And the Mother of the Year Award goes to....

It's taken me a little while to try to articulate this most recent milestone of motherhood. In fact, I'm still not sure I'll be able to fully capture the vomit-swirl-freak-train (hey, that would be a good band name) of emotion that went along with my son's first trip the ER but I'll give it a go.

The events leading up to the "incident" were as follows; Tuesday night, wait, Tuesday night? Yes, Tuesday, American Idol was on. So Tuesday night he started coughing a weird cough, like a sea lion. I thought it was kind of cute and was going to get it on video when grandma showed up and threw out the word "croup". What? Croup? I'm not ready for croup. My only reference to croup was the movie "Terms of Endearment" and we all know how that movie ended! So I got out my "What to Expect the First Year" book, something I refer to often in these panicky, no-idea-what-to-do situations. In the book, it didn't sound so scary. Just take him outside for a breath of cold night air and follow up with a humidifier, which I did. Well, he woke up every half hour from 8pm on. It was a long and grueling night. Just when I would fall back to sleep, he would wake up and I'd have to go in and pick him up so the snot could drain a little and then put him back down. This went on and on and when he woke at 5am I decided to let him cry for a minute or two to see if he would fall back to sleep on his own. I was delirious and I think I remember uttering the words, "Please God..." and then I heard it, a loud, dull thud, like someone had just thrown a sack of potatoes down a chimney (I have no idea why anyone would do that, it's not the point). I knew exactly what it was and not because I have such amazing instincts as a mother but because I had been expecting this to happen for months now but did nothing to prevent it (please refer to the section entitled, "I wasn't always a dumbshit, honest."). I leaped from my bed and ran into his room, my heart pounding out of my chest and there he was, in his little organic cotton sleep sack, sprawled out on the hardwood floor. I scooped him up in my arms and squeezed him as hard as I could without inflicting further trauma. He was crying and disoriented and so helpless I just wanted to lick him like a momma lion. I held him and shhh'd him until he started to calm down. I laid him down in bed with me and nursed him. Hey, just shove a boob in a man's face and the world is once again a happy place, am I right?!? He nursed for a bit and then fell asleep next to me. I, in turn was up, I mean really, really up. I laid next to him and watched him fall into a deep sound sleep. And then it hit me, falling out of a crib...deep sleep. Something about this didn't seem right. I must have learned something in my three and a half month stint as an extra on ER because terms like "pupils equal and reactive" and "concussion induced coma" started coming to mind. Thank goodness the "What to Expect" book was already bedside and ready to dole out some reassuring advice. I couldn't find "concussion" in the index and in that moment I couldn't for the life of me figure out what else you would call it. Bump on head, no, Falls from great heights, no, My mother is a fucking idiot, no (thankfully), oh, Head injury yes there it was. It did say that the pupils should react to light. Aha, I do know something! So I woke up a sleeping baby (what do we say about that?) and stared directly into his eyeballs. Can you imagine how freaky that was for him? To wake up with his frantic mother two inches from his face trying to determine the size of his pupils? As if he hadn't already been through enough. All I was really able to determine was that he did in fact have pupils. I kept flicking the light on and off to see if they reacted but I don't think that's how it's done because nothing happened. He started giggling like I was playing some new crack of dawn, strobe light game. If only I could find the humor in this too. After several pointless minutes of pretending I knew what I was looking for, I decided to defer to an expert. I called the advice nurse at our pediatrician's office. He asked all sorts of questions about the fall. How high, what surface did he land on, what was his behavior like since. I answered him with overly precise responses as if the solution to this problem was in some minute detail like, his room was exactly 70 degrees at the time of his fall. At the end of this telephone triage the nurse gave his assessment, "Based on the age of the child, the distance he fell, his response after the fall and his mother's complete and utter lack of ability to care for him, we recommend that you take him to the hospital emergency room." I had to let this information sink in for a minute, not only what is not what I wanted to hear but it was also not at all what I wanted to hear. I really thought he'd say something like, "Oh Ms. D, don't worry about it. This happens to every parent at some point even the really really good ones like you. Just get in bed and get some sleep. Sweet dreams. Oh and by the way, I am handsome, single and I love kids. Would you like to go out sometime?" Okay maybe not exactly like that but something to that effect. Finally, it sunk in and I realized what I had to do. I called grandma to let her know what was going on (and because I needed my mommy) and started getting dressed. I woke up the little man, threw on his parka right over his cozy blue lion, footed pajamas and off we drove to the ER. This particular hospital had a separate pediatric ER so it wasn't the chaotic, television ER scene I had running through my head. We were seen right away and they were all very comforting and kind to us. The doctor did his assessment and based on the situation he ordered a full head CT. Of course the idea of radiating my 13 month old made me very uncomfortable. I don't even let him eat fruit that isn't organic. The doctor explained that the only evidence of risk is the increased possibility of breast cancer 50 years from now as evidenced by the victims of Hiroshima. What I really hearing that or had a dozed off for minute while he was talking? The thing that got me was when he said if it was his kid, he'd do the scan. That is what I needed, someone who has kids and has been through this stuff before to tell me what to do or at least what they would do so I can model their behavior. I wasn't prepared for the ordeal of the scan at all. They laid him on a huge table which made him look even tinier and helplessier and of course he was crying. Then they rolled up his arms in the sheet so he couldn't move them and...are you ready for this...they taped his head down so he couldn't move at all. I started FREAKING OUT!!!! But only on the inside because on the outside I was singing. Singing like I had never sung before. "The wheels on the bus go round and round..." oh shit, what am I doing? He can't move his arms to make the round and round gesture, that's his favorite part "um...uh...say say oh playmate come out a play with me..." and I just kept singing, over his crying, over the mechanical noise of the giant donut machine making calculated circles around my son's little head, over the tears welling up in my eyes. It was one of those moments as a parent that you just know it is more important to be there for your kid that to indulge the tsunami of fear that is washing over you. Maybe I do have a few instincts after all. Any way, the whole scan took four minutes which in trauma time is actually four and a half days. The very nice woman came out and released my son from the straight jacket and I scooped him up and held him which made us both feel better. We waited back in the room for the results which came back clear. No fractured skull, no brain swelling just a slight ear infection which showed up as fluid on the scan. The doctor prescribed us some antibiotics and we were on our way home. The giant sense of relief washed over me on the drive home. We did it, we had survived our first emergency relatively unscathed. When we got home we both crawled into bed and slept for hours. I woke up feeling a slight shift in myself as a mother. I had submerged a little deeper into the murky waters of parenthood that morning and realized that I'm not such a bad swimmer after all. (Don't worry, I won't let it go to my head)

And the mother of the year award goes to....ME?!? What!!? Oh my God! This is so unexpected. I promised myself I would cry. Oh my God. Um there are so many people who helped me get here. Where do I start? Um, I'd like to thank my sperm donor and all the wonderful staff at the fertility clinic. Without them, none of this would even be possible. I'd also like to thank all of the people who shared their stories of horrible things they've done to their children that caused them to end up in the ER. Those were so comforting and helpful, thank you! I have to thank Heidi Murkoff, Arlene Eidenberg and Sandee Hathaway for writing "What to Expect the First Year" without which I would just be mothering in the bliss of my ignorance but most of all I'd like to thank my mom, for showing me the kind of mom I want to be (seriously,thanks mom for everything!).