A post three days in the making.

Or: The worst/scariest day of my life.
This happened Saturday.
I couldn't talk about it then.
Why?
Well, I'm pretty sure it traumatized me for life.
Or at least a decade or two.
It was a usual Saturday morning. About 9 am. Baby Girl let me sleep in for a while, for which I was extremely grateful. But then she started in - whining and calling out and doing this weird growling thing she does (I swear she's half wolf or something).
So I get up and go in, and I find her in the funniest situation...
She likes to grab/chew on the bumper on the side of her crib. Normally she ends up with an arm or a leg sticking out between the bars. Nothing new, there. Saturday, though, she was on her side and had her face stuck under the bumper. And she was growling around a wooden "bar" on her crib, which was firmly fastened between her lips. Yep. My daughter cuts teeth on some of the weirdest things.
This wasn't the traumatic thing. Actually, this was quite funny. I still wish I had gone with my first instinct and grabbed a camera.
But I didn't. Instead, I went over, untangled her, and lifted her out. I did like I always do, which is wish her good morning and kiss her pudgy little cheeks while I hold her up and she smiles down at me. Then I grabbed her bottle and Binky (pacifier) and headed out into the hall.
The way our house is set up, most everything is downstairs. The only rooms that are upstairs are our two bedrooms. So I shuffle things around until I have what I think is a good grip on her and her stuff. Then I start downstairs.
We have 11 or 12 steps leading up to the second floor. My foot slipped after two or three. I went down on my ass/back (I have some nasty bruises down the backs of both arms, which shows how hard I hit) and slid down a bit right around step #10.
Several things happened in probably half a second. I yelled "Oh God!", slammed down into a half-lounging position, and realized she wasn't with me anymore.
Then I looked down.
I looked down in time to see my sweet Baby Girl's limp body cartwheeling down the remaining 7 or 8 steps.
Part way down, it was her head that bounced off a step.
She landed on her stomach at the base of the stairs and I got moving. By the time I got down to her (vaguely realizing that my husband was now out of bed and beside me), she was holding her head up and screaming. I picked her up and hugged her tight, saying something like "Oh God, Aislinn. Oh Baby..." Then Johnnie was there. He took her from me and we both looked her over. Then he gives her back and gets dressed, and we load her into her car seat. By now she's done crying, and is doing this odd "Unh...unh...unh...unh..." noise. I've heard it's an inarticulate expression of fear. I didn't know that then, and thought it was due to the bump on her head. I started to prepare myself for some major head injuries.
By now, I'm sobbing openly.
I got dressed too and we were out the door. We live about 5-10 minutes from a hospital, depending on traffic. That's the first place we went.
I drove. This probably was not the best move, but I was too impatient to sit helplessly in the passenger seat.
I road raged the whole way there. Traffic wasn't fast enough. The lights weren't fast enough. I'm lucky I don't have telekinesis, or things would have been in flames.
Half way there, Aislinn stops crying. I just had the thought, while writing this, that it probably seemed like she had passed out (or worse). That honestly didn't occur to me at the time, and I'm grateful for that.
By the time we got her signed in and were in the waiting room, she was smiling and being happy.
I was a wreck.
They called her in fairly quickly and a doctor looked her over. He ordered a CAT scan, which happened about 10 minutes later.
We were told the results usually took 30 minutes to come back.
We waited an hour and a half.
Aislinn slept. Johnnie dozed. I paced and rocked and cried and prayed.
I don't pray. I just don't really believe in it. This time, however, I figured I shouldn't take any chances.
Finally the news came back. She's fine!
I thanked every diety I had ever heard of (real life and otherwise), and we bundled her up and took her back home.
Our usual fun Saturday tradition (gaming with friends) was cancelled after that. I just couldn't have fun after that happened. I just couldn't face the usual group with anything resembling a smile.
So we stayed at home and kept an eye on her for signs of any other types of injuries, and thankfully found none. We cuddled her a lot, and kissed her a lot, and she spent quite a bit of time sleeping.
I don't blame her. I would have, too.
The scratches she got are almost gone. She's as happy and bouncy as ever, and shows no signs of dwelling on what happened (though I'm sure babies don't do that, anyway).
Me, I'm a different story. Even though I didn't dream of the incident (I was sure I would), I can't help seeing it in my head several times a day. And it always sends a chill up my spine.
My little girl...my baby... She could have died. She could have broken her neck. And it would've been because of me.
Don't say it. I've heard it all. It wasn't my fault. It was an accident. Yadda, yadda.
Not my fault? Bullshit. If I had been holding her more tightly, and taking better care when going down the steps, my foot wouldn't have slipped and it wouldn't have happened. I'm a klutz. I always have been. And I know this. So why wasn't I more careful?
She's perfectly fine, and I'm drowning in guilt. Imagine what would've happened if she *was* injured. Or if she died.
I would have never forgiven myself. Hell...I might not, anyway.
I'm grateful for the happy ending. Really. I've never been more relieved about anything in my life. But it was a harsh way to learn an important lesson.
But I learned it. You can be sure that ever since then I'm that much more careful when doing things while she's with me. I was careful before, of course, but now...
I won't scoot down the stairs on my ass. I don't think it's necessary to go quite that far. But I considered it.
There you have it. There is a short description of what is, so far, the worst/scariest day of my life. And I've been told that things like that will happen over and over again. It's just the way of things when you have kids.
I can hardly wait. :/