Home from the ER

First off I will say that we are all fine and little B is napping soundly in his crib. 

This however, was not the circumstance just a few hours ago.

Let me set the scene.  It was around 10:45am this morning when B and I got home from the grocery store.  Hubs is so sweetly out of town about 30 minutes away laying flooring at my parent's house.  So it was just me at home trying to put the groceries away.  Like I always do, I set B down in the kitchen and let him *CRAWL* (yes he is crawling now, more on that later) around and play with something new we bought at the store; a bag of cheese sticks, a cube of toilet paper: Today it was a pack of swim diapers that held his attention. I had just finished putting the groceries away and decided to start making his lunch when,  SLAM "WHAAAAAAAAAAH"!!!

Instantaneously I knew that B must have bonked his head and turned around to pick him up in a split second.  When I turned and first saw him he was sitting up, so I was kind of unsure where he hit his head.  Then I realized that he must have reached for the diapers and because they are slippery they slipped out from under him on the hard wood floor.  (Insert mommy guilt for a bad toy idea.)  I held him, shushed him, sang to him and offered him a drink and paci.  He calmed down fairly quickly. 

I didn't really give the fall much of a second thought until it looked like his top lip was getting puffy.  I then got out a frozen teether to let him suck on it to help control the swelling.  It wasn't until I laid him down to change his diaper that I noticed his lip was cut and slightly bleeding, his gums were bleeding, and his top tooth was purple and black.  That is when I freaked out.  I know these teeth he has are not permanent but still....I don't think they are supposed to be black.

I called my pediatrician because they have emergency weekend hours.  They put me through to someone right away.  Just like my timing would have it, the Dr. just saw his last patient and was leaving.  She did say however that he most definitely needed to get it looked at now.  I had two options: 1) Drive 15-20 minutes to go to a Children's urgent care, or 2) Drive 1 minute across the street and go to the Children's ER.  (Yes, I do love living so close to Children's even if it means hearing sirens pretty often.) 

I chose the ER.

Long story short B is fine.  They checked to make sure no bones in his face were broken.  They checked to see if his tooth was loose.  They checked to see if they thought he'd need stitches.  Luckily, all were negative.  They think he sort of scraped across the floor so the impact wasn't straight down.  As for the color, they said yes, you can bruise a tooth and it should buff itself out.  He just might have sensitivity to temperature.

I am so thankful that everything is fine.  Yes, even though we will be paying an arm and a leg and a left nipple for this appointment, yes, we were there so long I had to whip it out to nurse, but still it's worth it to know he is ok. 

This brings me to my last point that I will be quick about because I know this post is already too long:  Our medical system.  It still baffles me.  I understand you need a copy of our insurance card and everything but really, the checking in/out process takes 4 times longer than the time you are even getting medical care.  Plus, we were waiting to be discharged for over a half hour.  I don't want to sound heartless, but I guess our nurse was in with another critical patient, and again, my heart goes out to that family, I just don't understand why one of the 5 other nurses that were standing around eating kitkat bars and what not couldn't discharge us.  I know, I know, "protocol" it's just annoying when you have an over-tired baby and no comfortable place to sit and let the milk flow.

Tiffany