Baby’s first trip to the ER, and everyone blamed themselves

I’ll preface this with while Maggie was at the ER, it was not her that we were there for, this is also just a story of the day so you’re not going to find any great baby insights here. Just a pool day and a trip to the ER.

Sunday started out fairly late. Maggie’s been dragging ass lately and on a new and inferior sleeping schedule that’s off by about two and a half hours, so we got going later than anticipated. It was to be Maggie’s first day at the pool.

The drive was fairly long as we were heading to a friend’s mother’s house and it was about 35 miles away, much of it through back and winding roads. Maggie became Miss Grumpalot for a while, still not entirely over the feeling meh from last week’s virus, but we figured she’d be happy with the water and another baby to play with, and we wanted to swim as well.

Maggie didn’t particularly like swimming with her life vest, I’ll skip that story but suffice is to say if there’s anything there that could protect her from harm she doesn’t like it. We learned that after about an hour of a very alternatingly frustrated and happy baby and just took turns baby-caddying her around between five adults in a shallow pool.

With the device that could save her life off, she started enjoying and my stress level went up a bit, but we had her covered for this.

An hour or so in we took her out as she had been going strong for a while. And for about five minutes she sat and just watched everyone and ate some squeezy packs and seemed as though she might be considering laying down (we’d brought the pack and play,) but from sitting on a warm, but not overly hot, painted poolside ground she suddenly developed a fire in her eyes and went at full crazy baby crawl to the pool.

It was one of the faster moves I’ve ever seen her do. I caught her before she plunged in and in a minute with baby swim diaper adjusted we got back into the pool and played on not safe for anyone floats with our friend’s baby and usually two adults guarding.

Ravenous baby hunger ensued after another hour or so of playing. Which was more playing that Maggie had had in a while uninterrupted. All babies out of the pool and started eating after having a mostly uneventful swim session.

At about 6:15 the other baby, sitting on a stair step and eating, decides he’s suddenly going to stand up. I wasn’t the one watching him, I was two steps away however and saw the events unfold and was unable to do anything. Even if I had been sitting next to him there was nothing that could have been done with human reflexes.

He went from sitting to falling forward in less time than you would possibly believe. This being step #2 there didn’t seem to be that much of a risk, but there was a flower pot there which he bonked his forhead on, and if I’m not mistaken it caused his head to veer toward the wall. This also would not have been all that bad had this not been an outdoor pool area and a metal box containing electrical outlets being mounted there.

What I remember seeing is his head go slightly over and faceplanting. It wasn’t a particularly bad faceplant even considering that it was painted concrete. It should have hurt, been a bit scary, the stairs were low-riser so he wasn’t up very high. This should have been a baby learning experience.

He was pulled up and even my colorblind ass could see there was blood everywhere. The electrical box had gouged about half an inch above his right eye. People went into panic mode, including me.

We got a roll of toilet paper and applied a little bit of pressure to his cut and started gathering things up to get him driven to the hospital. Plans changed twice during the emergency egress, but I don’t think that there was any unreasonable delay in getting him out the door in a timely fashion.

I bowed out of the driving on the initial plan due to not being able to see… I had not realized the pool was chlorine (it had been a salt pool the last time I was there,) and needed a few minutes get my eyes back. I also wanted to do my OCD sweep for all the stuff we brought to the pool and get the Maggie handled.

IT mama drove injured baby and mother to the hospital in their car.

Maggie was grumpy at this point, didn’t understand what was going on and wanted to sleep. She passed the eff out on the drive to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital, I had a sleeping baby that I chucked over my shoulder and walked in. I went to the ER admitting desk and told them I was looking for a baby who was admitted shortly before with a cut to his forehead.

In what I think might be a violation of HIPAA regulations, the receptionist read his name out to me and gave me the room number. I then wandered into triage past the desk and located his room.

It felt kind of odd that I was both given his name and where to find him, but I guess when you’re a greying man carrying a passed out baby on your shoulder the chances that you’re up to no good are pretty low.

We spent the next couple of hours in a small room with a baby bleeding and Maggie being bored and a bit concerned. At one point we broke out my phone, connected to the hospital WiFi, and watched some Super Why on Netflix. This only distracted the babies for a bit and there were two very sleepy grumps stuck in a hospital room.

There were several visits from nurses, doctors, and the person who processes credit card and medical billing info. It took a very long time (two hours I think,) before they came in and put something to numb the cut.

About two and a half hours in if I’m not mistaken baby’s daddy and a co-worker shows up (they were in another state when this happened,) and we started to gather our things to get out as there were now five adults and two babies in a triage room.

Just then a doctor and a nurse show up and ask why they weren’t invited to the party. I resisted saying “you were, two hours ago.” They only had two physicians working and a lot of people in the ER that night judging by their screen that showed the names of patients and what they were there for.

Also, I know the last names of patients and what (generally,) they were in there for… also seems a bit HIPAA unfriendly.

We left and threw a sleepy baby in the back seat and started to make our way out of a quaint little town 8 miles further away than where we’d started the pool party. ITMama mentioned she was abysmally thirsty and wondered if there was a Sonic along the way… I pulled out of the hospital and half a block down was a Sonic, so yes. There was.

Slushied up we started our now 40+ mile journey back home thinking that the rest of the night was going to be uneventful.

When you’re out that far, the highways don’t have much in the way of lighting. This was the case as we went onto some sort of ramp and turn. It was one of those where you saw black everywhere with a white center wall and a lot of yellow reflectors.

As we were making the slow turn I realized my Sonic beverage all the slush was at the top. I was thinking about that when I noticed there were two vehicles up around the turn in the emergency area. As this was on a curving bridge thingie and I didn’t know the pull off area’s width I decided to get over, still annoyed that I had 88% of a drink left and no way to get to it.

It was then I noticed there was a break in the reflective lights from the left lane. There was a black object in the lane I was getting in to to avoid the two vehicles pulled over to the right.

We missed hitting what we think was a black couch by about three feet. The two vehicles on the right were the ones that had dropped it off of a trailer and were theoretically attempting to go back and get it.

The combo of dark night, dark couch, unlit road/ramp thing, low beams, and Sonic’s inability to properly mix a Route 44 Nerds slushee (all the Nerds were on the bottom, had to be scooped with a spoon,) didn’t manage to couch us that night.

An uneventful 40+ mile trip back home was met with a baby who was almost crying when I took her out of the seat. She passed out on my shoulder and I just transferred her to bed as it was about 10 PM at this point. She was three hours past her bedtime.

What I remember most about this night is the home owner blaming herself for having that pot there (it wasn’t her fault,) the mom blaming herself for not having superhuman reflexes (it all happened in under a second,) and all the baby blood on the ground.

I guess one of the good things about being color blind like I am is that I didn’t really notice it on the clothes, and it didn’t pop out as a visual for me. I could smell it in the air though. I don’t like smelling blood.

Maggie was a trooper even if she was pooped. She entertained the other baby a bit, kept him distracted from his pain, and wasn’t much of a pain to be in a room with. She had stuff to do and even when it turned into destructive baby stuff as she was exhausted it was still overall an ok experience.

I also ended up sunburned, but that’s not adding much to this story. I guess everyone didn’t blame themselves, but it seemed ok for a title.

Little man with the cut was getting glued up when I left. He probably isn’t happy today but luckily no stitches.