Instantaneous decisions

One of the things that I’ve had to get used to as a parent is making lightning quick decisions. Some of them matter less, both time and consequence-wise. “Mommy can I wear my purple sandals instead of my white sandals?” Sure, why not? “Mommy can I eat strawberry yogurt? I don’t want to eat blueberry yogurt today.” No big deal. And then some of them have to be lightning quick because the well-being of your child lies in your hands.

Take, for instance, last night. Ginnie was fussy so JJ took her downstairs to have a bottle and Natalie and I read some books and turned out the lights for bed. About an hour later JJ woke me. “I need you to come look at Ginnie. She looks blue around her lips.” Talk about an alarming wake up call! So I went to check on Ginnie and sure enough, blue around her lips, although her lips themselves were not blue. My mommy-instinct had me check her fingernails and toenails for blueness and they were all pink, which suggested that it was not an oxygen issue. She was alert and cranky (someone doesn’t like diaper changes) and seemed otherwise fine except her hands were cold so I figured she must be chilly. I wrapped her up, and sat with her and kept an eye on her. 5 minutes later, she looked bluer. Time to make a decision. I chose to call the 24 hour pediatrician that we have with our girls’ doctor’s office. As I described the situation Ginnie turned pale. I gave that info to the nurse I was speaking with and she told me to hang up and call 911.

I’ve only ever called 911 2 times in my life. Once as a lifeguard when we had a child fall backwards off the ladder climbing up to the high dive (he ended up okay, he landed on the kid after him in line and the kid on the ground broke a toe because the falling kid’s head hit his foot – that probably saved his life because otherwise the falling kid’s head would have hit concrete). Once last night. And I’ll say this, although it’s not a fun call to make, and although some people think I’m nuts for doing this, there are times where I’ll look around and think, “OK if I had to make an emergency call RIGHT NOW how would I identify the location and situation.” Weird, and maybe a little morbid, but it made last night’s call remarkably calm and non-scary. As I waited I did all the things they trained us to do at the Red Cross if you’re a “first responder” = checked her airway (clear), checked for visible injuries (clear), held her head in a neutral position in case spinal issues were involved (check), swept her mouth with my little finger in case she had ingested something (cleared), checked her airway again etc. Long story short, EMS came, assessed Ginnie, and she was fine. They suggested we take her to the pediatrician this morning anyway, so we did. We just got back.

Guess what I didn’t know? A symptom of reflux? Blue around the lips. Does our daughter have reflux? Yep. Glad to know that little bit of information now!

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