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These are the scariest two moments of my life.
The first happened when my oldest son was 11 months old. He started running a fever. We called the doctor and were told to give him a lukewarm bath. So in the bathroom he went. He was doing well in the tub and I watched him while my wife went to get a towel.
When she came back, he looked at my wife. Except not really at her. It was like he was looking in her direction, but didn't see her. That's when his eyes rolled up and he stopped breathing. My wife called 911 while I got him out of the tub and put him on our bed. I was calling his name but there was no response. To make matters worse, he was turning blue.
By the time the EMS arrived, he started breathing again. The sound of a baby crying had never before sounded so good. Crying meant he was alive.
It turned out that he had a febrile seizure which, the doctors later explained, can occur when a baby's temperature rises or falls too quickly. They are scary but harmless most of the time.
Fast forward 4 years. By this point, we had a second son and he was about 11 months old. He was running a fever and the doctor said to give him a lukewarm bath. I was feeling major deja vu about the situation so my wife not only got a towel beforehand, but called her parents who quickly came by as backup just in case. (My older son was sleeping.)
I put my younger son in the tub. Just as I feared, after a while, his eyes went back and he stopped breathing or responding. Only he didn't turn blue. No, he turned grey. My wife called 911 as my mother-in-law started rescue breaths on him as he lay on my bed.
I raced from the bedroom, watching my mother-in-law giving my lifeless son rescue breaths, to the door looking for any hint of emergency services, and back again. My father-in-law told me that I could sit down and he'd keep and eye out for me. I told him that I needed to be doing something. I couldn't just sit down and watch my baby possibly dying. I needed to do something even if it was completely useless.
Thankfully, the EMS arrived and my son started breathing again. They asked me how long he wasn't breathing for and I honestly couldn't tell. It might have been a minute or two, but it felt like 8 hours.
This was another febrile seizures. Unfortunately, my younger son seems to have been prone to them. He wouldn't show any signs of having a fever until he started seizing. He easily had half a dozen until he grew out of these. (And he learned the "fun game" of pretending not to breathe until daddy freaked out and he started laughing.)
Those two moments remain the scariest of my life and I hope they never be surpassed. My anxiety has risen just typing this out and they happened over 15 years ago. I don't think I could take something scarier than seeing my son lying lifeless in front of me.