48 Hours in Hell or How I Became an Unfit Mother

Many of you have heard parts of our experience a couple weeks and are curious about what happened. Here's the whole story, I don't mind telling it because I have nothing to hide and am not embarrassed by it. It has truly been the most horrible experience of my life, but I know that anyone who knows me, knows I would never, ever abuse a child. So here we go...

Tuesday afternoon Sammy slipped and fell in his wading pool, in all honesty, my back was turned at the moment. I didn't see him get in the pool and I didn't see what he was doing when he fell. He immediately started crying, I picked him up and he clung to me, crying for several minutes. He finally stopped crying, I set him on the couch and looked him over. I could tell it was only his leg and possibly hip that hurt, but he didn't have any scratches, cuts, swelling, redness, or limbs bent at funny angles. I thought he probably just had a bad bruise and needed some rest. I called Matt, told him all this and Matt agreed to let him rest and he'd take a look when he got home. Sammy just sat, very quietly on the couch till Matt came home. Matt did his doctor thing once he arrived and didn't see anything immediately alarming, but he called our family doc just to be safe. Family doc said to watch and wait, we could bring Sammy into his office first thing in the morning where he'd do an x-ray and go from there. So, roughly three hours after the fall (Sammy was still sitting quietly, looking very sad but only crying when we touched his leg) we put Sammy to bed.

Now let me say here that I have absolutely no experience with broken bones, I don't know what kind of reaction to expect from a child with a broken bone, especially one who's less than two years old and never had a broken bone himself. I honestly thought he would have a big bruise in a few hours and after a night of rest, he'd be feeling a bit better and we'd go to the Dr first thing in the morning.

At midnight, Sammy hadn't fallen asleep and was crying for a few seconds about every five minutes. We prepared to go to the ER. We took him to Southern Hills ER because it was the closest. It was my first trip ever to the ER with a child and I expected that, due to the type of injury, I would be questioned once or twice by Child Protection Services, they'd say it was an accident and we'd go home. Sammy was taken care of within the hour. He did break his femur, the hardest bone in the body to break and a serious break as well. They splinted his leg with the instructions to see an orthopedic surgeon later in the week to have it casted. The next eight hours in the ER were spent being interviewed by various Metro Police and social workers. Apparently the ER doc, who wasn't any sort of pediatric specialist or ortho doc thought the nature of the break couldn't come from a fall. Basically, they believed I was lying about what happened. Which is rather ironic, I'm the worst liar in the world, if I was lying, they would have immediately known. I was interrogated for nearly two hours, recorded my story on tape and was asked questions from how I discipline my son, to how I handle the stress of being pregnant and home all day with a toddler. They even asked Matt if I'd had a history of PPD! Finally, after being told several times earlier that this was all precautionary and we'd would most likely go home without repercussions, the social worker stated they were taking Sammy out of my custody...he would be in Matt's care until this was resolved. I had a scheduled court date and would possibly take a polygraph test. WHAT???!!!

A little side note here, if you're about to tell a mother one of the top 20 worst things she could ever hear, wouldn't it be nice to keep a couple tissues in your bag to toss at the poor woman? Nope, no Kleenex. I sat there with a soggy, blubbering face thinking to myself, "this woman thinks I am an unfit mother!"

At nine AM we finally got home, CSI (yes, genuine Las Vegas CSI) had already been to our house to take pics of the pool (pics of Sammy were taken at the hospital). We had a home visit with CPS, more pictures, more questions, more instructions. After that we called the pediatric orthopedic surgeon referred to us by our family doc and by that afternoon we were with him in his office. First of all, he said this kind of break was more common than most people realized in little kids, and obviously an accident (what a relief to hear!). Sammy would need a spica cast, which couldn't be done in his office. he also said that the standard ER practice for a break like this is to bring in an ortho surgeon, sedate the child and put a cast on in the ER. He then sent us to a pediatric ER down the road, where he would come in and do this procedure. So, about five more hours in another ER, we brought Sammy home in a spica cast (look it up on the web, too much to explain here) that he will be wearing for the next five weeks. BTW, I'm due in seven weeks, so how's that for timing! One lesson to learn from all of this is that if a Pediatric ER is available where you live, USE IT if your child needs care. Doctors are taught that children are not just small adults (though they seem to forget this.)

Well, if you're still reading this, then you must have a lot of time on your hands! Anyway, things are calming down, after 18 hours in ERs and Dr offices, and a sleepless 40 hours it's nice to be home and get some rest. The CPS investigation is still going on, they will visit me in home again and if I'm found alone with Sammy they will immediately take custody of him. They are going to get the xray to a pediatric radiologist to confirm whether this was accidental or not and then (hopefully) it can all be dropped!

UPDATE: Tuesday afternoon, exactly a week after Sammy fell, our case was dropped. Waiting was the torture, Matt would worry when he went to the bathroom that social services would come while he was in the bathroom. Our case worker was off four days after she got the case, so that gave us lots of time to think of the worse; would we go to court, would this drag on after the new baby came? What a relief that this is all over and we can focus on getting Sammy better, but I never want to see that damn swimming pool ever again!