack more snacks in your diaper bag then you ever think you'll need

- make sure you have a Dh or partner who can stay calm when you can't.

I can't express how AWFUL it was: i really thought that I was going to die. It gives me incredible compassion for all the people around the world who live in a situation where their children are threatened on a daily basis, just walking in the streets.

UGH, I'm exhausted even writing about it. OF course yesterday i kept checking that they were breathing...

 

Im glad she's OK, I would have freaked!!!!!!!

 

OMG you poor thing! :hug99: :hug99: I'm so glad Danielle is fine. Try to get some rest if you can!

 

What a scary situation. Thank goodness she's okay!

 

oh boy, my heart is racing just *thinking* about how I would have felt if I were in that situation. I think you handled everything amazingly well. I'm sure crying has never sounded more beautiful!

Reyna

 

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :hug99: :hug99: :hug99: How scary ... you seemed to handle that extremely well, no matter what you might think. You had the presence of mind to stick up for your daughter, to nurse her to calm her down, to demand care ... you could have just flipped out and needed assistance yourself. I'm so glad she's OK!!!
I've done the thing too where you stare at your baby and can't tell if they are breathing so you poke them ... I had sleep apnea as a baby and had to be on a monitor until 18 months, so it does freak me out a bit. The first time I stopped breathing I was in my dads arms, he was just holding me as I slept and I stopped breathing. How scary!!!
Thank goodness everyone came out of that safe and sound. THank you for sharing.

 

You poor thing! What an awful night, I know you must have been really scared. I'm really glad it all turned out ok. :hug99:

 

thank goodness everything is ok!!! us moms need some kind of device that we can stick in our baby's ear or someplace that will light up and say "I'm OK!!" or "I really don't feel good!"

having babies is so wonderful yet so scary too!!!

 

Omg- I would have been freaking! I'm the mom that doesn't trust her monitor and woke up every hour to check her babies breathing. That seriously would have been my worst nightmare! Luckily it wasn't anything, but still! Oh, I got the shivers reading that!

 

How scary!! That is one of my worst fears! I am glad that everything ended up okay!

 

WOW! How scary! I was like Jenny, so untrusting of the monitor and in there always checking on them. I always wondered what if something was wrong, what would I do? I'm so glad to hear it all turned out okay!

 

I am sitting here shaking for you!! I can't imagine how scared you all must've been!

I am so glad she is fine, and alright.

Many :hug99: to you!

 

OMG, I'm so sorry you went through this!
There is nothing like parenthood to make you crazy -- and I don't think we ever stop worrying or fearing the worst.
I'm glad you shared this story, though; since it has a happy ending, it serves as a good reminder for us all of just how fragile our babies are.

My DD1 DROPPED Annika from a standing position (so, like 3 ft!) straight to the ground the other day. I just about felt my heart explode while I watched this in slow motion and checked my screaming baby over. I had the same thoughts as you: OMG, she's brain damaged, she'll never be the same... all the while trying not to freak out my DD1 or make her feel worse than she already did. What a nightmare!

I'm glad everyone is ok. Have a relaxing weekend!