My Toddler Died - Every Parent’s Nightmare
August 3, 2010 Grief No Comments
It was 10:10 a.m., March 9th, 1989, when I returned home with my six month old son, Jack, from our next-door neighbour’s house. My husband Michael was playing Duplo (blocks) with Ben on the lounge-room rug.
Michael told me that he’d been outside chain-sawing some branches he’d trimmed off a tree, when he had an intense attack of guilt about Ben.
He said that Ben had asked him to stay inside and play with him about fifteen minutes earlier, so he’d put down the saw and come inside.
I sat down to breast-feed Jack, while Michael went to make a cup of coffee. Ben quietly went upstairs. Only a few minutes had passed when I went upstairs to check on him. It was then that I found him sitting on the floor with a box of medical supplies. Some quinine sulphate tablets were scattered around him.
At first, I thought he’d only sucked the sugar coating off, as I tasted them and they were very bitter.
We immediately called the poison information service and they said to expect vomiting and disorientation from ringing in the ears.
It seemed that they didn’t think the situation was very serious.
But it was….
Finally, the time came to leave the hospital, where we had brought our son only seven hours earlier. I couldn’t have imagined then that we would never bring him home again.
We got into the van and just sat there stunned.
Driving out the gate, there was a toddler playing on the swings. How
could it be, that he was still playing and Ben wasn’t?
Read the full story in my eJournal.
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This article was brought to you by Jan Murray, Private Child Health Consultant who is an internationally renowned expert in her field. Jan encourages parents in the area of infant sleep, nutrition, activities and family balance. She publishes regular ezine and blog articles to provide free parenting tips, tools and resources to educate and support those caring for young babies and children. For more online resources visit http://www.settlepetal.com
