I am debating posting this, as I'm not sure how people will feel. Do you let the entire world know that you're a failure at being a mom, is this one of those times "it's happened to everyone. It'll be ok," or is it something every mom must go through, as her own type of milestone or right-of-passage? After reading what happened, when you see me you'll probably want to slap me. Milestone? Right-of-passage? Sure, and throw me into jail and lose the keys while you're at it.
There are some mistakes, accidents, incidents that can be accepted as human error. This, perhaps and in my opinion, is not one that can be. I have always been a firm believer in if you can't pay attention to what your child is doing than maybe you don't deserve to be a parent.
My father was a neat freak; Mr. Clean if you will. 30 years as a Marine and two of those as a Drill Instructor will do that to you. So why do I find it so hard to channel him, especially when it comes to the safety of my own son, my one and only child at this point?
Not too far apart, my brother and I had swallowed something, but I believe we both managed to spit it up. We were older toddlers at the time, I believe, as we were in Okinawa when it happened. One of us had an incident with a key ring and the other a quarter. So am I doomed to make the mistakes of my parents? Their examples are what we all learn from, everyones own parents respectively.
I hate to even say what I was doing, but maybe someone will learn from my mistake, and I'm sure others have done the same but I don't know of any.
I was playing on my phone, as usual. I am in the same room with my son, calling him, seeing what he is doing as he makes his way around the high chair, out of eyesight. For the past hour or two, I'm constantly taking paper out of his mouth. I just cleaned, but he found some paper somewhere.
This should have been my first clue to put down my phone and just take him to bed. It was already late. Do I? Of course not. Why would I do the most logical action? After I put him on his horse a couple of times I resume playing on my phone. There isn't anything else he could possibly put in his mouth, is there?
I hear him choking, I call to him and I look up. He is so red from coughing. I do what I have always done when he starts choking: I kneel down, his legs are on either side of one arm, that hand is holding his shoulder while the other hand is smacking his upper back. I roll him into my other arm and stick my finger into his mouth. NOTHING!!! he's still choking, turning a deep shade of red, purple then blue. I roll him back over and start smacking at his back again. Mommy-mode is gone. Lifeguard-mode is currently responding.
He starts to spit up, good, but he's still turning blue. I check his throat again. STILL NOTHING!!! I smack him again. He starts to spit up more this time. I continue to smack his back as he spits up. Surely whatever it is will come up with everything else. He stops, looks at me as I check him, coughs twice and is fine. My phone was in my hand, ready to call 911, but I was just as ready to run to our local fire-station less than a quarter of a mile from us. He was fine. No crying, just stunned a little.
I called my husband and told him to come home immediately. It's layout night, he's at the office until 4 am. I looked on the floor for what made baby boy nearly choke to death. I don't see anything. My husband pulls up and baby boy is thrilled to see him. I check the floor and finally see the culprit. A PENNY!
I just swept up last night, maybe it was the night before. I straightened everything and made the place look good. There was no money on the floor. With the exception of the straws baby boy spilled and the tissue paper he pulled from a Christmas bag, my floor was spotless. So where did the penny come from?
Hubby stripped him and baby boy and I took a bath; we were both covered. Shock and shame finally hit me. How could I let this happen? How does a mother, new or not, allow her baby to be put in such a situation? Hubby had to calm me down.
Am I unfit at this point or is this one of those things we all learn from? We're all human, but should we be allowed to make such mistakes? It's already been planned for the tree to come down tomorrow. Hubby and I will be cleaning and making this place look like it should be in a magazine. Well, almost that good. We do have a baby that loves to create chaos.
I have to thank the American Red Cross for training me to be a lifeguard and Girl-scouts Heart of the South for paying for my training. Also to Nurse Manning, who I was thinking about as everything was happening. She is the instructor for the "new parents" classes at BMHGT. All I could picture in my mind at that moment is the CPR infant on our table and her instructions on how to smack and check. Lifeguard-mode may have been there, but Nurse Manning was all I could manifest at that point.
I won't say this was a human error. I wish this never happened. I posted this, not to say anything about my parenting as this is the first time he has ever made the attempt at swallowing change. There are no excuses for what happened and I don't intend to make any. I only hope that in my posting about this situation others will learn from my mistake. I won't hover over my son. I'm scared to death, just as any parent is, to losing my son. I know now that after cleaning I still need to get into baby-mode and make sure there isn't anything I may have missed. Baby boy is our little miracle baby.
