OK, let me try to get through this without melting down, again!
On July 17 we took the kids with us to a swap down in Mt Hope Ohio (couple hours away). VERY hot and humid day but we had a canopy and kept the kids in tall supply of drinks and ice cream.
Fast forward to about 8:25 pm that night....we had some friends over and we were sitting on our deck while our three kids and their two all played in the yard. As usual, my 2.5 YO was trying to keep up with the big kids, as fast as his little legs would take him at least! everyone looked to be having a great time, kids were all getting along and we were having a nice chat with our friends (husband and wife, DH works with husband). Out of the corner of my eye I see beanie (my youngest, 2.5 YO) slowly running over to me, his steps get slower and slower and then he just laid down and appeared to go to sleep. Wife of the friend commented, 'wow he must be really tired!' I immediately got up and ran over to him (about 10 steps) b/c he does not EVER fall asleep that fast and something in my gut told me THIS IS NOT RIGHT! as I got to him, he looked quite ashen in color. I tried to wake him only to realize HE WAS NOT BREATHING, his color was ashen all over and his lips were blue!!! OMG, SCARIEST moment of my LIFE! I picked him up, hit him on the back (instinct kicked in there, thinking if he was chocking i would dislodge whatever it was). i carried him (limp as can be) over to DH who at this point could hear the absolute terror and panic in my voice and met me 1/2 way (about 5 steps onto the deck). I gave my baby to DH, picked up my cell and called 911. Our friend (the husband) ran into the kitchen and called 911 from the house phone. DH laid beanie down, checked for an airway and could see very shallow breathing (THANK GOD) I was communicating all this to 911. he was breathing but completely non responsive, 911 was sending an ambulance and said to turn him on his left side until they got there. Ambulance arrived with 6-7 min of my call. A couple minutes after putting him on his left side, he did open his eyes but would not respond to us. By the time the ambulance did arrive he was responding to us but still not his usual self. They took his vitals and said everything looked normal but they wanted him to be checked out in the ER. They said he was stable so we could take him ourselves.
Our friends offered to stay with our older two and DH and I immediately took off for the ER about 5 min away. We spent 5 hours in the ER, getting blood drawn and a CT scan. The ER found nothing but wanted him to still be checked by the pediatric hospital in our area (Rainbow babies and children's) so we asked if we could just take him instead of an ambulance transfer, again they ok'd that. we took off fast as lightening to that hospital and spent the next two days having neuro and cardio run every test possible on a 2YO only to find nothing. thank the lord they did not find anything wrong with his heart, anything neurological or any other problems to speak of.
At this point they are considering it an isolated incident which is good but it still scared the absolute dickens out of me.
sooo, that's my story of (as my DH is calling it) extreme mother's intuition/gut feeling. seeing my little guy fall over like that was just NOT right. I am so thankful we were right there and that I followed my gut that something did not look right. I don't even want to think about what could have happened if we were not RIGHT there...
**beanie is his nickname, courtesy of big sis who said he looked like a jelly bean when he was a baby. poor kid has been stuck with it since! LOL**