A Hospital Visit for Christmas

There is a moment, some point in time, where you realize that this being a parent thing is the absolute scariest thing that's ever happened to you. This baby that you thought was going to be so wonderful and so fun has now made you into a completely crazy person who makes no sense at all. You cry when nothing is wrong and you freak out even though everything is going to be fine, because what if everything isn't fine? What if something happens to my baby? 

This moment happened for me on Christmas Eve this past December when our little girl decided that she would like to go to the E.R. and visit the hospital for her first Christmas. To make a long story short, Little Girl decided to choke on her own spit while sleeping in her car seat after the Christmas Eve church service. When we got home from church she was asleep, so I brought the car seat in and set it on the floor in my parent's living room. About fifteen minutes later I heard her wake up coughing violently and ran over to her. I took her out of the car seat, patted her on the back, and tried to help her get whatever it was coughed up. She never stopped breathing, but after the coughing episode she went very pale and listless, which was very unusual. I completely panicked. I called the doctor's exchange, and when they said they would have to call me back, I decided there was no way I was waiting for that and we went to the E.R.

Little Girl with her Daddy in the hospital.

If you bring a 2 month old baby into the E.R. and say that she's limp and pale, you do not have to wait, you go right back and see a doctor! Of course, by the time a doctor came into the room, Little Girl was breathing fine, color had returned to her face, and she was kicking so enthusiastically that it took 5-10 minutes to find a pulse! The doctor assured us that everything was almost certainly fine, but because she was so little, standard practice was to admit her overnight and watch her, just to be sure that she was okay and that it had only been a choking fit.



I was okay with the idea of her being admitted until some nurses came in the room and said they needed to give her an IV port just in case. I lost it. I was crying, explaining that I hated IVs myself and I didn't want my little baby girl to have one. They told me that it was required to admit an infant, as it is so tricky to start an IV on them that they don't ever want to do it in an emergency situation. It seemed like the right thing to do, but I couldn't even watch. I sat in the corner and cried the whole time, while her daddy talked to her and helped her through it. They gave her little droplets of sugar water, which actually kept her pretty happy and she was fine.

We stayed the night and managed to get discharged in the morning with enough time to rush to church for the Christmas Day service! There was no time to shower, and it wasn't exactly the way I envisioned her first Christmas, but all ended well.

You would think that would be the end of the story. Little Girl had a bad choking spell, she was then fine, we went to the hospital to be safe just in case, it has never happened again, and we don't let her sleep in her car seat any more. But I was traumatized by this event. For several days after I was clingy with her, not wanting to share her with others but wanting to hold her myself all the time. I know she was fine, but seeing her in the hospital overnight just made me realize how absolutely devastating it would be if anything happened to her! I walked down the hall to get something at one point, and I saw other mothers there taking care of babies who were actually sick, and my heart just ached for them, because here I was completely strung out and worried and my baby was fine!

I asked my husband how to deal with these feelings and he told me to just wait, that they would ease up as time passed. And he was right, to an extent. Two months later I don't feel that anxiety any more, but I guess when you're a parent it's natural to always have some level of concern or anxiety over your children's well-being. The thought of anything happening is terrifying.

Here is just another area where I need to learn to trust God. I realized, standing there in church on Christmas day clinging to my little girl like something would happen to her if I let go, that this was the way God felt about us. That he loves us even more, and that that was what Christmas was about. God let go of his son. He didn't cling, but he let him go and come down to us, to be born to a couple of flawed, human parents, and ultimately to die for us. God loves us that much! And if God loves us all that much, he loves my daughter that much too. So maybe I should trust him to take care of her.

Recently one of the readings in church was the story of Hannah at the beginning of 1 Samuel. I blogged about that Bible passage a while ago when I was dealing with infertility. The last verse of the passage hit me differently, now that my prayers for a child had been answered.

"I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.  So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there." ~ 1 Samuel 1:27-28

Hannah prayed and waited for God to bless her with a child, and when God answered her prayer, she entrusted that child back to the Lord. What a sign of trust! She didn't know if she would have more children or not (she did). How very hard this must have been to do! I am still working on this, as I imagine most parents are. We love our children so much, and we feel so responsible for them, it can be the scariest thing to be unsure of their health or safety. But I take comfort in remembering that God loves my daughter even more than I do, and that in her baptism she is forever his.

First Family Christmas
(Even after the crazy night at the hospital.)