Freak Outs

So I had two pretty good freak outs today.

Coen slept 9-7!! last night (and 9:30-5:30 the night before).  I woke up at about 5:30 and laid there, waiting for him to wake up but he didn't.  So it was either wake him up to feed him or pump.  I never wake a sleeping baby at night, so I decided to get up and pump.  Before I did, I wondered if I should go in and check on him. And then the freak out occurred. What if something happened to him while he was sleeping?  He got out of his swaddle me blanket and it smothered him?  Or he rolled over and fell victim to SIDS?  What if I went in there and he was dead?  It sounds so harsh, but this is what I was thinking.  And you know what - I was SO scared, I could not go in and check on him.  I went downstairs, pumped, came back to bed and fell back asleep.  I woke up to a crying baby at about 7 and was relieved.

Later today, we were at the mall waiting for the elevator.  There is one elevator in the main mall, so there was a line of strollers.  It was taking forever because by the time the people got off the elevator, the door was closing too fast and no one could get on.  I had Coen in his stroller and Sierra was standing right next to me.  The door opened and I was trying to hurry and to get in and hold the door - so I had Sierra go first so the door wouldn't close on her.  I was right behind her, putting my hand next to the door to hold it open but it started to close and wasn't stopping.  I panicked and pressed the button quickly, hoping the elevator door would open back up but it didn't.  So it closed, and Sierra was in it and I wasn't.  She started screaming.  I didn't know what to do, I felt torn between my two kids.  I couldn't take the stroller up the escalator, but what if Sierra got off and wandered somewhere, or worse yet someone grabbed her?  The other mothers told me to run after her and they would watch the baby.  So I left my baby in his stroller, with my purse and all on it, and RAN up the escalator to get her.  I got there just as the door shut again.  So I ran back down the escalator and when I got there she was off the elevator already standing next to one of the women, tears streaming down her face.  I scooped her up, shaking, relieved that both my kids were ok.

I told the story to a few people, who said it was sort of funny after the fact.  No, not at all.  Sierra screaming in the elevator, so scared and alone, has been replaying in my head since, haunting me.  Just like the words the doctor spoke on September 29, 2010 "I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do - she's gone."  I felt so helpless in that moment today - it reminded me of how I felt as I laid there listening to the doctors work on Adelyn.  Completely different, yet the same. 

Things are just SO different when you have had a child die.  Nothing is funny or taken lightly when it concerns your children's safety.  I have already had one of my children die - I cannot have something happen to another one of them.  I'm not sure I could come back from that.