Take My Advice, Stick to Headbands

There are so many titles I can put on this post... "Another Poop Story", "2nd Worse Mommy Moment Ever", "Maddie's First X-Ray", "A Sliver of Light", I could go on and on. Now that your curiosity is intrigued, I'll get on with my story.

Now that Maddie's hair finally has about 2 inches of length on it, I always manage to get some sort of clip, barrette, or rubber band in it so she looks like a little girl with her made-up hair. While going Visiting Teaching last Friday, I of course had to have Maddie's little clip in her hair to hold back the fuzz of bangs that won't reach her eyes for another 2 years or so. Right before we went in, I adjusted the clip - you know the metal flip clip about an inch long, triangular shape - put it back where it belongs on top of her head instead of it hanging on for dear life on the side of her head attached to only 2 little hairs. So we go inside, I lay Maddie on the floor and get ready to change her diaper. She was really soggy, not stinky. So while I'm changing her, she made this gagging sound "uuulghhh", then again "uuuullghhhhh!" I hurry and lift her up, she coughed, then gulped. I thought "What in the world was that?"

Then I noticed. Her clip is missing.

I looked on the floor crossing my fingers hoping it fell out again, it was nowhere. Looked again on top of her head, on the side of her head, it was nowhere. Yep, she swallowed it. SHE SWALLOWED HER BARRETTE!!! Once I lifted her up, she was fine. No more gagging or coughing, but she just swallowed her barrette! Do we continue with the spiritual message because I don't know if you heard me. MY BABY JUST SWALLOWED HER BARRETTE!!!

Well, we stuck it out. I kept a close eye on Maddie, made sure she was breathing okay and she was. Got some spiritual upliftment, and were on our way. You would never have known that Maddie had a metal clip in her digestive tract since she was behaving completely normally. Her behavior the rest of the day was in fact so normal that we stuck with our plans of having "Date Night" that night. I fed her dinner, got her bathed, put her in her jammies, and took her and the rest of the kids to Karen's where I'm sure she would just play a little then go to bed.

"Oh, by the way Karen, Maddie swallowed a barrette today, but don't worry, it won't pass this quickly. She'll be ready to lay down around 6:30-7:00."

Honestly, I wasn't worried at all. I thought it would just pass like in 2-3 days. I was totally ready to dig through poopy diapers to confirm that it indeed passed. Besides, I've done that before. You know, dug through poop to make sure the swallowed item had passed safely. A barrette is just one more thing to add to the list including a penny, a nickel, a dime, and a feather - 2 inches long. (Complete list swallowed by all 4 children, not just Maddie) So finding a barrette would be easy.

Well, we get back to Karen's after a yummy dinner and a great movie, Nothing but Noodles and Stranger than Fiction. (We saw you Heather! Did you like it, too?) Thinking Maddie had been sound asleep for the past 4 hours, Brad informed us that she had a really hard time and Karen had to hold her to get her to sleep. What? My perfect sweet little Maddie? Really? Yeah, and she even has a fever. What? Really? We go upstairs and see Karen with Maddie who looked really sick. Maddie, not Karen. My first thought was the barrette. She has now contracted some serious infection from the undigestable metal clip that had been brewing in her tummy for the past 9 hours. We hear this awful cough come out of her and I thought even worse. Not only is she suffering from an infection but the metal clip scraped her esophogas the entire way down and damaged the soft tissue in her throat ... I'm the worst mom in the whole wide world. My poor little baby has been getting worse and worse as the barrette won't digest and I leave her with a sitter. Sorry, Karen.

So the whole way home I'm trying to convince Jeff that I need to take her to the ER to make sure the barrette isn't killing her and he's trying to convince me that a swallowed barrette won't give her a fever. How do you know for sure?!?! Fine. If I have to wait till 8am to take her to Urgent Care then you are giving her a blessing so she'll survive this night while she sleeps right beside me so I can hear every little breath she takes!!!!! Yes, I was freaking out a little.

So 8am couldn't get here fast enough. After a restless night, I took Maddie to Kania Clinic and got there at 7:45. I thought I was going to be the first one there. I was the fourth. Apparently other people thought they had as urgent a reason to be there before me with the baby who was suffering from an undigestable metal clip reaking havoc in her tummy. We wait and wait for our name to be called. FINALLY we get to see a doctor who got the whole entire story. She wanted to make sure the barrette wasn't in her lungs first, then she would rule out what was causing the fever, since the 2 weren't related. (fine, jeff, you were right.) So we get the X-Ray taken and sure enough, there's the barrette, floating around in a bunch of poop in her small bowel just waiting to be expelled into a diaper later that day. I was able to finally breathe a sigh of relief knowing the barrette would pass safely, I would dig through poop later to make sure of that. But what was causing the fever?

We go back to the room, get her ears checked - nothing. Swab her throat - ah ha!! Yes, the throat swab came back positive for strep. Is that not the strangest coincidence or what? The day she swallowed a barrette she comes down with strep. So, the symptoms she had at Karen's that night were from strep throat! Not her insides being tortured from the metal clip! Sorry, again, Karen for infecting your house with strep! I had no clue! Again I'm the worst mom in the whole wide world.

And what is my punishment? To dig through poop. Yes, I did. I found the clip in her poopy diaper at 12:00! It didn't even take 24 hours for that barrette to get through her system! I saw a very thin sliver of metal buried in this great big turd in her diaper, got it out, cleaned it off, scrubbed it with antibacterial soap and hot water and put it back in her hair! Just kidding! I'm not that bad! But I did put it in her baby book! Along with Brady's penny, Cameron's nickel, and Ally's dime. I couldn't safely clean Cameron's 2 inch feather well enough to preserve it in his baby book but will never forget how awful that must have been for him trying to swallow that feather! I know - worst mom in the whole wi......

So Maddie is safe and sound, has a barrette-less digestive tract, a souvinier for the books, and we're going to try and get a copy of her first X-Ray for proof as well. She's getting her antibiotics for strep throat which will eventually get better and all I know is her little blond fuzz is just going to have to wait till it ever sees a barrette again.