worsts

First of all, before you read this, take note that we're all fine.

Second of all, I wrote the following on Thursday morning, and decided not to post it because I didn't want to scare all of you. Now I don't care so much, and things are less scary, though still pretty unpleasant.

***

So you know how new moms get teased for checking their child's breathing a hundred times a day? Yesterday I looked over at Skipper, who was sitting calmly in a bouncy chair in our kitchen watching her sibling goof around, and I saw that she was a horrible blue-grey color. Two or three minutes later, our apartment was full of firemen,* and Skipper, who had begun breathing again before they arrived, was acting totally normal. Whatever normal means for a 3-day-old.

One midwife visit, an emergency room trip, a panicked email to and phone conversation with an East Coast pediatrician friend (thanks so much, Tiger's Dad), and long debates with Kaiser medical records people later,** we're no wiser, and I'm contemplating staying up every night to watch Skipper breathe, maybe for the next 25 years or so. Skipper has been declared "a vigorous baby" by a real doctor in a real hospital.*** She seems robust and healthy, undamaged by her experiment in parental ization, and with no evident problems that might have caused it. We're not done investigating - if Kaiser ever calls me back, we'll be going in to get some tests today. I don't think I can survive 25 years without sleep, if my functional capacity right now is any indicator.

"Was that the worst moment of your life so far?" I asked Cook, as we sat in the living room after the firefighters left, staring at our pink and beautiful Charles-Grodin-clone, who was loudly opining (I think) that since she had almost died right before our eyes, she should get to breastfeed for at least four hours straight. "The scariest," he said, "because it could so easily have become the worst." Dutch chipped in cheerfully, "If Skipper died, we'd go to the cemetery and sing songs to celebrate her life!"****

So... the moral here is Don't Ever Laugh At Paranoid Parents. Sometimes when you go to check, your kid really isn't breathing. And I can now tell you from personal experience that looking into your baby's blue face, and seeing her look back at you from what seems like a very long way away, and rapidly getting farther away, is really really awful, but I know it won't be the worst experience of my life. I just don't want my next escalation on that scale to happen any time soon.

* When we thanked them for coming so fast - it was REALLY fast - one of the firemen jauntily said "well, if it's a 93-year-old lady, we might not run, but if it's a 3-day-old baby, we run!" Which is great for us, but 93-year-old ladies might want to consider this news carefully and plan accordingly.

**You try getting somebody to give you a straight answer about how to get care for a 3-day-old baby born at home who will be enrolled under her dad's individual Kaiser coverage but currently has no medical record number. Go ahead. These are some of the helpful questions you may hear: "Yes, but what HOSPITAL was she born at?" or "But what is your Kaiser number?" or "What is her social security number?" Skipper has no official existence yet - all her paperwork is in the mail to various official Person-Certifying offices. I try not to think about this as a symbol of the tenuousness of her physical existence

** * If you want to be treated like a celebrity, go to the ER late at night with a brand-new baby. People are really, really, really nice to you. Except the doctor. He's kind of snarky, and he makes you feel helpless. Though he does get points for telling you that Skipper has a great name.

**** Dutch eats drama for lunch and washes it down with a nice cup of telenovela, so the whole chain of events, while scary, was also terribly exciting and possibly secretly pleasurable for her. Ther's a limit to the amount of empathy a 4-year-old can muster.