Here Goes...

It's now been two days and I think I'm ready to share...

First of all, to all of you moms out there who feel compelled to check on your sleeping babies obsessively...DO IT. Clearly there is a reason that moms do this. Here it is.

Om Monday afternoon we put Ryan down in his bed for a nap. We went on about the afternoon. My mom and I were watching the Sabres game on my computer, getting things ready for dinner, playing with Jake. Ben came home from work just like normal. My mom went back to check on Ryan and see if he was ready to get up. She said he was making a different kind of sound so she went in to get him.

He was covered in vomit and had a blanket over his head.

She picked him up, brought him out to show me how much he had thrown up all over himself. I looked at him and something was wrong. He didn't look right...

Mom carried him over to the sink to wipe him off. I followed and as she held him I looked at his little face.

His lips were blue. The rest of him was white. I watched his eyes roll back in his head and he went limp. We couldn't wake him up. But he was breathing. I grabbed him and held him...he looked like someone who had OD'd.

Perhaps there are those of you reading this who know exactly the right thing to do at this moment. All I will say is that in the moment, it's very hard to know the right thing to do. Do you call an ambulance? How long will they take to get there? Do you drive to the hospital...it's close?

Ben went into warp speed action and somehow get the car started as I carried my baby out. We jumped in, my mom throwing the car seat and a diaper bag into the back somehow. We raced to the hospital.

I was just holding him, trying to rouse him, and getting nothing. But, he was still breathing.

As we drove, his color gradually started returning and by the time we got to the ER, he had some pink back in his sweet little face.

We walked in to the ER (which I could rant about but won't) and were admitted after a short wait.

By the time we were in triage, Ryan was smiling and flirting with the nurse. He looked perfect. We were taken to a bed in the ER and they monitored him for a bit...perfectly fine. They took him for a chest x-ray to make sure there was nothing in his lungs that shouldn't have been. All clear. He was being so charming that the ER nurse begged us to let her babysit him for a while.

The pediatrician look him over, looked at the x-ray. The best that they can guess is that he had choked on his vomit. After checking heart rate, temp, blood oxygen, breathing, they told us we could either leave him there to monitor him overnight or take him home. He explained that the reason for admitting him overnight would simply be to give US the peace of mind that he was being monitored and not because he was afraid the same thing would happen again.

We took our little guy home.

He slept in my arms all night. I didn't dare to close my eyes or put him down. (I guess he was MOMitored all night).

He's perfectly fine.

I am not. Not really. While I suppose I know that this was just a crazy thing that happened, I'm not sure how you ever stop being paranoid.

Monday night, as I was sitting up squeezing and kissing my boy, I remembered something.

Earlier that afternoon, just before the whole thing started, Mom and I were sitting at my computer watching a stream of the Sabres game. My printer started making noise, as if it were going to print something. It wasn't even hooked up to my computer, so it was definitely not something I did. Mom said, "Oh, it must be Grandpa." (Some of you will know why we assumed this to be true...if you don't, just know that he has made numerous appearances through electronic devices.)

I know Grandpa was here. I suspect Ryan knows it, too.