911, What's Your Emergency?

Tonight was a milestone in our household. I had to call 911 because one of the girls was hurt.

Before I get to the story, we have been incredibly lucky in that we have never had to take the girls to urgent care, the ER, or call 911 ever. Lydia almost made it to the ER when she was three. She had not been feeling well, and then got a fever and started complaining that her neck hurt, so my first thought was, "Holy crap, she has meningitis!" I called the doctor on call for her pediatrician's office and he told me that if it's painful for her to put her chin to her chest, take her to the ER. So, I calmly asked her to put her chin down and she looked at me and whined, "I can't. It hurts too much."

I called Jayson (I think he was out with the guys after his softball game), and he came home to stay with Audrey while I took Lydia to the ER at Children's Hospital. As we drove, I kept asking her to put her chin down and she kept crying that it hurt too much, but then between the chin-to-chest requests, she seemed completely happy and as though she had make a remarkable recovery, until I asked her to put her chin to her chest, and the drama started again.

We pulled into the parking lot, and as we walked to the entrance, I had a brilliant mom moment. As the thought of staying in an ER for hours and holding my baby while she got a spinal tap went through my mind, we stopped outside of the automatic doors. I pointed to a monkey on the chest of Lydia's pajamas and said, "Hey, look at this silly monkey!" She immediately pressed her chin to her chest to look at the silly monkey and laughed. She looked up at me and I scooped her up and said, "Back to the car. NOW."

Lydia's dramatic side, which is enormous, almost got us through the ER doors, but I outsmarted her that time.

Tonight, again, Jayson was gone at a meeting for our Scenic Shore 150 bike ride, and I was getting the girls ready for bed. I put Charlie on the couch because she loves to play on it and throw herself against the cushions. As I reached for a diaper, she fell backwards off the couch. My hands reached her just as the back of her head hit the wood floor. She immediately took that long, deep breath kids take right before they start wailing, but she just kept breathing in and the wail wasn't coming and she looked terrified.

Finally, she let out a tiny little whimper and her eyes rolled back into her head and her eyelids fluttered shut. I immediately grabbed my phone and called 911 as she opened her eyes and started wailing. If it had just been the wailing, I wouldn't have even called, but the passing out scared me. She kept wailing as we waited for the ambulance. I was worried Lydia and Audrey would get scared, so I said to them, "Girls, an ambulance is going to come, but Charlie is fine. They're just going to look at her and make sure she's OK. We don't need to worry." My concern was for naught, because they instantly got excited and clamored to the window to wait for the ambulance.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Charlie was done crying. We live in a small city with not much going on, so two ambulances and once police car (for a total of four paramedics and one policeman) showed up to pretty much just stand there and look at my baby, who was perfectly fine. They did take her heart rate, which I'm pretty sure was just so they could say they did something and could leave. Don't get me wrong, if she had been hurt, they would have done whatever they needed to do, but I'm positive they thought I was an idiot and just wanted to do something to make me feel better about it.

So, I felt better about it, and they left, and thankfully, it was a pretty anti-climatic night.