A VERY Scary Day

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting at the computer chatting with Kathy from All About the Boy, when my phone rang. It was Beth and we got to talking about just everyday normal stuff. I was trying to concentrate on both conversations but was having a hard time because I heard Morgan fussing from her crib. I had put her to bed about thirty minutes prior with a bottle that she had almost finished it.

I heard her fussing and figured she had emptied it as usual and wanted another one. So I asked Kathy to hold on a second while I went to make one for her. I moseyed into the kitchen to make a bottle all the while chatting with Beth on the phone. When I had it in hand and all shook up I headed to the girls room. Morgan was standing up facing out of her crib and was crying or really she was screaming. I layed her down and tried to give her the new bottle but she wouldn't suck on it at all. So I figured she was too upset to eat and I picked her up to comfort her.

When I lifted her up out of the crib I realized she was choking. She was screaming out but then her chest would tighten in my hands and she would look panicky at me like she couldn't breathe. I scanned her crib and the only thing odd in it was a Tigger stuffed animal that had curly cue hair. I immediately assumed she had gotten some of the fuzz down her throat and was struggling to breathe around it. Beth was still on the phone but at this point it was laying on the floor. I turned Morgan over my forearm, head down and started pounding on her back to try and dislodge whatever she was choking on. It didn't work. I turned her back over and swept her throat and nothing came out and she was still choking. I carried her and the cell phone to the living room and tried to pound on her again. Nothing.

I was starting to panic. She stopped screaming but was still grunting in between long pauses of nothing. I hung up on Beth and called 911!

ME: "My baby is choking" I said as fast as I could. "Hurry, please somebody, please hurry"

The lady got my address and directions and then put me through to a dispatcher.

DISPATCHER: "M'ame is your baby concious."
ME: "Yes, but she is struggling to breathe. She isn't getting any deep breaths in and she is going pale"
DISPATCHER: "Okay "M'ame. ... M'ame ... Hello? Are you still there"
ME: "yeeeeesss" I cried between sobs
DISPATCHER: "M'ame, I need you to calm down... Hello? What is your name"
ME: sobbing almost uncontrollably. Still pounding and trying to coax her to breathe. "Mandy" I said. Subconciously I realized she was trying to get me to calm down.
DISPATCHER: "We are going to have to try the hymilech, okay? You ready?"

Click. My cell phone died.

I was online when all of this happened and the reason I called 911 from it was because I couldn't get stupid AOL to disconnect fast enough to get a dial tone to use the home phone. By this point the home phone was back to working so I called back to 911. They put me straight through to the same dispatcher and as she said "Mandy?" The police showed up at the door. I threw the phone still online with 911 on top of the t.v. and never went back to hang it up.

I somehow managed to put Jenny behind a pet gate and let the guy in. Though by this point I was shaking so bad I thought I was going to throw up. Morgan was looking bad and fast. Right behind him were the firemen and the ambulance. About ten people in all piled into my living room. A lady took Morgan from me and said "We are taking her right now to LeBonheur. She isn't breathing well, she has to get to the hospital" I had to use the bathroom immediately so I ran in there, greatful that someone else more qualified was there to save my child should she pass out. The paramedics hollered from the living room "Do you have a carseat?" "Are you hear alone" "No" I called out, "her twin is in the baby bed sleeping in their room" "Can you drive?" "Is your car unlocked?" I got out of the bathroom and they had already taken Morgan to the ambulance and a fireman was at my car yanking the carseats and bases to the carseats out of my car. Both of them.

I grabbed Maddy, the cell, my purse and keys, amazingly, the cell phone charger, and a diaper bag that was thankfully already packed. I had that bottle I had made for Morgan in my hand so I chunked that in the car seat with Maddy. The fireman had to put the carseat base back in my car. He had no idea what he was doing. But we got her in and me in the car. The paramedics did not want me to try and follow them to the hospital because they were going to go fast and were afraid I would wreck if I went through a red light with them.

They told me to head on up there they were going to be several minutes getting her situated and secure in the ambulance. I asked how long and they said there was time enough to run two miles up the road and pick up William. I called on the way. He was waiting on me in the parking lot. I burst out in tears when I saw him and so he got behind the wheel and I moved to the passenger seat. He went crazy! He peeled out of his work parking lot and then out onto the road like a physcho teenage driver. I started screaming at him, while crying, and I think I slapped his arm very hard. "Maddy is in the car. You are going to kill us or someone else. Pleease slow down, pleeasse" He didn't realize Maddy was in the car and had been so worried about Morgan he was practically running off the road. He immediately slowed down and started driving like my grandfather on Sunday.

When we got to the hospital he dropped me off and went to park. I came in to see my child slumped over in her car seat. Nurses all around and an oxygen mask on her face, IV in her arm. I panicked again. The EMT reassured me that once they got some 100% oxygen on her she calmed down and fell asleep. They said her lungs sounded very crackily and bad. They took us to a room with a curtain. The nurse listened to her and said she was improving. Within a few minutes her lungs sounded clear. They were all shocked.

The doctors came and went, asked questions, and eventually sent us for a chest xray. The xray came back fine. They said her lungs still look bad from the Chronic Lung Disease she had from NICU but there was no difference today than before. They saw nothing foreign anywhere in her airway or lungs. The suspicion quickly became that either A) She refluxed some on that little left in her bottle and choked on it or B) She swallowed a small lump of unmixed thickener and it got stuck in her throat and choked her but eventually dissolved. Eventually B) was the reason they settled on because there was nothing on the xray so whatever choked her must have dissolved and even if she had refluxed they would see trace amounts in her lungs.

The doctor wanted her to eat some and if she didn't choke they would release us to go home. But ... Morgan refused to eat. She wouldn't take her bottle of milk, or pedialyte with popcicle mixed in. She fussed and clamped her mouth shut and wouldn't eat. We speculated that it was too loud and distracting in the ER for her to settle down to eat. So they sent us to a room that was quiet and dark ... still nothing. This went on for hours. Eventually the doctor called our peditrician and they agreed that the best course of action was to admit her for observation for 23 hours. Let her get to a quiet room, away from people and see if she would eat. They were concerned that since she hadn't eaten since the bottle around 2:30 at home she might dehydrate and we would end up right back where we started, new IV and all.

So about midnight we went to a room on the fifth floor. We got settled and they brought out the artillary to try to get her to eat. NOTHING. She wanted nothing to do with it. We figured she was exhausted so we went to bed to let her sleep and maybe eat when she woke up. This morning she still wanted nothing to do with the bottle. We started guessing that she didn't like the taste of the premade formula or the feel of the bottle. We cut her nipple to allow for easier flow. We stopped putting thickener in her milk and juice. William went home and got her powder formula and we made it just like home. We tried apple juice. We tried the bottle with her nipple. We tried their bottle and latex nipple. We tried a sippy cup. Nothing. She was not going to eat. Finally someone thought to bring in some pudding. We broke open the pudding and she started eating from the spoon. She finished off the entire cup of pudding. Then I tried feeding her her formula from a spoon and wahhlaahhh, she was eating her milk from a spoon.

We guessed that it must be an aversion to the bottle. To the idea of sucking. Poor baby was traumatized from choking. The attending doctor finally came around and was satisfied that she would at least take something. Something that would be liquidy and hydrating to her. So we were discharged with the intent to feed her anything and everything she would eat and just let her take her time coming back around to her bottle. He said the worry long term is about calories, but short term, as in the next few days it is just to keep her from being dehydrated and having to come back to the ER.

So we are home. Yay! Safe and sound. She has eaten some baby food tonight and William said she finally drank a little milk when left alone in her bed to play with it. Of course now, everytime we hear any noise from her room we run. I am super paranoid now about her eating and the stupid thickener. William has been straining her formula to make sure there are no lumps at all. I am sad for her that she had to endure such a trauma. And I feel terribly guilty that I didn't rush right to her crib the first time I heard her fussing.

I seriously just thought that she wanted a second bottle. That is kind of a usual request for nap time, so I just assumed that was the case this time. How lucky I am that I went to make the bottle. There have been times when the girls have been put down for a nap and have not been 100% ready to sleep. Sometimes they will stand in their crib and fuss for me to come back and get them. I oftentimes let them fuss a few minutes because they usually calm down and go to sleep without intervention from me. I've found that if fighting sleep, I come in the room, the screaming and whining just escalates. So I feel so lucky that I went in there at all because what if she had stood there choking and then passed out in her crib. I could have sat here in the living room feeling completely victorious that she had fallen asleep and instead my sweet baby could have been fighting for her very life.

I am just so greatful and thankful that everything turned out fine and we are all better now, if not just a lot shaken up. It will probably take a while before I feel confident again as a mommy, but that is to be expected. I love my girls so much and honestly I don't think I could go on living even one day if they were not here with me. They are truly the best thing that has ever happened in my life.