Brock and Ronan fell on the stairs yesterday.
It was a traumatic situation for both of them, I think. Brock tripped over the cat, and tried to regain his balance, smashed his knee through the dry-wall, and still ended up unable to catch himself. He fell onto Ronan’s head. Ronan screamed like the world had ended, and Brock worried that he had severely hurt his son. I knew they were both probably fine, and Ronan stopped crying in under 3 minutes. He nursed, and then happily started jabbering, playing and laughing.
When I left for work, I told the nanny to call me if he started throwing up or if she couldn’t wake him up from a nap. I never heard from her, so everything was okay.
I don’t feel guilty that I didn’t rush him to the E.R. It would have been a wasted trip.
However, last night, one of our physicians, a co-worker and I were talking about the phenomenon of dropping babies. We agreed, unanimously, that it is a good thing if mothers drop the baby first. In my own situation, Ronan fell off of my lap when he was less than 2 months old. He was sitting up with his legs hanging off of the right side of my legs, and I was steadying him with both hands. I let go of him with my right hand, and reached across to grab something on my left, and he overbalanced forward. He fell on the floor, screamed, and was just fine. I felt like WORST mother in the world. But when Brock told me he had let Ronan accidentally fall off of the bed, I couldn’t really be that mad at him – I had already dropped the baby. What could I say that wouldn’t be hypocritical?
I told my co-workers that it was a good thing that I had dropped Ronan first, because if he had done it… I probably wouldn’t have let him stay home alone with the baby any more.
My ultrasound cohort quickly agreed. She had fallen while walking up the stairs with her 7 or 8 month old infant, much like Brock did, and her baby girl suffered a big dent in her skull. They spent HOURS in the hospital, multiple tests, and I’m sure what was a horrible, harrowing experience. But, like she said, if it had been her husband who had fallen and allowed the very same thing to happen, she probably wouldn’t have been able to forgive him.
And then the radiologist told us that when we finally have our second children, we wont even bat an eye when something like that happens. It’s all a matter of perspective.
