Last night – while deeply sleeping in some deep-deep sleep . . . A jostling of the bed was followed by the urgent cry that “THE BABY’S NOT BREATHING!”
Terror – terror – terror.
Everyone jumped out of bed – the baby – whose eyes were starting to roll back in his head – was grabbed, flipped so that his face was in my hand, then – in that position – angled so that he was facing kind-of towards the ground and then was hit a few times in the back to try to dislodge whatever was keeping him from breathing. The dog ran into his cage – 
and 911 was called.
We had taken baby CPR – and I was trying to stay calm and go through all of the steps that we had been taught – but it was difficult – in the heat of the actual moment. Everything was all very intense and fast . . . lightning fast.
Within a handful of seconds – thankfully – gurgles of bubbles were coming out of his mouth and his breathing – even though it was labored – started up.
The image of his confused little face trying to figure out what was going on – while I was still working on him is stuck with me. It makes my stomach hurt.
Almost instantly – right after he had started breathing – the police and the ambulance arrived and I ran downstairs to grab them. While we were rushing up the walkway to the house there was a quick flurry of questions so that they could get caught up on the situation. It was about 1:30 a.m. and there were about 5 new people in the apartment – in our bedroom. The dog barked from his cage.
After a thorough checking out and a bunch of other questions, it was determined that it was probably just some mucus that got caught and that we could go to the hospital or just keep an eye on him for the rest of the night. He had stabilized, his color had come back and he was cooing and giggling – so – we decided to just go in the morning.
Some paperwork was filled out, some hands were shaken and then – there we were – a dog, a baby and an extremely frazzled mom and dad . . . left to wonder how we – and I’m not counting the dog or the baby here – would ever be able to sleep again – without an underlying nervousness.
I can’t even begin to say how amazed I was at how quickly help arrived . . . and how great they were. It is very reassuring to know that in such a critical moment – that help can appear so quickly and work to make everything better.
Thanks to Montclair’s bestest for being the best.
Thanks to Emerson for starting to breath again.
Deep breaths everyone . . . Baby Emerson is breathing again.
