Warning: THE FOLLOWING POST IS PURELY FOR THE MENTAL SANITY OF THE AUTHOR. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. THIS POST MAY CAUSE FEELINGS OF DESPAIR, ANXIETY OR ANGER. NO FEEBLE ATTEMPTS AT HUMOR ARE INCLUDED. THE INTENTION OF THIS POST IS SOLELY A THERAPEUTIC EFFORT OF THE AUTHOR AND SHOULD NOT BE DEEMED AS ENTERTAINMENT.
The last few days have been interesting. It actually all started one week ago today, when I returned home and found the baby with swelling on her head. I talked to the nurses line at the Children's Hospital and the doctor over last weekend, who both told me that if she was acting fine, that I probably did not need to worry. Well, the swelling didn't go down, and she WAS acting just fine, but I still worried all weekend long that something was seriously wrong with my baby. When I dropped her off at day care on Monday, I asked the babysitter if she had hit her head on Friday. The babysitter replied "Yes" and explained she'd rolled over and bumped it on the foot of the couch. My initial reaction was relief. "Thank GOD she doesn't have cancer."
Well, the next day the swelling still had not subsided so I, again, called the doctor. Even though she was still acting fine, they said that the swelling wasn't going down for a reason and they wanted to figure out why. The doctor took one look at her and said "This injury doesn't match the story you've been given."
Utter shock and disappointment, not to mention anger, doesn't begin to accurately describe my reaction.
To make this long story, longer, I spent the evening in the hospital having my 5 month old daughter having xrays on her skull to see if she had a skull fracture. Thankfully, she did not, but what she does have is "deep tissue bruising" that would not be caused by a casual head bump.
Let me state here, that there is no doubt in my mind that this is NOT a case of abuse. What it is, in my mind, is a serious case of neglect and bad judgement on behalf of my babysitter. I did not get a call the day that this occurred, they did not tell us that evening about it, and I had to ask on Monday. I also have STILL been given no explanation as to what happened to my daughter. I do know that she's injured, but she will be okay. I believe that my babysitter either does not know what happened (because she wasn't in the room) or is not telling me the full story. Both of these scenarios are unacceptable to me. For that reason, we did not bring the kids back there on Wednesday, Thursday or today. They will not be returning.
The good news is that I went to a day care today and signed up the Boy. He starts in mid-January and, best of all, he already has a friend there! I'm very excited about this. The bad thing is that they don't have an opening for the Girl, but she's on the waiting list, and should be in there by May. We'll have to figure out day care for her for a few months, and I'm a little gun shy about in-home care for obvious reasons.
This may sound overly-dramatic (but let's face it: that's me), but I feel like I've gone through the stages of grieving in the last few days. I started out with sheer disappointment and sadness that we were pulling the kids out of an environment that they love(d). My son calls this woman "grandma". She has been part of our family for 2.5 years. I trusted them. They've come to birthday parties, Baptism parties, and we've gone to theirs. I WANT to believe that she is not lying and that it's not as bad as it seems. But I can't get there. My daughter has severe bruising and swelling and it happened on her turf. This simple fact, made me go from "depressed" to "angry". I'm still angry. I need to work on forgiveness.
We haven't told the babysitter we're not coming back, but I'm sure she knows something is up since we haven't been there since the doctor's visit. She was scheduled to have the next three weeks off anyway so we're going to take that time to think about how to handle this with her. I have not talked to her. My husband has, and he's handled it in a far better way than I ever could. I could not even bring myself to write out her final check. I'm sick to my stomach every time I think about her: not just because I'm mad, but because of what I'm losing.
I don't know what the moral of this story is. I really don't know why I burdened my blog with it, other than it just helps me to figure things out by talking and putting it in writing. Since my husband is tired of me talking about it ad naseum, here it is in writing....
I should end now, as I think it's time to go give my kids some extra snuggles (or "snugs", as we like to call them. Hugs are short; snugs are long).....
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1 comment:
Sorry to hear about the difficult times - it's hard enough in general, but during the holidays, ouch.
As soon as I read your sitter's explanation, I knew it wasn't right. I'm curious if she spend time trying to think of what to say or if it just came out easily for her. If so, what other lies has she told?
Not that it will make your situation any easier, but a similar thing happened to someone we know when their child was at the sitter. They rushed him to the ER and everything ended up ok. What they didn't expect was DHS to show up at their door - which they did. For something that didn't even happen while they were with the child, they are under investigation for neglect.
I hope your little one is better now and that you'll have happier things to think of going into the new year.
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