Weight: 13.8 lb
6 months old.
That's halfway to 1, which means my baby is just about a teenager now... :) I can't believe how big my little girl is getting! She may still be in the 10th percentile for weight height, she may also be in the 2nd percentile for head circumference (haha the teensiest noggin), but she's my growing baby! Time needs to slow down. Or I need to learn to appreciate every day. Every fussy moment. Every cry. Every head bonk. Everything.
Today was a day I'll never forget.
I wish I could say it was a day I'll never forget because it was a happy day, but it wasn't. It wasn't even close. I think this day taught me to love even deeper than I do now. Even deeper than I thought I could ever love a tiny human.
Let me start from the beginning. Scottie and I went to see Dr. Hansen at 8:10 a.m. for her 6 month checkup! I knew it would be a semi rough day because we skipped her 4 month shots since we were in Japan, so today was a shot day. The appointment went really well, Scottie was healthy as a horse, moving around and wiggling like her normal self. Dr. Hansen said her ear infection was gone, she was great! We did her shots and she cried for a minute, calmed down, and we left. Dr. Hansen said this shot hurts a little more than the others so be sure to massage her legs.
She took a few naps that morning, ate her first solid! YAY! (Bananas. She spit EEEVERYTHING out besides that so we were so excited that she finally liked her first solid) and then I headed to my parents house as Kenz and Mal were coming over to swim. We had such a fun time playing in the water with Mal and Kenz and little Els. It was such a fun filled day, nothing unusual other than Scottie being a little fussy from her shots. I decided she's probably hurting from her shots so I gave her 2 ml of Tylenol and then she went down for a nap. After she woke up, we went home to see her dad.
Since Cam doesn't get to spend much time with Scottie throughout the week, he typically plays with her once he gets home. He was playing with her as usual, I gave her a couple spoonfuls of banana, and then I started taking her upstairs for a bath. This is the part that I wish I could forget.
I had Scottie on my hip and thought she was acting weird and limp. I got to the tub and did our usual routine. Set her on the bath mat, turn to the tub to fill up her baby bath, then back to Scottie to start undressing her. I looked at her and noticed her arms in this strange position and looked as if they were frozen. Her eyes were looking to her right side and she was making this monotone "ah" sound. I thought, ok that's weird what is she doing? Then my mind went to, "ok is she having a seizure?". I pick Scottie up and start saying "Cam, will you come up here?". The next thing I know, Scottie has gone limp, her eyes roll up and down to close and back open and I immediately scream to Cam to call 911. I'm running down the stairs screaming "call 911, call 911". Cam comes running to the end of the staircase, and just yells "Scottie!" as loud as he could. "Scottie stay with us, Scottie stay with us!". He then fumbles around to find his phone, dials 911, and procedes to give them our information. Meanwhile, Scottie is as grey as can be. I noticed her grey color on the stairs when I was running down but I just remember as the seconds and minutes went by, the greyer she became. Staring off into the distance just lifeless. I was frantically holding her and yelling at Cam to ask the 911 rep to tell us what to do.
I had no idea what to do. I thought I was losing my baby.
My baby was greyer by the minute and her lips were the same color as her body. I remember laying her on the ground as her arms just fell to her side thinking, "this is it. I'm losing my sweet angel baby". Cam kept shaking her and bugging her to keep her awake. No response. We couldn't even get a response with her eyes. She was not following us. She was not there.
I dialed Aubrielle and just screamed Scottie is grey she's not breathing. She sent Alex over because she was out of town (of course this happens...).
After about 4-5 minutes, the 911 rep told us to listen for her breathing. I put my ear next to her mouth and started to hear her catch her breath. I would say "now" every time I heard her breathe. It felt like the breaths were long from when I would say now, but slowly she started breathing again.
Alex came running through the door at this point. Scottie was breathing.
The paramedic came shortly after and about 7 paramedic team members came rushing through my door. It felt like eternity but we later checked Cam's phone to find that the paramedics arrived in just 9 minutes. The first thing the paramedic told me was "she's ok, she's breathing". Then they started working on her. Checking her vitals. She was still grey, but I noticed there was some pink color that had returned to her lips.
The paramedic felt comfortable with her vitals that they didn't need to take her in the ambulence but they wanted us to take her into the ER to get checked out. Cam and I felt ok to take her (plus we weren't about to fork out $10,000 for a glee ride into the hospital). Of course, if it were crucial she would have already been in the ambulence.
Once the paramedic left and Cam and I were alone again, we just sat. Sat together on the couch sobbing. I remember verbally saying "Why" over and over through the tears. I couldn't understand why this horrible accident happened and what had even triggered it. Cam and I couldn't fathom losing our baby girl. I think Scottie was just exhausted at that point because I was holding her in my arms and she was acting like nothing had happened. I'm sure she was so tired.
After gathering our emotions, of what emotions we could gather, Cam and I hurried and packed up the car, I changed out of my swimsuit (still in my swim suit from that afternoon), and we drove to the Riverton ER. On the way over, I was bugging Scottie because I was so worried something would happen again and she'd stop responding to us. I was playing with her toys and would grab her hands as she was pretty limp and just sitting in her carseat. I picked up her hands and legs and she had no resistence. She was exhuasted.
We got to the ER. Again, admitting Scottie to the ER.
Felt like we were just there.
Once we were admitted, we had several medical nurses come in and ask us what happened. I tried to tell the story the best I could but couldn't put a time frame on anything as it felt like forever. The Dr. came in and again, we retold the story. He said we should do an EKG on her heart to see if everything looked ok. All was well. Poor little Scottie had to have millions of little stickers all over her chest. Luckily she was pretty out of it so it didn't bother her much, just bothered her parents :)
Scottie was fine! Everything was fine. 100% healthy. The Dr. came back after we had monitored her for 2-3 hrs. He said her vitals were great and he felt comfortable sending us home. He told us after talking to several Pediatricians, that they categorized her accident in what they now call BRUE. It's a life threatening event that ends. Dr.'s have no idea why this happens, it just does. Happens to 13% of babies where you just don't know what or why it happened. I absolutely hated this answer. Hated it because I couldn't prevent it.
So. Cam and I went home. Because we caused quite the scene on our street, several neighbors knew about Scottie and what happened. That night, I had an Owlet monitor in my mailbox to use from Bishop. I can't be more thankful for such an awesome community and neighborhood that continues to look out for my family even though I may not be the best neighbor.
I knew I wouldn't sleep, Cam was exhausted so he actually got some sleep. I think we got home around 2:00 a.m. and I woke up just about every 30 minutes to check on her. She wasn't even far either. She was in the Dockatot, right in the middle of Cam and I. Yet I couldn't not check on her. I think I cried several times while Cam and Scottie both slept.
Why did this happen.
Morning came and I woke up thinking last night was a bad dream, but it wasn't. It was totally reality. How in the world did that happen.
All I can say is that there were angels in our house. Angels surrounding Scottie, helping her through the accident and helping her come back to us. I don't even know what I would do if I lost her. It would completely break me. She has been my saving grace and my angel baby through this time in my life.
I love her so.
Scottie. 6 months old and still smiling :)
