ER visit

We unfortunately took Lily to her first visit to the Emergency Room on Sunday. Here's the story....

Lily's hair hangs in her face now because it's working on growing out and I DO NOT want bangs cut on my child! So a lot of times I will put a barrette/clip in her hair to hold it back out of her face. I've always worried about those things because she takes them out occasionally when she realizes she has something in her hair. Sunday I had put one in her hair. It was a heart shaped snap metal barrette. We went to lunch with Vicky at IHOP. I clearly remember her having the hair clip in her hair when we left there. On the way home, we heard Lily make this weird choke/cough sound in the backseat. We turned around and she was just sitting there and seemed to be okay. I didn't think anything of it. Then when we got home I realized that her barrette was gone. We looked everywhere for it but no clip was to be found. Lily was breathing okay, drinking, and just seemed like her normal self. Me the paranoid mom though was obviously very worried about it. So we headed to the ER to have everything checked out. They did an x-ray and nothing was in her chest or throat which was great news! The doctor said that if she did in fact swallow it that it had already gone through to her stomach and she would just pass it in her poop. The dangerous part is the throat/chest area when you swallow things so he said we didn't have anything to worry about. The other option of course is she didn't swallow it and we just don't know where the heck the clip went. Guess I'll find out in a few days after looking through her poop whether she swallowed it or not! I wanted to gag today looking in it! The things I do for my child! :)

Needless to say, I felt like a HORRIBLE mother for putting things on her body that are obviously choking hazards. So many people do it though and I didn't want Lily's hair to be in her face all the time. No more small clips for me anymore! I do have a few big bows that my mom got her for christmas that I think I will use on occasion since they are MUCH larger than a small barrette/clip. I learned my lesson! To all you other moms out there with little girls who don't know what is and isn't appropriate to put in their mouths... I highly advise not to use small clips in their hair! :)