We had our first trip to the ER last night. It was after dinner, when my kids are wound up and happy. Somehow DD started running from the kitchen to the living room with Blaise in tow. I don't think he realized Blaise had somehow lost his footing. Blaise fell with some force, and hit his little forehead on the door jam corner. I scooped Blaise up, and when I flipped him over, saw this huge gash on his head, and tissue beneath that's supposed to be covered with skin! Scary! Dan and I instantly knew he needed stitches. We told the kids to get their shoes on. Thankfully, the gash didn't bleed like crazy. But, oh, how my baby kept crying.

We hesitated a moment trying to decide where to go. Urgent care? ER? I thought an urgent care would be just fine, but I came to the realization that Dayton doesn't have a children's urgent care, save for in Springboro...which closes at 8p on Sunday. It was 8:02. I was pretty sure a regular urgent care wouldn't touch him because he was so young. After a quick call to a friend, we decided Children's it was.

The ride there was fine. Blaise had calmed down, although he kept trying to touch his head. He would shake it from side to side and cry 'donk head'.

Dan dropped me off at the ER, then he was going to take the kids home, and have my mom come and stay with them so he could come back with me. I'm not sure how other families do it, but I didn't want to wait the whopping ten minutes for my mom to come over before we left.

I was a bit nervous about being at the hospital. I don't know why my worries centered around us not vaccinating our kiddos! But I honesty rationalized myself out of those worries, and turned them into elements of gratitude. I was grateful for having an understanding pediatrician, and living in a country where we are allowed to make decisions such as these.

Blaise loved the waiting room, and touched every little germy toy in there. He approached every other "baby" (toddlers) he saw, wanting to hug, or shove them, I don't know. Who knows how many germs we came home with- but for the record, he did have many false alarm bathroom breaks, so we washed hands several times.

It probably took an hour total, from when I walked in the door to when they took us back to the exam room. Dan had come by then, and I was so thankful. I knew they would have to restrain him to do the stitches, and I knew that alone would make him wail. But I knew they had to do in, and was okay with it. So they asked Dan to lay him on the little restraint board as I watched them velcro him in. A large male nurse was there to hold Blaise's head immobile. Him and the Physician's assistant (doing the stitches) took their seats, while Dan stood, holding Blaise's hands and talking to him.

They turned on some lovely calming background music and got started. I was sitting in the chair in the corner first, and then would alternate between sitting and standing and talking to Blaise.

Blaise did as expected and cried the moment he left Dan's arms, to the moment he returned to those strong arms: approx 8 min. About a minute into the stitches, I sat in the chair and tears began falling from me as well. I knew these guys were doing what they had to do. I was okay with that. I knew Blaise was 'fine' in a sense that he wasn't in agonizing pain or anything. It's just hearing your baby cry, and knowing you can't do anything to comfort him was very, very difficult. And maybe just being aware of truly how much you love a child- well, it just made me cry.

Until I remembered that Dan doesn't do so well with blood. I got up and asked if he was okay. He nodded, although he kept turning his head when the needle would go into Blaise. I asked again, and then realized that Dan wanted to be right where he was, so I just kept talking to Blaise.

I think it was a little funny how they staff chit chat with you a little. At one point the nurse, after seeing me sitting, crying looked over and asked if I was okay. I nodded. Then a little later, after we were both talking to, and soothing Blaise, he asked if this was our first time here. We admitted it was. Yep, you could tell. We were both so shaken up by our baby needing ten stitches. Later Dan reflected, 'How were we supposed to act?' that would've made it look like we've done this before. I find it hard to believe I wouldn't have cried...no matter how old my child, no matter how 'simple' the procedure. We both felt reassured by each other that we did exactly what we were supposed to. We definitely weren't interfering with their work by our attempts to comfort Blaise.

Afterward, Dan was fairly pale. He sat down, but refused a drink offered by this kind, and concerned nurse. After they left, I joked that he really was a bit pale. He said he knew how he felt, and he was not going to faint. He mentioned that it really wasn't the blood that made him feel that way, because there really was very little blood. He said it was more...empathy. (Dan's had pretty serious stitches in the past). "I mean, I know how that feels...and...." his voice kinda trailed off, and I filled it in with "...and he's our baby." He nodded as I sat there holding our sleeping kiddo.

When we got home, Blaise was still asleep so we laid him in our bed. He did fine for about an hour, but then woke up restless and in pain. "Donk head!" he'd say through tears. We gave him some remedy, but that and being in our bed was not getting him to sleep so we gave him some Tylenol.

That did the trick. he's still snoozing, which I think is where I'm headed next.