It has been an incredibly long, tiring week. What transpired Sunday evening has kept me off-kilter for days now. I'll preface this by saying my sister, brother, and I were very healthy kids who also never sustained any injury requiring stitches, glue, casts, or even so much as a trip to the doctor's office. So, it never really occurred to me that my own children would ever need much more than a bandage and kiss. Boy was I wrong.
Katelyn and Joshua are pretty level-headed. They think most things through before doing them, and aren't much for taking risks. However, in her 4 years and few months, my sweet Allison has broken her right elbow, required stitches for a busted chin, required glue for a busted face, required x-rays after pulling a 100-lb mirror off the wall and onto the top of her foot, and pulled her arm out of joint twice, most of which required trips to the ER. We call her Tornado Alli for a reason, and it seems Whirlwind Aaron is going to follow in her footsteps.
I should have known this from the get-go. After three fairly normal labors and deliveries, Mr. Aaron turned out to be my only cesarean section, and an emergency one to boot. I blame it on my husband because he loves super heroes so much. You see, Aaron decided he was going to come out hand/arm first. You know, like Superman when he flies. The midwife was able to get him to pull his arm back in but his umbilical cord quickly took it's place. It was an absolute rush from that moment on. We made a mad dash to the OR where he was born happy and healthy a very short time later. I did tell him the next day when we were alone that he would one day have to explain to me why he needed to be cut out. I mean, I'd pushed out a 10 pound, 7 ounce baby girl just 21 months before him, and he was my tiniest newborn. It just didn't make sense.
The recovery from his birth was excruciating at times. I just couldn't make any sense of how or why it all went the way it did. But the end result was this amazing little boy, a HUGE blessing for everyone to see and love. This blessing was easy to find.
Fast forward to Super Bowl Sunday, just 6 days ago. That sweet, amazing little baby is now my sweet, amazing little boy! At 2 years old, he's as rambunctious as his big sister Alli ever was. He has no fear, or so it seems. I have to watch those two like a hawk, lest they get up to no good. I passed by the boy's room around 5:45pm, contemplating whether or not I was going to watch the big game. Alli and Aari were the only two in the room and they were playing nicely. I was happy to see it. A few short minutes later I heard him cry and someone (I cannot remember for the life of me which kid it was) came running down the hall screaming that Aaron was bleeding. By the time I reached the doorway he was covered in blood... his head, hair, shirt, bed, the floor. There was just so much blood. Suffice it to say, Alli found something she should never be allowed to touch and Aaron suffered a sever laceration to his right forehead. (For the record, no one saw it happen so we can't say for certain that Allison did it.)
I called 911. I talked to them, kept pressure on his head, and tried to check out the rest of his body to make sure there were not other cuts. He was crying, I could barely hold it together and it seemed like ages before the ambulance arrived. At the hospital he needed 13 stitches. They also did a CT scan because I didn't see it happen and no one was sure if he'd fallen or not. After his blood work and scan came back okay, we were sent home.
Now I'm finding it a bit harder to see the blessings in this situation. I've been thinking about it all week. Every time I look at him it breaks my heart all over again. Having his stitches removed was more traumatic for him than having them put in. I've felt completely out of sync for days now. But as I think back, I know I was physically alone out in that hallway waiting for them to stitch my baby boy up, but never once did I feel ALONE. I knew God was there and I FELT His presence. That was a blessing beyond measure. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law showed up after we'd been there a little while and I was grateful for their company. They were a blessing. Though the laceration to his forehead was severe, he was cut nowhere else. Just another inch down and it would have been his eye. Those were blessings.
I told Katelyn once that I always pray for an ambulance going by if it has it's lights and/or sirens on. I explained to her that someone somewhere had called for their help so they must certainly need prayers as well. She told me later that she prayed for Aaron that night and also prayed that everyone we passed would stop for a moment and say a prayer for him as well. What a blessing!
Finding the blessings in a tough situation has never been a strong point of mine, but I'm trying. I feel God moving in my life, making so many changes. I feel myself open to Him and whatever he chooses. I feel supported and cared for by so many, from so many places. I know God's arms were around my baby boy that night. All of a sudden, the blessings aren't so hard to find.
(*The EMS workers, the nurses, and the doctors were also a blessing. They took wonderful care of my baby boy.)
