911, What's Your Emergency?

My plan last night was to put together a homemade ornament roundup post for those of you who DIY your ornaments or just need a quick, fun, easy gift.  Then my baby choked on an unidentified foreign object and I called 911.

Holy crap.

Those of you who know me in real life, know that I have choking issues/fears, but this shit was the real - scared out of my ever loving mind - deal.

The kids were playing with her in her room while I was in the kitchen making dinner.  I had the monitor on so I could hear them.  She started fussing, so I headed in to get her.  She's a full-on crawler now, so she met me in the hall.  I picked her up and she was kind of coughing a bit, so I asked her if she needed a drink of water as I walked to the kitchen.  I put the cup up to her mouth and she shoved it away.  Then the choking noises started.  I ran back toward the hall yelling questions at the kids.  Asking what she got into.  I pried open her mouth and saw what appeared to be a bright, shining blue light.  Holy @$#%. 

I ran into the bathroom and tried to open her mouth in front of the mirror so I could see better.  It still appeared to be some sort of blue light.  In nanoseconds, I was racking my brain trying to figure out what she could have found in the short distance from her doorway to the end of the hall. 

More gagging and choking noises.....holy $#%!, 911.

The operator was super nice and clearly was very good at her job, considering she was talking to a panicking mom.  With natural-born instincts and her direction, Baby was in a football hold with her head toward the floor and her feet toward my shoulders, while I frantically paced the house watching for the ambulance lights out the window and answered question after question, with her repeatedly telling me how good I was doing.  I have no idea how long I was on the phone, but it felt like four days.  I remember her telling me she would walk me through back blows or the Heimlich if needed.  Holy @#$%.

Once the paramedics were in the line of sight, I was out on the porch with an upside down baby - waiting.  They used some sort of vacuum stuck in her mouth in an attempt to get whatever it was out.  Didn't work.  One paramedic got a look at it with a flashlight and said to her, it looked like a piece of blue tinsel.  Whatever it was, she ended up swallowing it while they were here. 

Once Baby and Mom were calmed down a bit, the decision was made not to have them take her.  She was stable and fine - The Dad (who, unaware of anything, came driving up the street from work to find an ambulance and fire trucks in front of his house) was home and she was happy to see him.  So the uniforms left and we ate dinner.  Yeah, weird.  But Baby ate an enormous amount of food, so that helped my blood pressure.

Fast forward to today.  I took her in for an X-Ray.  Good news is, they couldn't see anything, so that means it wasn't metal or especially large.  Now, we continue to monitor her for any changes in behavior and wait for whatever it is to come out the other end.

The end.

Like I told the paramedic, I figure we're doin' pretty good if this is our third kid and our first 911 call.  Let's just hope it's the last.

This mom has been taking a lot of deep breaths over the last 24 hours.  And counting her blessings.