SIDS and Grace

Every mother's fear. I woke up at 4 am and found my 8 month old daughter Grace blue tinged and not breathing. She was in her little crib, arm's reach from my bedside with no rails to separate us. How could she slip so silently away with me right by her side?
I heard a dreadful noise and realized it was my own screaming. I shouted at my husband, "Colin No!" and looked down at my lifeless little one as I shook her roughly side to side, trying to rouse her from the deepest sleep of all.
It was an eternity that I stared down at her thinking, "I know infant CPR. How do I do it? I've forgotten. THINK Mama, THINK!"
I suddenly remembered and as my husband fumbled with the light switch I began giving our little Grace rescue breaths. After three breaths Grace inhaled a weak little breath of her own and I scooped her up out of her crib and bounced her roughly in my arms "Wake up! Wake up!"
I blew hard in her face from a few inches away to stimulate her to take a deep breath. It worked. She gave a deep breath and her eyelids fluttered and her eyes rolled back and away and her eyes shut again. I blew harder several more times and finally little Gracie opened her eyes and looked at me.
No crying came from her mouth. This, my fourth baby, my colicky baby, the baby that never stopped screaming was completely silent. I held my breath, thoughts of brain damage swirling miserably in my mind. Grace reached one little hand up and placed it on my cheek and I burst into tears.
"Thank you Lord, thank you for giving us our Gracie back"
My husband stared silently on and looked anguished. Eventually he went back to sleep but I sat and rocked Grace in my arms until the sun came up and we could make our way to the children's hospital. I watched her every second and jostled her the second she seemed too still. I spent much of that time in tears, though I composed myself when the other children began waking. They were all suffering from a flu to include tummy troubles and upper respiratory complaints and I had been expecting little Grace to catch it too, though she never showed any signs of fever. Now in my arms she was warm and felt normal, well, healthy.

Why did she nearly die?

I'm not a silent person, usually. I like to talk with grown-ups when I actually have a chance and I probably drive my husband up a wall with chatter when he and I are able to have some time together. I spent the entire day in absolute silence because the inside of me was screaming louder than I could control. I couldn't think around the noise in my head; I felt foggy and utterly undeserving.

Why did Grace not die?

You might wonder how it came to be that I was checking on Grace at 4 am. Was it perhaps a normal feeding time and I woke up on my own? Nope.

My husband woke up, actually. For the first time since I've known Colin he had a bad dream. In fact, I've never known him to remember a dream. He says he hasn't remembered dreaming since he was a little boy. But a little before 4 am Colin leapt out of bed, shouting.

What he said is permanently etched in my memory. "Baby, NO!" he shouted and ran around his side of the bed to mine and he looked bewildered down at the floor. There was nothing there but folded piles of clothes and blankets and he looked up at me (I was sitting up in bed). He looked sleepy and perplexed.
"Honey, are you alright?" I asked.
"I thought Grace had fallen to the floor. I guess I dreamed that she was falling. I saw her slipping down." and he walked back to his side of bed and climbed under the blankets.

It was January and chilly. I rolled toward my husband and rubbed his head, running my fingers through his hair and trying to relax him. His dream had clearly shaken him and he had work so early the next morning. He closed his eyes and I looked at the clock. 4 am.

I rolled to face Grace and looked at her, sound asleep and peaceful. She was rolled away from me, laying on her side. She was close to the far mesh wall of her co-sleeper so I reached out and pulled her back to the center. Her little body flopped onto her back. She just flopped, so limp. I ripped her blanket from her and put my palm on her chest and shook her to rouse her. She was unresponsive and completely devoid of muscle tone. She was completely and utterly limp and lifeless. I felt the sharp twist of fear in my stomach and the dread rise up and choke me.

She just felt so wrong. I'm not sure how else to explain it. I sat up fully and looked down at her by the glow of the night-light. She felt warm. That means it hasn't been long. She could be ok. Is she sound asleep? I pressed my ear to her nose and mouth to feel for breath while I watched her chest. I saw no rise and fall to reassure me. I felt no warm little breath against my cheek and ear. I looked down at her and heard myself scream to my husband. "Colin, NO!" The sound of my voice was awful. I've never sounded like that before. It was the sound of absolute horror. A sound that cannot be reproduced under normal circumstances.

The memory of the whole event brings goosebumps to my arms and tears to my eyes. They were the worst moments of my entire life.

The rest of that day I felt such a bizarre mix of emotions. I felt extreme guilt. Grace was always screaming, always seeming to be in pain. She spit up everything and refused to eat solid foods. She was barely rolling over and not meeting her milestones in the way all my other babies had. The pediatrician had told me that at 9 months she'd need to see specialists because of her lack of development.

Part of me was always a bit angry with Grace. I couldn't help it. She never stopped screaming. My arms and back ached all the time from carrying her around, constantly bouncing her, trying to calm her. She would not nurse without tugging, pulling and screaming and had caused me significant pain. I had finally given up and gone from supplementing with formula (more than half her daily food) to fully feeding formula for about a month at this point, and everything had just gotten noticeably worse.

I know it wasn't baby Grace's fault that she was so much stress and work for the family. My husband and I were often tense at home because of the crying. I was struggling to educate the children and chase after my troublesome two year old while dealing with Grace. I was still recovering from my traumatic delivery of Grace, complete with a pulmonary embolism, failed natural labor and complicated C-section, multiple blood transfusions and small stroke.

I couldn't help but feel angry. And now I felt such extreme remorse for having those feelings. Little Grace nearly slipped away to forever be in God's arms and I felt the sting of having been angry with her while she was here with us.

How did she slip away right next to me? Was I too sleepy to wake up when she was choking, maybe? She was not sleeping through the night at that point, but hadn't woken that night. I should have known something was wrong. I'm her mother, it is my job to protect her and she was dying right next to my bed.

I felt overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude and awe. How did my husband wake up with a nightmare in time to save Grace? I am so undeserving to have my little girl still. I am so unworthy of this miracle. I am so thankful. So thankful.

Grace was given a clean bill of health from the cardiologists. It was a relief to see her healthy little heart on the screens and to be told she was as good as gold. The cardiologist said it was very likely due to acid reflux, that reflux causes SIDS regularly, a fact I was ignorant to.

The team of pediatricians that hooked Grace up to monitors and wires and checked her over in her little hospital crib all said the same thing. Reflux. Acid reflux was responsible. To be more accurate commercial baby formula was responsible.

Baby formula nearly killed my daughter.

At this point we underwent an incredible journey, learning all about food manufacturing, company ownership, where our produce comes from, the pesticides sprayed on our food, the additives in all our food and the hormones in our dairy.

What we learned scared the living daylights out of me. We didn't feed our children a highly processed diet. I was a healthy person and was always fighting my husband's bad eating habits. I was raised by very healthy people and my husband was not. I was always frowning on breakfast cereal and pushing oatmeal. I preferred the kids eat tuna sandwiches to Lunchables and milk to fruit juice. And forget juice-drinks and snack cakes and candy. My in-laws were often sending those things to us with Grandpa's visits and slipping the toddler soda.

But if you'd asked me if my children ate a ton of corn, soy and MSG I would have given a solid "no" answer. I would have been very wrong, though. My children (& myself and husband) were consuming loads of glutamate (the neuro-toxic part of monosodium glutamate) and controversial genetically modified products like soy and corn. They were eating loads of Monsanto's Roundup pesticides among other horrible chemicals. Their food was drastically altered in manufacturing processes.

Their diet was poisoning them and I was to blame. I was responsible for nourishing their growing bodies and I had failed miserably.
My failure caused us months of misery with Grace, years of misery with the older children and most importantly it almost cost us the ultimate payment: the precious life of a child.

I know it was the food. I can prove it was the food. And infant formula was one of the most toxic, disgusting substances I ever fed a child and worse still it was fed to a tiny, defenseless infant.

Our world is upside-down and we're starting fresh. We're starting from scratch. We're learning a whole new way of life and I wanted to share these things in hopes that other families can avoid the trouble and heartache we've endured along the way.

I hope I am able to post often and they are helpful to you.

-Annette