Scary flashbacks!

A long 24 hours! It started on Tuesday (4/3). Burt was home cooking dinner and I was sitting on the couch with Jackson asleep on my chest. All of a sudden I felt him wiggle around and then gasp for air. I thought it was a bit weird but he seemed to be sleeping comfortably again. I then laid him in his swing and started to walk away when I heard that same gasping again. For a split second my heart dropped but then I had a light bulb moment. Maybe his nose needed to be suctioned. Alexa had a clear runny nose the past two mornings so maybe she shared some of her boogie germs. As I suctioned his nose he screamed and cried. By time I was done he was completely worked up and the gasping started again but much worse. Every breath was a gasp. This went on for a full minute. Another light bulb moment and I burped him. That seemed to calm him down a bit but the gasping continued only interrupted by repeated swallowing of air. I knew we couldn't let him continue on like this but I wasn't sure if it was serious enough to call an ambulance or to quickly drive to the hospital. If we drove to the hospital I knew Burt would have to come with me to keep an eye on him in the backseat. We quickly piled all the kids in the car and drove in. As soon as we got to the hospital they triaged him. His temperature was perfect. Great blood pressure and breath sounds. He seemed to have recovered his regular breathing pattern, but not knowing why it happened I knew he needed to be seen. They hooked him up to the monitors and watched him for awhile. His heart rate, respirations and O2 sats looked great for awhile. Then luckily when one of the doctors was in the room he had another gasping episode. Not nearly as bad as the one at home but bad enough to drop his sats to 89. At that point the decision was made to transport him to CHOP for observation. Burt brought the other 3 kids home to put them to bed. The ambulance came pretty quickly and after a crazy fast reckless ride there we were brought into the ER. After the usual checks they noticed his heart rate having PVC's on the monitor. They immediately did an EKG which confirmed this. As it was described to me, PVC's are when the heart's electrical system sends out a shock to tell the ventricles to contract before they're supposed to. Sometimes this is caused by low electrolyte levels. They then tried for 30 minutes to put in an IV to draw blood. My poor baby screamed and screamed. There's nothing worse then helplessly sitting next to your newborn while they scream out in pain. You can't pick them up and there's nothing you can do to soothe them. I tried the binky dipped in sugar water, shushing him, holding his arms close to his body, and rubbing his face with my finger. Finally when I was seconds away from making them stop the nurse got the IV in his left hand. Jackson calmed down shortly after I picked him up. His face was bright red and soaked in tears. I was completely heartbroken. How was it possible that I was here again with a sick 6 week old baby? Flashbacks of our many trips there with Alexa flooded my memory. I prayed that this was nothing serious as I sat alone, hungry, tired, and emotionally drained in the ER room until 5:30am. It was around that time that they admitted him to the Seashore house, room 410. When we walked into the room I was shocked to see we were sharing a room. Great! More germs! After another round of "What happened's?" we were left to get a little sleep. I knew I had to be up around 7:30 for rounds. I didn't sleep but maybe 10 minutes at a time. Every time I woke up and checked the clock it had only been 10 minutes but it felt like hours. When the doctors showed up they brought up two possibilities. First and most likely was that maybe while getting so worked up with the suctioning he refluxed and aspirated it causing him to choke and gasp for air. Second possibility was an asthma attack although no wheezing had been noted. The electrolyte testing came back normal. There was no explanation to the PVC's but I was reassured that they happen to people all the time and we just don't know it. The hope is that we just caught a random occurrence on the monitor and that his heart just resumes it's regular beating. They also assured me that the PVC's had no correlation to the gasping episodes. The doctors were confident after watching his stats all day that he was fine. We were discharged around 4pm. It was great to be home and cuddling my other babies too. Jackson's hospital roommate was a baby the same age as Alexa and it broke my heart listening to him scream every time the nurses came in. Children's hospitals are such a sad place to be. Being home with my rugrats was the boost to my mood that I needed. Jackson had no other weird breathing episodes. Thank. God.