Aria has a siezure :-(

I want to preface this by saying that Aria is ok. :-) By this evening she was back to her giggly/wiggly self.....but having said that today was a real test of motherhood and bravery for me. As I like to make light of aweful things I will give two reflections on this story. The first is the facts, the second is the funnies. The facts. I had a meeting in Santa Monica with my boss and another producer for a documentary we are filming in Japan in February. Presently the American Film Market is happening in Santa Monica, so the lobby of the hotel where our meeting was to take place was packed with press/stars/entertainment business folk. So the room was crowded with people of note (at least in our small narcissistic world) Aria had a weird day today. She fell asleep while eating in her highchair which she has never done before. She also was not quite her playful self. I chalked it up to her staying up a half hour late to entertain dinner guests that HMG, JuJu and I hosted for a big party last night. In true party girl fashion, she didn't want to go to bed and miss the fun....I gave her a little extra time, but not whole night like Halloween. Anyway when I arrive in Santa Monica for my meeting, she is asleep in the car seat, since we had been on the road for a hour, I thought it would be fine to take her out. She usually takes a minute to wake up and then just starts smiling. When I took her out today, she clutched my neck hard (like a toddler or preschooler would do) and her head started dropping backwards, at the same time her eyes lost focus and started to roll. I got her head up, but she could only move it to one side and she still could not focus her eyes, her mouth then dropped open and she looked like she was gasping for air. I started to cry as I held her and tried to get her to become alert again. JuJu WAS AMAZING, she was so strong and loving she kept trying to talk to Aria to get her to respond. Aria knew what was happening to her, but she couldn't stop it and her little eyes pleaded with me to help her. I just held her and kissed her and massaged her neck, thinking she had woken up with a stiff neck or something. But honestly in my heart of hearts I knew there was something wrong. I know this child better than I know myself and a mother knows when her kid is ill :-( In fact for a moment....just one horrid moment, it felt like she was dying. We where finally able to get her to become a bit more alert and I headed toward my meeting, thinking that she had needed to sleep and had a stiff neck, but when we entered the lobby of the hotel it happened again. And this time it was worse, she looked like she was experiencing some kind of cerebral palsy, without the jerky motions, just a fluid rolling of the head and a disconnect with the eyes. That is when I calmly (If you can believe that) went up to the front desk and said. "Please call 911 there is something wrong with my baby." To which I met am with a blank stare. I repeat "Please call 911" He says "Are you a guest of the hotel?" In my delirium I say "no, I'm here for a business meeting," Not surprising considering that the world's largest film market is happening not more than 10 feet in front of him. I then tell him that my baby (which he can see) is lethargic and non-responsive PLEASE CALL 911!!!!!! By this time my boss has arrived and all 4'10" inches of shear craziness pitches a fit in the middle of the lobby and demands that someone call 911. Who shows up? Hotel security!!!! So now I am faced with Men In Black, complete with earpieces. By this time Aria has stopped the seizure, but is still lethargic and detached. My boss starts screaming at security as she notices that Aria is really sick. My kiddo is a smiling drooling cooing moving beautiful bundle of engergy. The child in my arms was unmoving, lethargic drooling (and not the good teething drool....but the vacant stare drool) with half closed eye lids, under which her 100% aware eyes were begging someone to help her feel better. It is not until I meet the manager of the hotel and say that I am a fost/adoptive mother of a drug exposed baby, having a meeting with my boss, who they now recognize and start appologizing to, did they begin to take me seriously and actually CALL 911 as I had asked them to do 10 minutes before. The woman happens to be AA and I explain my story, she adds something like I am a saint for adopting a drug baby (whatever!) and FINALLY CALLS 911. Now we become the most catered to people in the hotel, we are given bottled water, told to sit down, the manager lady (sorry this is all a bit hazy) sits with me and talks, but I can't remember what about. All I really remember is looking at Aria and holding her, remembering how connected we where when she had her first seizure, her little arms holding my neck and her little eyes looking at me with fear and love, all she wanted to do was cuddle, even though the little dear had no head nor, eye control. I remember sitting with her in my arms my head against hers just whispering to her to stay here with me....not to leave. To stay and live til old age, to grow up and become whatever she wants. Even though I want her to be a baby Beyonce, I gave her free reign to be a scientist, a gardner, a bank teller, a rock star, a politician, heck....she can even be a republican.....just grow up one day....please, let me be able to see you grow up til adulthood and beyond. In essence, please God....please, let her get through this ok. Now I know that with the head circumfrence issue and the learning delays, we have faced challenges....all which were actually kinda fictional, cause they really weren't anything. Maybe they were preparing me for this moment. I'm not sure. But today was real. And I must say, even though I will adopt another drug exposed baby....it was the drug exposure that did this. Later in the hospital I learn, that the prenatal drug exposure can cause seizures...and d@mn it, if that isn't what happened. Anyway 8 paramedics, a fire truck and two ambulances show up to escort my little rock star to the emergency room. We were wheeled on a gurney through the lobby of the Shutters Hotel while the world's largest Film Market/Shmooz fest is happening. We are raced to emergancy, seen by doctors, have a CAT SCAN (anyone ever sit through THAT WITH YOUR CHILD???????). To see if, yet again, she has a brain tumor. I would rather stick needles in my eyes than ever watch my child go through a CAT scan ever again. We are told that the CAT scan is clear. Yeah no tumors!!!! My wacko boss comes and pushes around the emergancy staff, finally finds us and tells me I need to give Aria water. To appease her we give Aria a capful....oh wait....I do this not to appease her but Aria just had spewed projectile vomitosis all over my shoulder, the chair, the floor, the wall and the corner of a cute Disney poster that had baby Mikey, Minnie and Donalds etc. In fact Ju Ju and I were commenting on how we think Aria is the sassy Daisy Duck on the top of the picture trying to reach for the bow on the top of the cake, way above the rest and nearest to the string of puke that is making it's way to the floor. So I think after a jet propelled spew like that, kiddo may need a little rehydration. At this point she is getting to be more like herself and I am starting to feel better. Doctor comes in and tells me that the CAT scan is clear, but that Aria had a Petit Mal Seizure and will need to see our doctor, which she will do tomorrow or at their earliest convienience and was given a pamphlet on Epilepsy. We leave. JuJu and I have a nervous breakdown, decide to get fattning food at a fav. restaurant and our day ends with Aria eating avacados and half of my veggie burger bun, and saying "mmm" at the top of her lungs, me with FRIES :-) and a fat glass of wine and JuJu with a towering burger, all of us happy, tired, puffy eyed and glad to be a family. Revelations on this journey. JuJu says that watching Aria cling to me and look in my eyes as she is having her seizure really helped her understand the meaning of the word "mother" That at the time of crisis a baby looks to and needs their mother, and the love between that mother/father and their child is from God and is the most perfect love. She also said that seeing Aria and I together she knew that there was no one else in this world who could really call her mom, cause today she needed me. She also said that she now knows how deep love flows, and how profound it is as she watched her little Aria struggle through the seizure, she said her heart burst and the love she had for Aria grew bigger than anything she has ever known. For me I saw JuJu and her angelic little face and how she smiled and told me all would be ok as Aria eyes rolled back in her head. But behind her smile I saw the tears well in her eyes and the concern she was hiding. I saw her grow up today, I saw her mature and become a woman, and I saw us grow as a family. I am not the whiney "un-mom" of the last post, but a more empathetic and well....dare we say....more motherly mom. And for Aria....if it is even possible....I now love her MORE! I saw her soul today....I saw her as person... as a person who reached out to her mother for help when her body betrayed her. Yesterday I loved her as a baby, today I love her as a person, this person who for one moment during a seizure became more than a nine month old child....she became an ageless being with a perfect means of articulate communication, she became my daughter not my adopted daughter, but more, more than any definition can discribe....she is the person whose soul is in tune with mine, there is no other person on this planet who is closer or more one with me than Aria and today taught me that. We called HMG from the hospital and he took the news harder than anyone, I think cause he wasn't there and just had such a lovely dinner last night where she and he rolled around the floor, giggled and played all night and today, she has a petit mal seizure. :-( Ok....now for the funnies ready! 1. Being wheeled past Diane Keaton having lunch with a friend on a gurney with my child as a Fire Engine 2 ambulances and 8 paramedics escort us to the emergancy room. 2. Sitting the the ambulance with my lethargic, little one cluched to my chest thinking..."Is is wrong to flirt with the HOT fireman who is asking all sorts of personal questions, while my child may be gravely ill?" And I mean he was HOT!!!! However, the mix of brave motherhood and gut swirling fear won and I paid attention only to my kiddo. 2. Projectile Vomitosis that drips down a Disney poster. 3. Ju Ju and I doing an entire choreographed dance to LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU while a trauma patient, an old man, a victim of a gun shot wound and various ER staff watch our full production, kicks, twirls and all as we try to get Aria to laugh. 4. Singing folks songs to my kiddo as she is strapped down and placed under the CAT Scan machine, screaming so loudly and profoundly that she is actually blowing bubbles of saliva that start in her throat and grow out her mouth like bubble gum. To have her finally calm down and look at me with brave eyes while they take the pictures which makes me break down in sobbing tears as I try to continue singing Like A Bridge Over Troubled Water. When we are done, I look over and all the technicians behind the glass are crying. 5. Waiting in the ER waiting room after we were done for JuJu to get the car while a man in a wheelchair claims he's dying and why doesn't he get service. A frantic Nurse runs in and asks "Whose the person that was found in a car not breathing??" They point to a person who is behind a pole. She tries to confirm. "Was there anyone else in this room found in a car not breathing???" Everyone who has been in the room for hours points to the person behind the pole. The nurse is relieved. "I just wanted to make sure" A person in the room yells that she has been there for about a half hour. And when they finally wheel her into the ER, she's about 100 years old....and um....I think dead. (I know not funny) But a non breathing patient had to wait 30 minutes to be seen....um...you do the math. Many of the waiting room waiters commented on the same thing....assuming that the wait might have killed her. So on an up note, by the time we hit the ER waiting room, waiting for JuJu to bring the car. Aria was trying to get the attention of everyone in the room, which she succeeded in doing...right on little rock star. So to close this I will end with a little message to my daughter.... Babe....DON'T EVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN.......EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and.....I love you.