baby rocks.

I always knew that I’d have to see this day at some point, I just never thought it’d be so soon. He’s not even one yet.

Colton’s friend got this awesome baby trampoline for Christmas and when we went over to visit last week he just LOVED it. Climbing up and down, bouncing, crawling through the handle. It occupied him for a whole hour at her house. An HOUR. In baby-time that’s like a decade. So we hunted one down on Craigslist and HB set out yesterday morning to get it. And then it happened.

At this point you’re probably thinking we’re the idiots who put our 11 month old on a trampoline, of course he’s going to get hurt, but the irony is that that’s not what caused the accident. While HB was on his way to get it, Colton fell and hit his face against the edge of our wooden bed frame. And his lip just busted open.

I picked him up and turned him over and the look in his eyes as he looked at me was so scared. I don’t want to know if he saw the look in my eyes though. There was blood all over his face and I didn’t know where it was coming from yet. I was starting to feel the sensation of panic starting to build inside my stomach. I rushed him into the bathroom and started rinsing the blood away to find where the source was, and then I saw his lip. Since this is my first experience in kidswillgethurtandbleedespeciallyboys incident, I didn’t know what was normal in terms of bleeding, and I didn’t know if this was one of the ones that would stop on its own or requires pressure, so I grabbed our hand towel and pressed on it for a second. The first thought that came to mind was that he was going to need stitches. More panic building. But then I hear HB in my head and how I always overreact and I think maybe just a butterfly bandaid would do the trick. But I didn’t know what to do or who to call first. Obviously 911 would be a little inappropriate, and no one is going to be able to give me a definitive answer over the phone, I’ll have to bring him to the ER. Crap. 

Commence pacing our apartment on the hunt for my wrap, no where to be found, but totally fuzzy in my head it took a few minutes for me to get a grip, tell myself I needed to relax and focus, and then realize I can just use a different baby carrier. I quickly strapped him up to me, rushed around to throw some essentials into his diaper bag, unstrapped him to put on his coat, throw on some babylegs under his PJs, restrap him up, gathered his truck, a book, his shoes, his hat, my coat, the keys, our new insurance cards that just came in the mail, phone, out the door. I snapped a picture of his lip before I walked out our building, and set off for the closest hospital, just about 7 blocks away. 

I called my parents first, since my husband was underground in the subway and unreachable. Sent them the picture, and then left a voicemail for HB. Mom called me back and gave me the speech I’m sure I’ll give one day, about how it’s common, he’ll be okay, it’s probably not stitches-worthy… I told myself I couldn’t cry, I had to be strong, but since my baby had his head against my chest starting to fall asleep, I allowed myself the tears. 

I get to the ER, check him in, and text his PED the picture. She calls me within minutes and tells me it looks pretty bad, he’ll definitely need stitches, and she wants me to have a plastic surgeon do it. A whole sentence of things I wasn’t really expecting to hear. The talk of plastics sent my stomach spinning. Is it THAT bad?! He needs plastic surgery? Okay so I misunderstood a little. No, not plastic surgery, just a plastic surgeon to do the stitches. They have a better hand and apparently use a different type of thread. Because the cut went all the way through his lip line, she thought it was really important to have someone highly skilled fix it. Whatever you think, just tell me what to do. So she tells me to getthehelloutof Queens (it was in her tone) and head to Mount Sinai on 100th and Madison. She called ahead for me to send over her referral for the PS and told me they were expecting us. So I hop in a cab and text HB call me immediately. I think, well at least I’m heading to the same neighborhood he’s heading to right now for the trampoline.

HB gets out of the subway and calls me and I immediately break down. It’s all my fault. I should have prevented it. I could done so many things different. He’s so wonderful though. He stays completely cool as a cucumber, tells me it’s not my fault at all and accidents happen. It helps a little, but doesn’t change my mind. He says he’ll meet me there and I spend the rest of the cab ride thinking of how I forever this affects his life. He’s going to have a scar on his face now. His perfect little face, scarred. I think about how he’s going to be tortured at the hospital, getting stitches, having no idea what’s going on. And I hate myself.

We fly through triage and they send us back to the PED ward. The nurses were all so kind. They sent a doctor over to greet us and tell us what was going to happen. He said one of the best plastic surgeons was already on his way to the hospital that morning, so we were lucky. He was going to be there soon, and just sit tight. Colton had woken up by this point and we put his shoes on and let him run around. He seemed clueless, painless, and happy. HB followed him around while I sat and texted family updates and cried.

The nurse was the sweetest lady and came over to tell me that this surgeon was absolutely the best and that if one of her children needed it, he would be the first one she’d go to, that she absolutely loves him. HB came over and started to give me a sterner talk about how these things were bound to happen and it doesn’t change the perfection of his face at all and how I can’t blame myself. IknowIknow, but I couldn’t shake those thoughts. 

The surgeon arrived and he was the kindest man. Such a gentle voice, assuring words, and kept a soft warm smile on his face the entire time. He explained the procedure and next steps. HB volunteered to be the one to go in with them. I was grateful he was there to do that extra hard stuff. He went in with the nurse to prep and I went over to the surgeon to ask a few more questions. He answered all of them and then said, “Just so you know, I’m a plastic surgeon for cleft palates, gums, and mouth, so I’m the perfect guy for this job and do it all the time. And on a scale of 1-10, ten being the worst, this is abouuuut… a zero.” He winks and pats me on the shoulder and says it’s always harder on the moms and that everything will be just fine. The nurse overhears me telling him I was going to go back to the main lobby so I couldn’t hear the wailing (a preview I got from the previous kid the plastic surgeon came to the hospital for), so she sets me up in another room with a TV and a big fan and says to change the channel to anything I wanted and I would be fine in there. I found myself being thankful for the snowball ice machine in there (my favorite; I love the texture and feeling when biting into those small round chunks) with fresh water right next to it. I found some Kardashian show on and paced.

When I saw the door open, I rushed over, and as I step in I see his puffy, red, wet, heaving little face turn and lock eyes with mine, and his whole body launches forward from HB’s arms toward mine. I had given myself a pep talk as I was waiting, telling myself how I needed to be strong and smile when I see him, but the moment I saw him and the look in his face, so scared and confused as to what was happening to him and why they had done what they had for the past 15 minutes, I had to quickly grab him and turn away. He put his head in my neck and I held him close for more than one reason. We talked to the surgeon about how it went and next steps. Six stitches. He gave us his card and instructed us to see him Friday at his private office to get the ones that don’t dissolve removed and so we could follow up so he could see how it was healing.

As soon as I started nursing C, he fell asleep, within probably a minute. HB said he had almost fallen asleep as he was getting stitched, he was screaming and crying so much he was exhausting himself at the point of almost passing out. Seriously?! So I asked him to tell me what exactly happened. Apparently in those situations, they can’t put them under (I’m sure for several reasons: because probably everyone has eaten food within 24 hours, and because general anesthesia is way more serious than local, obviously, and not necessary), so they give them a shot to numb it and do it awake. The results: having to “tie down” the baby. They wrap them really tight in a blanket, put tape around it, then tape them to the bed. HB had the job of holding his chest and shoulders and the nurse held his head while the doctor stitched. It sounded so awful and traumatic, I couldn’t even fathom what my poor baby was thinking. HB said it was really sad to see him screaming that whole time, looking into his eyes as if to ask him why aren’t you saving me?? make it stop daddy! I wanted to cry again. Poor HB… he was scared Colton was going to be mad at him and think it was all his fault and that he was the one hurting him. But then when I woke him up so I could strap him up and we could go home, he looked over at HB, smiled, and said in his high pitched little voice, “HI”. We both let out a sigh of relief and our eyes welled up, again.

He’s the same happy-go-lucky baby without a care in the world. I’m sure the event is long gone from his memory already. His mouth doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest (well, aside from one of the sutures that started dissolving, tickling his bottom lip). He’s been smiling and running around like normal. Laughing and eating, and last night he slept so well. 

As for me, I feel like I have more healing to do than he does. HB tried encouraging me that probably most babies have a big injury like this at least once before they’re two. I thought that was a ridiculous estimate until he pointed out that both of us had an ER visit before we were two (he fell and got stitches in his ear and I got a baby doll hand stuck in my eye and had tear duct surgery). I’ve started to get the idea through my head that it’s not *that* big of a deal. Keep telling myself that many other things are going to happen and if I can’t handle this, how am I ever going to get through anything else. It’s just hard. You want to protect them from everything and yet you’re virtually helpless. I still run the event over and over in my head, but I’m realizing that we couldn’t have asked for a better ER visit, between that, the surgeon, the success in stitching, and the fact that he’s so young, by the time he grows up, whatever scar he gets will fade, and fade, and fade. I was really upset at first considering his birthday, too, thinking that I forever ruined it and that we were going to look back at the photos and always remember it, but we still have two weeks and his lip is already looking better. In the grand scheme of things, it could have always been worse. It could have got his eye, or even his eyebrow (which my mom pointed out would have likely caused a line of hair to never grow, which would be much more noticeable). And so I’m thankful for all the things I should be focusing on. He’s okay and healthy, and he’s still my beautiful baby.

Taken right when we got home, so still numb and puffy (and droopy) from the shot here.