August 11, 2012 Clayton was 11 days old.
The kiddies, my mom, and I drove to Cascade,
Idaho to spend the day at Family Camp and to pick up Andy and bring him
home.
It was great to spend the day at
Camp and Clayton did very well for is first big venture away from home.
When we got back home after a very long day,
the older kiddies went straight to bed.
Clayton was fed, burped, changed, loved on and put in his little box. (No
it isn’t actually a box, that’s just what we have always called it) A few
minutes later, Andy heard him gagging, choking and in distress, so he immediately
picked him up, flipped him over and began patting/slapping him on the back to
help clear his airway.
When I came into
the room and Andy told me what had happened, it really scared me.
I sat down and started rocking my littlest
man, feeling very emotional and also very thankful that Andy had been in the
room and had heard Clayton in distress.
As I sat and rocked him, holding him close, and the tears cleared from
my eyes, I started watching his breathing.
Breath in, breath out, pause…..
shallow
breath in, breath out, pause…
His
coloring was very pale, and he just seemed very tired and limp.
Well this certainly alarmed me and I called
for my mom to come check him.
I gave
Clayton to her to hold so she could watch him.
He continued the same respiratory pattern, shallow breathing followed by
short periods of apnea.
Momma was
holding him upright, watching, and his breathing continued to get shallower and
the pauses were getting longer.
I do not
panic easily, but I could feel it coming on, I was not processing well.
Momma said, “call your pediatrician”… I
couldn’t remember where I had the number saved.
I few seconds later she said “ just call 911”
So Andy called.
We were both so worried about the ambulance
taking him to our small hospital here in town.
We have been told that if you have something serious medically going on,
to “go over the hill” to one of the big hospitals.
Both of these are 45-50 minutes away.
Andy asked the 911 operator if they would
take Clayton over the hill, and the operator told him that decision would be
left up to the paramedics.
While we waited,
my mom was holding Clayton upright, he continued to have shallow breaths, then
a pause, then momma would talk to him and rub his chest then he would breathe
again.
During this time I was pacing
between the front door and the room where Clayton, my mom, and Andy were.
Finally, 3 police officers arrived, 2 came in
the room and watched Clayton’s respirations, asked some questions, and observed
with us how he appeared to just get more and more shallow.
Then Officer K, calmly but with urgency suggested
that they would just take us to the hospital, and not wait for the ambulance to
get to the house.
So momma handed me
Clayton and told me to keep his mouth up by my ear so that I could hear if he
was breathing.
I was so scared, I was
afraid to hold him, I thought he was dying.
Andy and I go out with the
officers, momma stays at the house with the other kiddies. We got into their
SUV and officer H takes off for the hospital.
At first I had Clayton’s mouth to my ear, but could not hear.
I didn’t realize until later that the sirens
were screaming, so that’s why I couldn’t hear anything.
(I thought they only had used their lights
and not sirens-I never heard the sirens) So then I had Clayton to my
mouth.
Sometimes I could feel him
exhale, mostly I couldn’t feel anything, and it was so dark I couldn’t see
anything. I just talked to him, “come on baby” over and over.
At first the plan was to meet up with the
ambulance.
But thankfully officer H took
us the whole 3 minutes to the hospital.
The ambulance was sitting there in the ER parking lot--after seeing the
2 paramedics on duty, I was thankful that the officers had come first.
The ER staff had the door open and a room ready.
I laid him down on the bed, under the bright
lights and the nurse took his sleeper off.
He was now naked, and under very bright lights, and was becoming more
alert.
They connected him to a pulse
oximeter and his O2 saturation was 97%.
This was very good!
His breathing
was back to normal.
He did not appear to
be in any distress and his color was better.
The doc was right there and started checking him out. He asked some
questions and I described what we had observed. At this point I was calm and
thinking clearly; relieved that we were at the hospital. After just a minute of
examining Clayton, the doc said to me, “you know what this is called right?” I
thought about responding with a “no, that’s why we brought him to you, duh”,
but I didn’t.
He then
informed me that this is called
periodic
newborn breathing and is common in infants.
http://blogs.detroitnews.com/parenting/2012/02/16/periodic-breathing-is-normal-in-young-infants/ I
do not remember learning about this in nursing school, it is not listed in any
of my nursing books, and I have never witnessed this breathing pattern in
either of my two other kiddies or in anyone else’s babies.
The
doc also wanted to do a chest x-ray to check his lungs because of the choking
episode.
Following the x-ray we waited
for it to be read.
Interesting fact: all
x-rays taken here at our small town hospital are read by someone at St.
Alphonsus in Boise.
During this time, Clayton’s O2 sats were
97-99%, I knew that pulse ox machine was not going to lie.
My little man appeared to be doing fine!
I
think it was close to 1 am when they discharged us.
Because of our speedy trip with Officer H,
when did not have our own vehicle or Clayton’s car seat.
So we called a friend to pick us up and take
us home.
The nurse asked us if we had a
car seat and I thought the guy picking us up would have his son’s car seat in
the car…. But twas not the case.
Thankfully she didn’t push the issue, and I just held him on the short
ride to our house.
Andy and I arrived
home, so gratefully for how things had turned out.
For the next two nights he slept in his
little chair by the couch and my mom slept on the couch.
We watched him so closely, and he has never
breathed that way again.
I did some
follow up research on periodic newborn breathing, and thought through the
scenario in my mind several times so that I would be mentally and medically
prepared should this happen again, but it never did.
Thank God!
Despite our concerns of taking him to our small hospital here in town, I
have no complaints and feel Clayton received excellent care.
