Looking back, I’m relieved that I didn’t call 9-1-1 the first time Ania held her breath until she passed out.  Instead, I grabbed my six-month-old daughter and ran out in the yard, screaming for help. While I was screaming, Ania started breathing again.  We returned inside the house without me being able to thank anyone, since no one surfaced to offer any assistance.  That was an equally frightening realization. Ania was less daunted, but she was exhausted after the breath-holding ordeal, and within seconds she seemed her normal self, nursing peacefully.

After Ania fell asleep I called friends seeking advice.  

“Oh, no.  Sounds like epilepsy,” one friend decided.  

Another friend suggested Ania had a breathing disorder and to bring her to the emergency room immediately.  An assuring friend said it may have been a one-time ordeal, and said it probably wouldn’t happen again.  

“What were you doing to her to make her pass out?” another friend demanded.  

I explained how I was changing Ania’s diaper, getting her ready for bed, and all was fine, just like every other night, until she started screaming.  My friend interrupted me to ask if I had poked Ania with a diaper pin.  I used those cloth Velcro diapers, so I knew that wasn’t it.   

“Well, there must’ve been something.  Babies don’t get that upset,” she explained.  

I hung up feeling depressed, wishing I could pass out and be relieved of the guilt, the uncertainty, the fear it may happen again.  

A few days later, Ania held her breath once more.  This time I called a pediatrician. By the time we were able to meet for our appointment, Ania had two more breath-holding episodes, and each time all had been going well. The outburst of screaming took me by surprise, just like the not breathing seemed to take Ania by surprise.  

After the doctor gave me a lecture for not having Ania vaccinated, and pegging me as one of them, those homebirth mothers, those mothers who hold off on vaccinations, he left me with the intern.  

The intern played with Ania, and after examining her and questioning me, he excused himself and returned with a large book.  “I think I figured it out.  She’s a breath-holder.  I don’t think she has epilepsy.  We don’t need to do any tests, at least not now.”  Then he read me the section about how breath-holding usually starts at six months, and lasts until they’re four.  

“Four!  Isn’t there anything I can do?”  

“Don’t worry, they automatically start breathing. There’s nothing to worry about.”  

“She’ll do this until she’s four?” I felt like crying.  

“According to the book.”  

“That’s a long time.  Are you sure she’ll always start breathing?”  

“She will.  Do you know infant CPR?”  I didn’t, but promised to sign up for a class.  “It’s a good class to take, just in case something else happens.”  

“There are worse things than this?”  

“Oh, yes,” he laughed.   

“What can we do to prevent the breath-holding?”  

“Walk away and ignore her when she does this.  She’s manipulating you.”  

“How can she manipulate me?  She’s only six months.”  

“She’s very bright,” he said, trying to give me some hope.  

“This is a sign of being bright?  Making your mother panic is a sign of intelligence?”  

“It’s working.  She’s making you react.  I know it’ll be hard, but make sure she’s in a safe place when she starts screaming, then walk out of the room.  It won’t stop until she doesn’t get a reaction from you.  In the meanwhile, take the CPR class.”  

I left the office relieved Ania didn’t need to be tested for epilepsy, but I couldn’t believe this could happen for four more years.  I wondered if I had done something to make Ania angry.  I didn’t work so we could be together all the time.  I signed her up for infant swimming lessons and participated in playgroup.  Were there more things for a six-month-old child to do?  I wondered if she was upset I was a single mom on food stamps.  The news was constantly ridiculing single mothers, especially those on welfare. Could Ania actually be recognizing me as one of them, and fearing for her future after hearing those bleak reports. Perhaps she was holding her breath to blackmail me into getting married? 

Instead of getting married, I developed a new mission.  All day long we walked through the house, and I pointed to the objects she may have wanted, repeating the words over and over.  Every object in the house, I’d repeat like some catatonic mantra, just in case this was what Ania wanted but couldn’t articulate.  “Light on, light off,” I’d say turning the switch on.  “Water.  Water.  Water.  Ball.  Ball.  Ball.”  I even made flashcards and placed them all over the house, more to remind me to keep saying the words, than believing she was going to start reading them.  

During the next few breath-holding sessions, I placed Ania on the futon, then raced to grab the illustrated chart on CPR steps that was hanging on the fridge, and waited for the screaming to stop, the breathing to begin.  I grew to appreciate how subdued Ania became after the experience, though I was certain I grew at least fifty new grays waiting for each session to end.   

Once at a restaurant, a real treat for me, Ania was in her baby carrier sleeping while my friend and I were actually holding a conversation. Ania woke up abruptly and started that ear-piercing screaming, and I could see it was going to turn into the breath-holding scream.  “Just ignore Ania,” I told my friend.  He looked at me as if I were crazy.  The lady behind me screamed, “Your baby is turning blue!”   

“She’ll be fine.  Just eat,” I said, with my hands now shaking.  

And then Ania did start breathing and the lady looked more upset that I was nursing her in public than letting her turn blue in a restaurant.  

“We should just order out next time,” my friend suggested.     

“When Ania’s four, she shouldn’t be doing this anymore,” I explained.     

“Four!  She’s only nine months.  We’ll order out for the next three years.”  

Little by little, Ania stopped holding her breath and started using words.  By the time she turned one, the breath holding ceased.   

Ania’s now ten, and she loves to hear the story about when she held her breath. She seems to derive perverse pleasure from this story, from my misery.  Every now and then, she’ll puff up her cheeks, then burst into laughter, thinking it’s the funniest thing she’s ever done.  Little by little, I’m learning not to tell Ania so many stories.

Author's Biography

Diane lives with her eleven-year-old daughter in a small town where she teaches writing at University of Arkansas-Monticello. 

One of these days, Red Hen Press is supposed to publish her novel "Burning Tulips." 

E-mail Diane at diane_payne@hotmail.com   

Editor's Note, August 2004: Diane's first novel, "Burning Tulips," has just been published by Red Hen Press. Check it out!

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