Sleeping-Or Trying To

January  10, 2011

In my support group, people are worried about having “rainbow babies” (babies born after losing one to SIDS) and something happening to THEM. Well, we haven’t even made it that far.

Sam has always been a bad sleeper. It’s not something that I ordinarily talk with about to people because the advice I get is unhelpful and sometimes borders on stupid, but he’s always had problem sleeping. For about two years we thought that it was sleep apnea because he snored really loudly, woke u a lot, and seemed to grasp for air on occasion. However, now the problem seems to have taken a different turn.

I swear he stops breathing when he sleeps.

He gets so still, so cold, and so stiff that he has almost given us a heart attack on several occasions. I have felt for his pulse, his heartbeat, and breath on many occasions and either not found it, or been so scared that I couldn’t actually find it, even though it was there. I’ve had to pound him on the back several times to get a sign of life out of him. Pete has done the same.

This was all before Toby died so you can imagine how this affects us now.

Lately, Sam has been getting up in the middle of the night and getting in bed with us and throughout the night one of us is always waking up and checking on him, making sure that he is okay. We all seem to sleep easier when we are in bed together.

This morning, Pete had his first day of classes so he set his alarm. I remember hearing the alarm go off but the next thing I heard was a very unnatural scream coming from Pete. When I opened my eyes, he was holding Sam, rocking him back and forth, going, “Wake up, Sam, wake up!” I was close enough to Sam’s face that I heard a gasp of air and saw his eyes open before Pete did. I kept trying to tell Pete that he was okay but it took several minutes for all of us to calm down.

Yes, welcome to our life. Where we wake up every morning, just assuming that one of us is going to be dead. I have woken up several times with Pete’s fingers on my neck or chest, listening for a pulse or heartbeat.

Pete said that when he woke up, Sam was face down in the bed, still and cold, and had a greenish tint to his skin. I also woke up with Sam like that two days ago. Going to call the doctor tomorrow and try to get him in for a sleep study. I don’t know that it’s sleep apnea since he is no longer snoring like he was, but it’s better than not doing anything at all. It might at least help US sleep better if nothing else.

So yeah, how in the world will we sleep with a baby back in the house? Well, we won’t. Seriously, we won’t. We’ll break it up into shifts. That’s actually what we were doing with Toby anyway, and we did the same thing with Sam. This time around, we might make a chart or something. I would really like to hire a nanny when the baby gets here but since we don’t know exactly when he’s coming it will probably be a week or two before we’re able to get one in. I also plan to keep this one home with me for the first year and not send him to daycare. I am NOT a stay at home mom, but for me it’s the lesser of the two evils. I couldn’t imagine SIDS happening at daycare, like it does sometimes.

I still have to work fulltime, but hopefully we’ll be able to figure out a schedule and since my office is at home it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a plan.