accident – Mummy To Twins Plus One

I have had two days of angst! Yes I have had some stressful moments. Why do you ask?

Well, the poor little baby has had his first injuries and falls. Insert unhappy face here. Or maybe have a HUGE lie down. After Wednesday’s incident I was so drained and exhausted.

Firstly on Tuesday I was looking after the baby. I carried him in the rocker to the living room. All was good until…. He rolled out and fell head first on the ground. Thank goodness we have a nice rug that covers the wood floor. It did still make a noise when his head collected the floor and oh did he scream. I felt horrible. The only saviour was the fact that he was so close to the ground when this rolling out of the rocker occurred and it was more of a scare than a full blown injury….You can bet I was breathing a BIG sigh of relief about this.

Now to tell about his second incident.

It happened yesterday (Wednesday). I was busy getting all the rubbish out of the house for bin night and the baby was screaming the house down. The twins were in the backyard playing. I thought if the baby can see the kids and be with them he might calm down. I took the baby and the rocker out so that he could sit with his big sisters. I told the kids to leave him in the rocker and to ask if they needed any help. I was not going to be long and was soon to join all the kids so that I can do the twins reading for school in the garden. It was still nice weather and I thought it was a lovely idea. The girls had their readers ready and were just waiting till I was ready.

I was finished and had come in and was just tidying up to come out to be with the kids. I then heard a horrible scream and yell from the baby. I raced out to see what the problem was and to make sure all was okay. I see one of the kids putting the baby in the rocker and he is covered in sand. I ask the child why her brother is covered in sand. She tells me honestly (I was pleased that she told me the truth although she did something bad. She was grown up enough to tell it the way it happened. I told her that I was pleased that she did that and that I am proud of how she dealt with the situation) that she was holding him in the sand pit and he fell and now he has sand all over him. Gosh not good!

The scene of the crime. At least it was a soft area to be.

I made sure to tell the girls that this was not good. It could have gone so wrong, and we were very lucky that the baby is okay. He did not fall on cement, or on the hard wood borders of the sandpit and other things….. gosh it could have been horrible (This is why I was so drained and fell asleep while watching TV last night). I could have spent last night at the hospital. I am very grateful this did not happen.

I got a bath organised for the baby quick smart to wash away the sand from his whole body but especially his face. My main concern was his eyes. I did not want any stray grains of sand in his eyes. In the bath I had a flannel and soaked it with water to wash the babies eyes, I did not want to wipe so much but put water in his eyes so that it got the sand out. I did my best but due to the baby not understanding he tried to open his mouth and drank some of the water (In hindsight this was rather funny but not at the time). This ended up in him coughing and me changing tactics to get the sand out from around the eyes. Let me know if you have done this also.

As you might imagine, poor Alexander was hard to settle and when he finally did settle he slept a long time. I think he was stressed out about falling into the sandpit. I was so zapped of energy due to the worry and what could have happened.

After this happened it got me thinking. If you have older kids and a new baby, what have the older kids done while they were helping look after their brother/sister? Let us know.

I know the kids were trying to help. I think they now understand how the fall could have hurt their baby brother, and how lucky we are that he is okay and his happy smiley self. Maybe this is a good lesson for the kids to learn. They need to be more careful when they are with the baby.

I will too make sure that I am more careful as no one wants to have a fall out of the rocker or the first experience with the sandpit to be such a drama.

I hope that the baby is not going to be permanently scared about sandpits and that he will like them when he is older. If he has a fear of sand this will be the reason for it.

Last Tuesday I had a nasty scare. I was in the doctor’s car park and waiting for a car to go and they were taking forever. The kids and I were standing in the rain and we were waiting and waiting! The people we were waiting for had the car running and looked ready to go but they just sat there. The kids wanted to race to the office door but to do that they would have run right behind this car. What would happen if they reversed and did not see the twins? It would not be good. I made sure that we all stayed together.

I made the decision that they saw me and the kids and were waiting for us. So that they would be sure that they were clear of kids before leaving the car park. Kids had their hands in mine and we all made our way to the office. When we got to the point of the car they then decided to reverse! Great. Oh well, I said to the girls just quickly hurry up and we will be at the door and all will be good. The girls were worried and were running. I lost my balance and I could not right myself. I then fell face first into the mud, water and rocks that was the ground of the car park. I am a bit off balance lately and at the time nearly 31 weeks pregnant. Yes the belly is growing.

What I fell onto. Just picture it wet and raining.

The kids were very upset and worried about me and the baby and helped me get up (What lovely girls I have!) Once up the people in the car left. I stumbled into the doctor’s practice and told the receptionist that fell over tummy first and I am pregnant. I had mud all over me, hands missing some skin and also a sore knee. All one side of my body was jarred and I was very freaked out and worried about the baby.

The girls were visibly upset and crying and concerned. I told them that all will be okay (even though I had no idea at the time) and that it was an accident and not their fault. It just happened. They were helping. I hugged and kissed the girls and told them all will be fine. Poor little kids were very worried.

I finally made my way to the doctors although the reason I was there was not what I was most worried about now. I started with the fall in the car park as that was more urgent than my other issue and then spoke briefly about my other issue. He then called the hospital to tell them to expect me. I was put on a monitor to check the movement and heartrate of the baby. I had to be hooked up to it for four hours. So kids and I raced off to the hospital to have this test done. Hubby was alerted to the drama and made his way home from work earlier to make sure all was well.

The kids were entertaining me while I was hooked up to the monitor. I was glad that they were happier than before and finally feeling the baby move was a good sign as well. My little baby has been an active little person (we still don’t know the sex and want a surprise. Many are saying it is a boy due to how strong the kicks are and the activity. I am not sure. Maybe it is due to the fact that this is one baby and has more room than the twins did).

I stayed there for the full four hours and the baby had very good heart rates. It was a bit all over the place but I was told that an active baby can do that. The doctor and the nurses all seemed very happy as it was well within range and did not look like there was an issue. I was told that if there is a problem after a fall it is likely to show up within this four hour window.

While I was there they also took some blood to make sure that there are no foetal cells in my blood. I have not heard back with the results, but I think if they were bad I would have been alerted.

One of the nurses asked if I knew my blood type. I said yes. I told her I was A Positive. I asked what difference my blood group has in a fall. She then mentioned that if I had a negative blood group that it could cause issues. Weird I had no idea.

Since the kids were being very noisy and mucking around hubby took them home to get them dinner and get them to bed. It was a school night as well so that did not help matters.

Other than being very sore and tired I was fine. The baby was fine and all was good. I was just worried about falling and having it happen in the first place. I was also worried about the girls and how they felt about the incident.

Wednesday morning rolled around and I got up as per usual and got kids’ breakfast and things ready for school. Although I was limping and very sore still. I noticed some spotting and thought that I would take the kids to school and then drop in at the hospital. Yes I know too much info, but better to be safe than sorry right?

I told the nurses and the doctor who was on the night before what I had encountered that morning and that I was worried. They hooked me up to the heart rate monitor again for the baby and all looked good. Good heart rate and movement so that is a good sign.

The doctor eventually checked me to make sure that my cervix was closed and that there was no sign of bleeding. All closed and no bleeding so another good sign.

That same afternoon they wanted to have an ultrasound to just make sure the baby was 100% okay. All good and I was cleared to leave. I did ask to get a copy of the results of the ultrasound but due to the specialist needing to take time to look at the scans it took a while. By this time it was after 4pm and I had to go as I had kids in after school care and had to leave to get food for dinners and then pick up the twins.

Not sure what was going on Wednesday with me. I was just glad that they checked me out and made sure that there was not an issue. It has not happened again, so that is another good sign.

I must say that the Blue Mountains Hospital have been exceptionally good. Their care has been second to none and nothing has been an issue. I feel grateful to have such a great maternity service, if the baby comes I think after 36 weeks I can have him/her at The Blue Mountains Hospital. If it comes earlier then I am off to Nepean again. Depends when this little one wants to make an appearance. It would be nice to experience the local hospital for this birth.

So my drama on Tuesday was not too bad. I was more banged up than the baby. The kids were okay and so was I other than sore and tired.

Have you fallen over when you were pregnant? I hope you and the baby were okay. They say that most falls they baby is okay as they are very protected inside of you.

It did give me a big scare though and made me worried about how the kids would view the incident. I am just very glad that I did not really hurt myself, it would have been horrible to break an arm or ankle.