A few scares

Emmersen was only about 7 hours old when she gave us our first scare.  Our visitors had left for the evening and Aaron and I were relaxing with Emmersen in my hospital room.  A nurse came in to check my vitals while I was feeding Emmersen.  I happened to look down and saw that she was completely purple, eggplant purple.  Her entire face and lips were this deep shade, her eyes were closed, and she wasn't breathing.  I quickly lifted her up and asked the nurse what was wrong with her.  She grabbed her from me and started pounding on her back but with little success.  Emme was still not breathing.  She turned and ran out of the room with our little 8lb. new love, hollering at other nurses for help as she went.  At this point, my legs were still not functioning very well so I couldn't do much but sit there, but Aaron ran after the nurse.  Those next few minutes of silence and sitting in the room by myself were painstaking.  I had no idea what was going on.

Aaron returned roughly 5 minutes later and said that they had Emmersen on oxygen and that she seemed to be ok but they were continuing to observe her.  He left again to be with her.  What seemed to be an eternity, though probably only 20 minutes later, Aaron returned again with a nurse and a wheelchair.  They helped me into it and carted me off to the nursery so that I could see my baby for myself.  They informed me that Emme would be under observation for the evening and that she had to remain in the nursery but that we could come and see her as often as we liked and so that I could nurse her.  All of her vitals had improved except for her oxygen saturation which was still a little low.  Their diagnosis was that she had swallowed fluids, etc. from delivery and was essentially choking on that while feeding.  She was too little to know what to do with it when it got lodged in her throat.  She did well through the night and was able to room with me the next night.

Our second scare happened on our first night home from the hospital.  My mom was still in town and staying at our house.  Emme was camped out in our bedroom in the pack and play.  About midnight, we heard Emmersen cough and gag a little bit.  After our first scare, we had been a bit on edge with the different sounds she'd make.  I jumped up and ran to where she was sleeping and noticed something dark beside her face.  I hollered at Aaron to hurry and turn on the lights.  My heart dropped.  Laying beside her mouth on the bed was blood.  No one ever tells you what to do in this situation.  The blood had colostrum mixed in it so I knew she had gagged it up.  We immediately got on the phone to the pediatrician who informed us to go straight to the ER.  Fortunately, my mom was there to stay home with sleeping Avery as we took off.  So there we sat.  1am in an ER with a 2 day old.  We felt completely out of place as drunk college students stumbled in and out talking about this party and that fight.  My 2 day old should not be in this waiting room with crazies and so many germs!  I held that girl as close to me as I possibly could, praying that the staff would hurry up and call us back.  Finally, we were seen and Emme was examined.  They determined that the same thing had happened as on her first night of life.  She gagged on fluids from delivery, except this time, thank the good Lord, she was able to get it out on her own without compromising her breathing.  So back home we went.  Emme went to sleep and Aaron and I drifted in and out of sleep, rising at every sound she made.