The gods were smiling on us

This post has been sitting in my drafts since Tuesday, I couldn't quite bring myself to post it, but here it is...

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Well that was an enjoyable 24hrs. Yesterday was going pretty well. My tutorial preparation was on track to be submitted on time, and I had averted a major crisis all before lunch.

The major crisis was all about Ben. I had organised for him to go to a trial gymnastics class at 4pm to see if he liked it, and if so, enrol him for next term. When I rang yesterday morning they told me the 4pm class was full, and he couldn't attend. After a moment's panic, the woman confirmed that the 5pm class was available - inconvenient but this child was so excited we had to take what we could get. Then they told me there would be no trial classes at all that day. I think the desperation in my voice was sufficient and the woman whispered into the phone "If you just turn up they won't have any choice" and hung up. OK.

We averted the "I have to wait a whole extra hour!" crisis by heading to the shops to spend his hard earned cash on a new Captain Underpants book, and then the class was proclaimed as "Excellent!" and we duly enrolled him. Went home to a late but absolutely delicious dinner involving steak and mash and other good veg.

But then it all went awry. Bath time proceeded mostly as normal, but the boys managed to create some kind of distraction when Elissa was on the change table. Crash heard two thumps and she was no longer on the change table. She had gone backwards, head first off the end of the change table, managing to squeeze between the wall and the table. (The floor is tiled.) By the time I got upstairs (I was washing), she was on our bed with Crash, screaming. A 2 or 3 minute breastfeed calmed her instantly and she stayed calm. In fact she was laughing at me. She looked fine, but since that seemed implausible given what had happened, I took her to the hospital.

I naively thought they would just give her a CT scan and tell me all was good. Yeah, right. Just think that through a moment Ariane, a 5 month old who is rapidly getting over tired, but seems otherwise fine will lie perfectly still for a CT scan. Notsomuch.

The doctors were all a bit baffled about the disparity between what happened to my beautiful baby girl, and this bubbly happy baby they were presented with. So they poked, and listened and manipulated but couldn't find any evidence of damage. Not even a bump on the head. So down to paeds we went and waited for 4 hours with one or two sets of obs done in that time. Still no evidence of anything wrong, so I was sent home with a depressing green card saying "Your child has suffered a head injury." One of the things I was to look out for was nausea and vomiting. As I got her out of the car at home (at midnight) she threw up. God. I rang the hospital and the doctor spoke to me, spoke to a more senior doctor and they decided it was probably a one-off baby thing, but that anything else at all would have her back there immediately. I stayed up for another hour and a half, but nothing happened. She slept through except when I was obliged to wake her at 3am. I figured the fact that she was very angry was a good sign, and let her go back to sleep.

So now 24hrs out I still have an overtired baby who is struggling a bit to sleep tonight, but it seems that she is fine. My best guess is that she slid slowly between the table and the wall, and only frightened herself. And us. A lot. I have been a useless article today.

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Now three days later,it is clear that she really is fine, and I've remembered a few stories I have heard about people having near misses with their kids and I have never thought badly of them, so maybe I should cut myself the same slack. We were lucky, our moment of negligence had no consequences to speak of, the gods really were smiling on us.