A Very Strange Day

Today started off minorly non-routine. I had not been feeling well for a few days. I have been having lots of pressure and a few other symptoms that may or may not be indicative or preterm labor. I have had preterm labor before, but not with the last two babies. While I doubted I was dilating, I prefer to run the symptoms by my doctor to be on the safe side. If it is nothing, good. If it is something, better be in the doctor’s care.
The doctor checked me out and I got a clean bill of health. He stated that the pressure is do to being a grand multi para. I was like “wow, I have arrived. I get a ‘grand’ title.”
So the day went on. Around three something, four something PM, my husband took the kids to the library, and the house was nice and quiet. I logged on to do some school work. My brother was very bored today because he had off from school due to Yom Kippur, so everytime I logged on he IMed me. The latest information was about how he could not find a comic book store anywhere in Buffalo. As he was typing, I heard screaming out side. Screaming is not unusual; there are lots of children in the neighborhood and the day was lovely. Around the second time it occured to me it was a genuine “terror” scream as opposed to a “now you’re it” scream. I looked out the door and saw people congregating in the street at the corner. My heart stopped as I thought a child might have gotten hit by a car. I almost didn’t want to go see what happened out of fear.
I ran back inside, put my clogs on and grabbed my cordless phone. as I got out, I saw my next door neighbor running out outside on the phone. I asked her “are you calling 911?”
“Yes”
I went to the street and there was a lady cradling a little, tiny baby screaming “Please! Breathe! Breathe! Oh God, please!” The baby was blue.
The Lady Next Door started telling the mother “breathe in the babies face” and the mother started to. Other people started rubbing the baby’s chest. I said, “you need to do compressions”.
They turned and looked at me and asked if I knew what to do.
I took the baby, put the baby on the back hood and started to do Infant CPR on the baby. That poor little baby was so perfect, sweet smelling…and so blue. The mother was absolutely hysterical.
The baby started to moan a bit, and take breaths. Someone next to me said the baby was breathing, and opened up the clothes around the child’s neck to see if his chest was going up and down. It started to. He pinked up just a tiny bit, but was still so blue. I started to panic inside that my efforts were futile and asked if the paramedics were coming. The Lady Next Door assured me “yes”.
The paramedics did come and they took the baby’s pulse with a grim reaction. They asked me “what is the bay’s medical history?”
“I don’t know, I’m not the mother. The mother is right here.”
The mother was a puddle on the ground. I felt nearly as hysterical on the inside as she was on the outside. I guided her towards the paramedics, and they all got into the fire trucks and ambulances and drove off.
I hope that baby is OK. I hope he without oxygen for too long so he was able to make a full recovery. He is only 5 days old.
The Lady Next Door recapped the story about 3xs by the time I went inside, and the story went about how she called 911, and remembered someone needed to blow on the baby.
For my own selfish reasons, I hope someone remembers I was the lady who did CPR so they will find me and tell me how the baby made out.