Our First Trip To The E.R.
In my world having a boy means taking a lot of trips to the E.R. My brother hurt himself a lot growing up and Jason’s brother was the same way (possibly worse). As soon as we found out we were having a boy I started mentally preparing myself for lots of bruises, scrapes, blood, and the occasional broken bone. With Nick only being ten months old, and not moving around yet, I thought I had a while to still prepare myself. On Sunday I came to realize that I wasn’t yet ready for it.
On Sunday afternoon Nick and I were playing on the sun porch. Nick was in a good mood, so I decided to cut his finger nails. I had been meaning to do it for awhile and it seemed like the perfect time. I started with his right thumb. I got the clippers in place and as I went to clip the nail Nick moved and I ended up clipping more than just the nail.
As soon as I clipped Nick started bleeding, and screaming. I picked him up and ran into the bathroom trying to keep the blood from getting everywhere. I grabbed a tissue to cover it with so I could get a bandage, but the blood quickly soaked through. Even when I had got a bandage open I couldn’t get it on because as I tried to put it on it got slippery with blood.
After a few unsuccessful tries with the bandages I decided to just cover it with a tissue. I put pressure on it, and held it above Nick’s head, while he screamed. I still couldn’t get it to stop bleeding though and I was starting to get upset myself. There’s nothing worse than seeing your child in pain. I finally called my mom because I was out of ideas. She told me to walk Nick around while keeping pressure on his finger for a good four minutes and to then call her back to let her know how we were doing.
I tried to walk Nick around, but I found it difficult to do while trying to hold his thumb, so I ended up sitting down and cuddling him in the glider. We sat, cuddled, and cried while his thumb continued to bleed. After four minutes I called my mom to tell her that the bleeding still hadn’t stopped. I was at a total loss of what else to do so my mother offered to come help which I was grateful for. Not long after I hung up the phone Nick cried himself to sleep. I continued to hold and rock him until my mom arrived. I also continued to put pressure on his thumb. I had to replace the tissue a couple times, but I could tell that the bleeding was slowing down some.
When Nick woke up he was very excited to see his Nana. Mom took him from me so I could pick up the bandage and tissue mess in the bathroom. She was a bit surprised by the mess. I don’t think she had thought that it had really been so bad. Once I had everything picked up we tried putting bandages on again, but it still didn’t work. We decided to just wrap a tissue around it and hold it in place with a rubber band. After a few attempts we got one to stay on and Nick finally got his hand back.
With the bleeding finally under some control we decided to go to CVS to get some better first-aid supplies. We had hardly gotten home when Nick lost the make shift bandage while playing. From that moment on we couldn’t get the bleeding to slow back down. Nick bled through the gauze we bought. He bled through tissues. We finally decided that it had been long enough (about four hours) and we weren’t going to be able to stop the bleeding on our own. I quickly fed Nick his dinner and then Jason and I took him to the hospital. Jason had arrived home after we got back from CVS.
We took him to a small hospital in the next town over. It isn’t usually busy so it’s pretty in and out, at least as far as an E.R. is concerned. We checked in and then sat down to wait. We had only had enough time to get out a bottle for Nick when we were called back. They took Nick’s weight (no easy task since we were trying to keep blood from going every where) and then took us to a room. They had me put pressure on the wound again. When that didn’t help any they tried to put on a gel that would stay on the wound and stop the bleeding, but that didn’t work either. Finally the doctor (our doctor was named Doctor Nick) arrived and he decided that we would have to cauterize the wound.
Nick had gone back and forth from being calm to upset while in the hospital, but he screamed and cried while they burnt the wound shut. It was awful. I was holding him the whole time but he still cried for me. Luckily it didn’t take too long, but it still upset him for awhile after. The doctor offered him a popsicle, but Nick didn’t care for it. After a few minutes he calmed down to whimpers, and eventually he was acting happy again. He even was happy enough to walk back and forth between us while we waited to be discharged.
Sunday ended up feeling like one of the longest, and worst, days of my life. Amazingly though the E.R. visit only took about an hour, which was a small time in comparison to how long we worked on getting the bleeding to stop. I’m very glad that we did end up deciding to take Nick to the E.R. because I don’t think we would have been able to stop the bleeding on our own. The entire ordeal was likely worse for me than Nick. He probably has already forgotten most of it, but I haven’t. It was truly one of those worst mommy ever moments. I have learned my lesson about baby nail clippers and I have promised Nick that I will never use them again. Nothing can prepare you for when your baby gets hurt. Unfortunately it will happen. It’s worst though when you know that you’re part of the reason that your baby is in pain.
I hate nail clippers. They are huge compared to tiny baby fingers. But it has to be done. I did the same thing with my oldest that you accidently did with Nick. Only it was his pinky, it was my first time doing it and Jamie was only 2 weeks old. It didn’t bleed bad like Nick’s booboo did. But Jamie jumped and started crying which was the exact same reaction I had. I swore would er cut his nails again.But being a single mom, I knew if I didn’t do it it would never get don and I’d have a Freddy Crougar baby with long nails like that. So I had to forgive myself and do it again- while he was sleeping and holding still. 😉
It was so easy when he was little. Then I was able to do it while he slept in his swing. That doesn’t work now that he sleeps in his crib, and he’s such a wiggle worm so it’s even harder! I think for now I’m just going to use cuticle scissors or a file. You’re right it has to be done though. Nick has very dry skin which he feels the need to itch so when his nails get long he scratches himself :-(.