Abbie's Tantrum

So I should probably tell you what happened last Tuesday. It was bedtime and all five of my kids were in the hallway near the bathroom door. I was back in the  bunk bed room waiting for them to make their way back to me. Something happened to Abbie and she started to scream. I went to go pick her up thinking she had gotten smashed by Easton or something. As I picked her up she went very rigid and then completely limp. She wasn't breathing. Her lips were blue and her eyes had rolled back into her head. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I screamed and Brandon came running and took her from me. I ran to call 9-1-1. She was only unconscious for a couple of seconds, but when she came to she still couldn't breathe. We weren't sure if she was choking on something or what was wrong. The 9-1-1 operator answered the phone by asking if I needed police, fire, or ambulance. I couldn't even think of the right answer because I was so freaked out. I stated, "My one year old isn't breathing." So he patched me through to the ambulance dispatch. Brandon was doing CPR and I was just running up and down the stairs screaming into the phone, "please hurry, please hurry, please hurry." It took about three minutes for Abbie to let out a horrendous scream. The operator asked me if that was the child who wasn't breathing. And I was sobbing (because I was so relieved) so I could barely answer him. He said, "That scream is a very very very good sign." I knew enough to understand that screaming meant breathing so I just sobbed and sobbed. Three minutes may seem like a short moment. But 6 minutes of no breathing is when brain damage starts. And three minutes of your baby being blue and not being able to breathe is definitely long enough for you to think she is going to die.

The ambulance crew got there soon after the screaming started. They listened to her lungs. They took all of her vitals. Checked her oxygen. They couldn't explain what had happened. There was a lot of blood involved. Brandon had it all over his hands when he was done. But we are pretty sure he scraped her throat with his finger nail when he was doing a finger sweep. Her poor throat is so tender and was probably very torn up. But he thought he felt something in there and wanted to make sure that whatever it was wasn't lodged. Oh my gosh. It was horrifying. And none of these words can even slightly cover it. But I just wanted you to know.

Oh, and to make it even better. She did the same thing two nights later. Yep. She did. Only this time we didn't call 9-1-1. Mostly because my dad was holding her and was the only person in the room. He apparently doesn't have my same propensity to panic.