October is SIDS Awareness Month - About Me and My Experience

        Something a lot of you may not know about me is much about my pregnancies and the births of my children as I didn't really start blogging until after my youngest was about 6 months old.  I've actually been through quite a bit which I know a lot of women are fortunate enough to avoid in their lifetime when it comes to my lady parts, baby making, and birthing children.  Please note though if you've been through anything terrible while TTC, during delivery, or loss, I empathize and truly feel for you.  There is nothing more terrible than going through something such as this.


        Somehow told at a young age of 15 that I would never have children, I now have two very healthy boys so I truly believe anything is possible.  Being that October is National SIDS Awareness Month, I wanted to share with you a very emotional and upsetting event in my life.

        After Declan was brought home at three days old, a planned c-section after his brother was an emergency one, we had quite a series of unfortunate events in the days after.  By Saturday (5 days old) Declan was acting a bit odd.  He was sleeping a lot more than Dane my first son and almost sleeping too heavily each time.  Because we had noticed this we decided to keep quite the watch on him to hopefully avoid anything terrible from happening.

        Thankfully we did this because who knows how my life would be today had I not.  Late Saturday night, shortly after a breastfeeding session, I found myself having trouble going to sleep.  Somehow in the pitch black night, I noticed Declan lying in bed next to me take a deep breath and just go limp.  I really don't even know how I knew as I wasn't holding him nor was I even staring directly at him.  Call it what you want, mothers instinct kicked in and I immediately scooped him up and shook him drastically.

        Luckily he awoke grasping for air, crying and within 15 minutes fell back asleep.  It was almost as if it was a dream and to be honest I ignored it for a few letting him relax.  Then about an hour later still awake myself and holding him after the already evenings events, the same thing happened again.  Only this time felt more real and more drastic!

        Declan was not only limp and lifeless but he had quickly turned blue faster than you can imagine.  After shaking him for a moment with no response I began yelling waking Kevin.  I flipped him over and began smacking his back in hopes getting him to take a breath.  Thankfully almost 60 seconds later which seemed like a lifetime he began to cry.  At that point we knew this was no longer a fluke and we rushed him to the hospital.

        After 4 days of testing, poking and prodding him, the doctors had no answers yet they were able to witness and monitor another two episodes while in the NICU.  Not only had they checked to be sure it wasn't sleep apnea but they tested everything else you can imagine.  We had MRI's, CT Scans, Ultrasounds, and more....Our entire family history was thoroughly evaluated and still nothing.

        After what seemed like a lifetime spent in the hospital, we were told they believed he had unfortunately had several SIDS episodes which were just un-explainable.  We were sent home with Apnea machines and different monitors to keep a close watch on him over the next month (and just in case).  After a month of zero sleep and lots of stress it seemed as though it was over as fast as it had all happened.  Declan was constantly in and out of the doctors to be sure everything was OK and as they had said previously, there just wasn't an explanation.  These things happen for no apparent reason to perfectly healthy children.

My son had survived SIDS and my family became one of the lucky ones...

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