What is the scariest moment you have had as a parent?

Question

I had a scary delivery w/ my last daughter. About 12 days before they induced me, I went to the hospital thinking I was leaking fluid. The doctor just had me lay on a pad for an hour, &sent me home. I went to 2 more weekly appts before he decided he needed to induce me.The initial drugs they gave me didn't work, so they decided to break my water. In this process they found out I had no water to break. My husband and I tend to think that it was a slow leak...but the doctor never checked me. I was still not in labor, but my baby's heart rate dropped all the way down to 40. They had me maneuver and gave me an oxygen mask...they inserted a hydrating device up into my uterus. Finally after 10 hours of nothing, they gave me more powerful drugs that worked. She had the chord around her neck, she pooped in utero, she had a slow heart rate & she was blue, w/ 2 marks on her head from the hydrating probe. Her apgar score was 3. She had an angel watching over her.she is now about to be 8 months.

Answer 1

I had almost the same experience - I went to the hospital, having contractions 5 minutes apart but since I wasn't dilating, they kept me on monitors for one day and sent me home, although I was in such a pain. As soon as I got home, my water broke, so we went back to the hospital. I still had contractions 4-5 minutes apart, but wasn't dilating, so they waited for another day to give me some pitocin. I got an infection because I took so long, I had very high fever and my blood pressure dropped to 60/30. My son was born with apgar score 0, it took them 5 minutes to resuscitate him. He pooped in the utero and got the infection from placenta. It was really hard and they told us he might have developmental delay because of the lack of oxygen, but so far it seems that he will be fine. He is three month old now. Good luck with your baby!!!

Answer 2

With my son there's been several (he's now 3.5). At 4 days old he had to go back to the hospital for jaunice. At the time I really didn't understand what it was, all I remember was crying hysterically.

Then when he was almost 9 months old and still not sitting up. I thought there was something really wrong with him. So did the doctor. It turns out his ears were full of fluid and needed tubes. After that he was so delayed up until he hit about 2.5 years.

Then (okay I'll admit this) last summer I accidentally locked him in the car. Very dangerous considering we live in AZ. To make a long story short, the Glendale fire department was very nice and got him out in like 2 minutes.

With my current pregnancy, I almost miscarried at 14 weeks. It was so scary!

Answer 3

Wow, it truly is a miracle that you daughter came out fine in the end!!! I'm very happy for you.

My scary thing is when I went into labor with my daughter & my husband & I first got to the hospital, the nurses went through the whole routine of getting me hooked up to the monitors, IV, etc. Well when they went to hook up the fetal heart rate monitor they could not find the babies heartbeat.
The room was absolutely dead silent for like 5 minutes [which as many of you know seems like an eternity] while she kept moving the monitor around trying to get the babies heartbeat. My husband and I couldn't even look at each other.

Finally though she did find it. Turns out her stupid monitor just wasn't working right.

I could have died though waiting to hear her!

Answer 4

Putting my 2 yr old daughter down at my older daughter's gymnastics school to help my older one hang her coat and having my 2 yr old disappear in to thin air. I was about 7 months pregnant with #3 at the time and kept whirling around to see if she was behind or below me where I couldn't see her. I started to get that panic in my voice calling her name and started for the steps to look back the way we came and people started to notice me and then suddenly a mom grabbed my shoulder and said, she's in the play room, she's ok. She had taken off for the playroom (remembered where it was, the little bugger) the second her feet hit the ground. She even had to wind her way THROUGH a hip hop class going on in just the mere seconds it took to hang a coat. Medically, we have been lucky.

Answer 5

Wow! That is a terrifying story!!! My water broke like that, too, with just leaking here and there. I'm so glad I kept insisting that I be seen at the doctor's office. They did an ultrsound, and yep! All the amniotic fluid had leaked out!

So glad to hear your precious daughter is ok! She did indeed have an angel watching over her!

Answer 6

I agree with you....I started leaking amniotic fluid 5 weeks early. When I called my OB that morning, she thought it was urine and told me to shake the baby off my bladder. I called her back 8 hours later and told her it was no better. When I got to the hosp , they said I was leaking fluid and put me on IV antibiotics because I had a fever. My son's fetal monitors were concerning, so they induced me quick! My son had his umbilical cord around his neck 3 times! The scariest moment was waiting to hear him cry...it took a long time, they had to do CPR on him.....it was the longest, scariest, most agonizing time of my life. Now he's 5 months and happy , smiling, giggling...and yes crying!

Answer 7

Wow...that must have terrifying. Thank God for the happy outcome. My second son had to be put back in the hospital when he 3 days old. They thought he had meningitis. They did a spinal tap. He had wires and tubes coming out of every part of his body. He was in ICU for 10 days. They never figured out what was wrong. He just got better with antibiotics. He is now a 21 year old college student. I thank God everyday for all my children.

Answer 8

That was quite the scare for you. I'm really happy that things turned out well! :)

I don't know if I can count my moments... LOL.

During labor with son... his heartrate dropped to the low 50's, and it turned out that he was stuck. If it weren't for the emergency c/section, we both could have died.
During labor with daughter... her heartrate dropped to the 30's, she had to be taken out immediately, though I did have a planned VBAC with her.

Daughter was born with cleft lip/palate... she's had 7 surgeries, and isn't even 5 years old yet. Every surgery we've been through has been scary for me.

Answer 9

wow... but I'm so glad everything turned out well. My scariest moments were two. One, when my baby fell off our bed :( She was 7 months. Thank the Lord she didn't get hurt bad but it was SCARY. And second, when my baby at 9 months started choking.... she coughed out the piece of chcken. But also SCARY. We have to be so careful with tiny ones!!

Answer 10

When my son was about 1 month old, I always had this thing about clipping babies' nails, I was so scared. Everyone kept telling me it wouldn't happen (yeah...) So you know where this is going. I was clipping his nails and I took a chunk of skin off. Boy did it look painful! It bled a lot, too. I freaked out, but my son only cried for like a minute (I was torn up for DAYS about it). When I took him to the emergency room, no one took me seriously, they were just like "oh, well you're a new mom". But he was really bleeding, and it wouldn't stop! So that and the hospital staff being a bunch of jerks, saying "oh well you should have taken him to the children's hospital, where they specialize in this kind of thing." I was so mad, it was the closest hospital in my area. After waiting for 4 hours, I got so angry, I just packed up and left.
Anyway, LOL sorry about that, I'm sure there are a ton of things that you (and I for that matter) will encounter as a new parent that will scare the crap out of you! I think it all just comes with being a mom though. As for what happened to you, I think the hospital should have just gone ahead and given you a C-section. I had one (my son was too big), but he was never in any kind of danger like that. With something like that, I would have to insist on it. But then again I'm not the hospital staff. I dunno.
Best of luck to you!