Damaged goods

I've officially damaged my son. 

The weekend started out just fine and normal.  Marc and I even got out last night to the Billy Joel/Elton John concert Nationals Stadium and it was a great show.  The music was wonderful, Billy Joel made some good jokes about his recent third divorce, a rather large and rhythmless woman decided to stand and dance in front of us, which was mildly annoying but not nearly as stifiling as the stadium-food-smell that permeated every molecule of air that entered my nose.  It was a rough night for a preggo but the music got me through. 

Ahem, getting back to the alarming title and first sentence of this post; I damaged Noah. Well, I suppose he did it to himself really.  He fell off my bed while trying to climb onto the nightstand and hit his face on the corner of the nicely scalloped table edge.  I grabbed him up from the floor in a matter of milliseconds but he already had a massive contusion that was bright red.  It was just barely oozing blood too, which was delightful and extra scary.  He didn't cry for too long actually.  He pushed away the ice and didn't seem to notice his parents yelling at each other about whose fault it was, dammit, or the resultant hand-wringing pacing I was doing. 

After a two-hundred dollar copay mid-morning trip the ER confirmed that nothing was broken or damaged and the skin wasn't even broken enough to stitch, we came home for a much needed nap.  

Noah is fine. 

I am still reeling with guilt because I'm sure there is something I could have done to prevent this. 

Also, I'm still worried that the hospital staff suspected abuse.  I've watched enough ER episodes to know how that cookie crumbles. 

Comments

[FishyGirl]

Oh, honey. I dropped Nemo on his head our second night home from the hospital after he was born. We were at the GEC the week it opened and he got his very first CT scan at a week old. Trout hit Sunny AND Little Man in the head and mouth, respectively, with a baseball bat. These things are going to happen, and it's scary when it does, but it doesn't mean you're at fault and they won't think twice about abuse unless it happens a lot. You, and Noah, will be fine.

[Christine]

I'm not a parent, but it seems this type of thing is destined to happen to every kid at some point or another. A few months ago I was at a family BBQ and my cousin's 2 year old fell over a few steps outdoors, landing face first on the concrete. It was really scary and bloody at first, and oh my god the screaming, but in the end she just had some scrapes and a bruise. 45 minutes later she was back to normal again running around like crazy as if nothing happened. Of course, this was very terrifying to my cousin who was now paranoid of her falling again.