Some Answers... and a Question

First of all, thank you SO MUCH for all of the prayer, as well as the emails and comments asking about Faith Clare and how we are all doing. I wanted to wait to update until we had talked to our pediatrician and knew what direction we were heading in... so, here are a few answers to questions about the "episode".

What happened on Wednesday night?
Thankfully Dusty, his mom and I were all up late watching a movie when I noticed her breathing start to change. I was sitting up on the couch and she was laying on my chest so I sat her up and told her "come on baby, breathe" just thinking that she was in a deep sleep. I had mentioned to our doctor before that she seemed to gasp for breath while and after eating and he said that as long as she didn't turn color or go limp that up to 15 seconds of non-breath is normal for newborns. With that in mind, I wasn't overly concerned early on when this happened Wednesday night. However, we quickly realized that she wasn't regaining breath. For about 5 minutes we were trying to stimulate her (as we anticipated having to do with Maddox... never thinking we would have to do it with her)- blowing in her face, rubbing her feet and rubbing her back. However, at one point she started turning blue around her mouth and went limp, arms falling to the side without much response. Thankfully we never had to consider CPR because we could see could see that although the stimulation wasn't getting her to breathe normally, it was keeping her up and gasping when she did try to breathe.

After a little back and forth, Dusty called 911 and we were on the phone with the paramedics for about 8-10 minutes until the ambulance arrived. By time they made it to the house though, she was breathing pretty regularly. We discussed with the paramedics what we should do and they actually didn't think that a transport to the hospital was necessary because she was breathing normally at that point (a recommendation that was much to the dissatisfaction of our doctor I later discovered). After some time the paramedics left and we sat in the living room processing what had just happened. We were both pretty shaken and took turns staying up with her for most of the night to ensure the event didn't repeat itself.

Did you go to the doctor? What did the doctor say?
I was able to get in with Faith Clare yesterday morning to see the pediatrician. Obviously the office wasn't open Thursday for Thanksgiving and I did call the office on Friday to talk to his nurse, but our physician wasn't in and Monday was the first available time to speak with him.

After walking through all that had happened, emotionally I might add, we both agreed with many of you that commented saying it was probably reflux. In addition to mentioning the breathing issues to him last week, I had also discussed my concerns about her probably having reflux (Deacon had reflux and was on Zantac for about 6 months), so this wasn't a new topic of conversation. He said that according to the way things happened, the episode was consistent with a pretty severe presentation of reflux.

Our pediatrician is awesome and responded wonderfully as I broke down about what happened. He knows our history and had met with me about Maddox and the possibility of him coming home last year, so after I relived Wednesday night for him, he led me through what we should do if it would ever happen again. I am SO thankful for his care and concern for my children. Ultimately, he prescribed two medications for her (Prevacid and Bethanochol) and ordered a chest X-ray to confirm that there was no infection or anatomical issue causing the breathing lapses. Thankfully the X-ray came back clear and we are now praying that the reflux is the only issue and the medication will take care of that.

What about an apnea monitor?
I didn't ask about an apnea monitor when we went to the doctor yesterday. My parents bought us a breathing monitor a few weeks ago called the Babysense V, very similar to the Angel Care Monitor. We didn't plan to use it while she was in the bassinet in our room, but obviously we are using it now. To us, although they aren't "proven", it gives us a peace of mind that we didn't have without it.

So.....
We are now hoping that all of these breathing issues will be behind us. She got a cold with major congestion a little over a week ago and is still trying to get over that, which also contributes to her breathing struggles, so we are also praying that the cold will resolve soon as well.

Now... well, now hopefully we can all breath a little bit easier and start to adjust to our new normal.

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Okay, above are some answers and now for the one, totally-unrelated-to-anything question... or maybe one topic & several questions.

If you have used/are using cloth diapers for your little ones, how did you go about deciding which type to use? How many did you start with? How do you feel about the time involved? Do they ever leak? Do you feel that it is cost-effective? ... Oh, and how do you feel about rinsing poopy diapers out in the potty? I might be able to convince Dusty to do cloth diapers, but I don't think he will go for the rinsing. What about the disposible/flushable liners? Anyone use those?

Thanks for the help and perspective. I've been thinking about doing this for a while... so we'll see how inspired I get!!

"Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed; he answers him from his holy heaven with the saving power of his right hand."- Psalm 20:6