Monday, December 29, 2008

Thank You, God

Around 6:00 am Friday morning, Elizabeth's motion monitor (AngelCare) alarm went off. Before I really knew what was happening, Nate was already running to her room.

I immediately followed him, and by the time I got in there, he had already flipped her over (yeah, she used to sleep on her stomach) was shaking her and yelling, "Baby! Baby!" and "She's not breathing!" No response. He kept shaking her and yelling, "Baby!"

I ran over to flip the light on. I ran back to the crib and realized the light still wasn't on. So I ran back and flipped the light on. I realized later that I probably opened her door the first time. Apparently I wasn't thinking straight or something.

In the meantime, Nate was still yelling and shaking her. He breathed into her mouth. Nothing. He breathed into her mouth a second time. I reached out and did about five chest compressions. Then she finally started squirming. Wow.

This whole ordeal from her alarm going off to her coming to was probably about 20 seconds. It felt like an eternity. I have never been more scared of anything in my entire life. She was pretty out of it for a while. Nate picked her up first and held her. I was shaking too bad. She was squirmy and wiggling around, but didn't cry for a while. I think I sat down before Nate gave her to me, but I'm not sure.

I fed her and changed her diaper and clothes, just wanting to keep her awake. She wanted to go back to sleep so bad, but I was way too scared to let her. She had a really weak cry for about 5 seconds. Boy was that a beautiful sound.

The on call nurse told us to go to the ER since Elizabeth wasn't breathing for over 30 seconds. They did all kinds of tests on her - chest x-rays, blood sugar, oxygen, complete blood screen, etc. They couldn't find anything wrong. Everything was perfect. By the way, she did NOT like getting her foot poked for the blood tests or getting her temperature taken. She let out some good loud healthy cries, which were heartbreaking and wonderful to hear.

I thank God that she's okay and for the AngelCare monitor. The ER doctor told us this would have been a classic case of SIDS and that this monitor is the best money we've ever spent. It makes me nauseous to imagine what we would have woken up to in the morning if we didn't have that monitor.

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