21st of September - Trauma part 1

I had been up during the night because James woke up crying and I thought he was hungry. But he didn´t want to eat. He fell asleep by my breast, without eating but he was close to me and he was pleased. We went back up to bed. In the morning I started to worry more about James not eating and he smelled of acetone from his breath. I thought he had a fever due to being dehydrated. But he didn’t have a fever. I called the breastfeed helpers at the hospital and they calmed me and said it is not unusual that babies are sleeping a lot more the first day or two after birth. I told them that he was awake and screaming loudly in between. He wasn´t weak and exhausted in a way, but by my breast he wasn´t interested at all. They gave me some tips to try out that I already had done but they told me to keep trying.
Nigel asked if he could go to work whilst the kids were at school and child care. I said please stay at home today. He said “ok of course I can work from home today.” Nigel was holding James on and off in between working as well, whilst I had an unpacking fit from everything we had at the hospital. I finished James’ door sign and was happy to get everything done. At 14.20 I started to worry after several attempts to get James to eat. I decided to call the breast feeding helpers again at the hospital. The lady I talked to took it more seriously. I said I have breast fed four babies before and something is wrong. I said he was a tiny bit yellow on his face just as babies can be in the beginning. When they have a high level of bilirubin it can strain the liver and babies might need “sunning”. I thought he might have a high level but the yellowness maybe was late or something, I was clueless. They wanted to have a look at him just in case, I promised to try again first. She told me to unclothe him a bit so he didn’t get too warm to eat. So I did. Nigel was sitting at the dining table working and I told him what she had said and that I had to make my way to the hospital with James. M, E and S were at Annika’s so I asked if he could pick up my boys from school etc. Meanwhile I gave it a last try. I pep talked James, pressed out milk and he took actually fours sucks and stopped. For the first time I held him under his arms supporting his neck to talk to him and kiss him before I got us ready to go. Doing that he relaxed his body closed his eyes. I said “wake up James” “hello”? Nigel came up to us and said “he is way too cold his legs are turning blue”. James opened his eyes and started to get ash grey in his beautiful face. Nigel and I looked at each other saying something is wrong. James started grunt breathing. I have heard it before and knew what that meant. I called back to the hospital, I said “ambulance or drive”? She said “DRIVE!! I´ll alert Child ER”. I said “we have to go now Nigel”. We started to get ready. Ten seconds later James went into shock. His eyes were open but he wasn´t with us. Nigel put him in the car seat I ran over to the neighbour pleading for her to pick up C, ET, and N because their father would soon pick them up as well. She said “yes of course just go” I ran back to the car and we left in a hurry. It was the longest car ride of our life. We both stayed unbelievably calm considering. I had been around a handful of emergencies with other people and with Colin. I kept a cool head and thought rationally with what was happening but didn’t expect that I would manage to cope when it happened to my baby. Only thinking of that scenario I imagined I would only scream in panic for someone to help me. Nigel called Annika to ask if she could take Timothy with her home – we were very grateful that she could. I sat in the back with James.