Motherhood Moments

Sometimes things happen in a mother's life that forever leave scars on her heart. Time may fade them, but she will always remain changed. I had two of those moments this past week, and both were involving my sweet little Brynlie.

I just received a calling to teach in the nursery again and Sunday was my first day. Brynlie loves this new calling because at 13 months old she isn't quite old enough to be allowed in there otherwise. A couple of times during the class Jared stopped in to check on us girls and I had joked around about having him take Brynlie, to which he always said no. There was a mother that showed up with her two sons at about noon and 5 or 10 minutes later her daughter came in with a problem and she left for a couple of minutes with her. She then came back to join us for the rest of class. Soon after I was cutting out the kids handouts while the other teacher gave the lesson. Just as the lesson was starting I looked around and realized that Brynlie wasn't in the room. I immediately panicked and started asking where she was. The other teacher hadn't seen her for awhile, but the mother that had joined us a little while earlier said that my husband had her. I was skeptical and headed for the door and looked down the hall but couldn't see her. The mother assured me that she had seen her out in the hall with my husband and said that she had a purple shirt on, which was correct. I sat back down, but there was a nagging in the back of my head that Jared wouldn't take Brynlie without telling me. There was still 15 minutes of class left and I had to hurry to finish getting all of the kids handouts cut out, but as soon as I finished I excused myself for a second and went looking for Jared. I looked in the priesthood room and couldn't see him so I figured that he must have been out wandering the halls with our baby. I came back to the nursery to finish out the last few minutes of class and a minute later in walked Jared, without Brynlie. My stomach dropped as I realized what I had already suspected, and Jared confirmed. The mother that told me that my husband had Brynlie confessed that she didn't know who my husband was. I was so sick, and scared, and upset, and angry at both the mother and myself for not listening to my gut. Jared and I took off through the halls searching for our lost baby. What he didn't realize at the time was that Brynlie had probably been gone for 20 minutes. Knowing class would be getting out in just a minute I started throwing doors open and glancing through rooms full of startled people. Horrible thoughts raced through my head. By the time I passed Jared for the second time I was almost in tears. Classes were pouring out into the halls making it much harder to search. After racing through the pews in the chapel I headed down the hall just as the other nursery teacher opened the door to the kitchen, finding Brynlie locked in, happily entertaining herself with some paper bowls. I was so relieved! Immediately I ran to find Jared. What a horrible experience to lose a child when I KNEW that there was something wrong. I hope that I never again ignore that feeling.

Tuesday night Jared headed back to Vernal. Right at 10:00 Sadie came running out of their room saying that Brynlie was bleeding. I jumped up to find Kylie carrying Brynlie out with blood streaming down her face from a gash above her right eye. Immediately I called Jared's brother Jeremy to see if he would come give me his opinion on whether or not she needed stitches. Minutes later Jeremy and Larkyn showed up and agreed that she probably needed them. Larkyn volunteered to let the kids spend the night at their house so I could take Brynlie to the hospital. And since I had a meeting at work the next day she volunteered to keep them the next morning too so that I wouldn't have to get up so early to get them ready and off to the sitters. A HUGE "Thank You!" to Larkyn for doing that for me. It took so much stress off of me to not have to worry about them that night and the next morning. I bundled Brynlie up and called Jared on my way to the insta care, which of course closed at 10:00, meaning that Brynlie and I got to go try out the new IHC hospital in Murray. Brynlie didn't cry when she cut her eye and she didn't cry when they were checking her vitals. Once we got in the room though she began to get cranky because she was tired. The doctor had me hold her in my arms and apply a cotton ball with some anesthesia on it. That's when my baby showed herself. She screamed, and screamed and screamed until a nurse came in and apologetically closed the door so others in the ER wouldn't have to hear her. Then the doctor came back and I saw what they were going to do to my poor little girl. Up until this moment I had been very calm about the whole thing. They have something they call a Papoose, which is exactly what it sounds like. They wrapped her in a sheet and then laid her down on the wooden "papoose". The papoose then wrapped tightly around her body and Velcro'd her in, making her unable to move. The nurse held her head as the doctor gave her a shot to finish numbing her up. She told me to please sit down if I felt sick. I told her I wasn't worried about fainting, but about crying. It was horrible to watch her screaming, unable to comfort her. Then at the worst possible time the doctor got a phone call from another doctor and had to take it. For 10 minutes my baby sat screaming while he was gone on the call. I gave her a bottle and she would cry, take a sip, start to nod off, and then scream again. I am claustrophobic and it made me sick to think of her unable to move. If she grows up to be claustrophobic I will blame it on this experience. Once the doctor was back in the room they were able to give her 5 stitches while she screamed the whole time. Near the end she stopped screaming "mamama" and move onto "dadadada". I guess she'd given up hope that I was going to save her and was now counting on her dad to show up. As soon as she was done I held my poor sweaty baby close and never wanted to let go. She slept on the way home but as soon as we were home she woke right up and was so happy! Even silly happy. She smiled and made funny noised and hammed it up for the camera. I think it was her way of letting me know that she was alright. And that WE were alright.