What is the worst thing... - as a parent you've had to deal with?

redplaydoh wrote: We get a lot of cute and funny stories. But I know we all have those days that make you cry.
What is the most embarrassing, gross, or horrible event you've had to deal with as a parent?

Here's mine... so far.
We'd just sold our house in preperation for the move to Switzerland. We moved into a horrible little apartment with very little of our stuff as everything else was packed and ready to go onto a container. I was depressed having to move from a house we built into a dumpy apartment, being terrified of the move and I had two small boys ages 1 and 2 with 90% of their toys packed away and not understanding why we didn't go "home". We were all sleeping on one mattress on the floor of this place. I was thinking it couldn't get any worse... I was on the phone making address changes when the overwhelming stench of poop assulted me. I barely noticed that while I was on the phone Lucas had crawled up next to me on the couch. I was talking and looked down to see where the noxious odor was coming from and he was naked from the waist down and was sitting on my fabric couch while covered in poop. I glanced from him to the carpet and saw poop footprints and lots of them. I hung up without even saying anything to the woman. My next thought was OMG where's Bryan???? I then saw him behind the chair with two fistfulls of poop. Then I noticed he was chewing! The kid is such a picky eater and he eats poop from his big brother's diaper. I never in my wildest parenting dreams ever thought I'd fingersweep poop out of my kids mouth.
Both of them got thrown into the bathtub while I frantically called DH to come help and to bring our carpet cleaner out of storage. The couch stayed behind and didn't come with us on our move. The carpet ended up cleaner than when we moved into that place and I found out that a 1 year old can ingest a mouthful of poop and survive without getting sick, and with that I stopped freaking out everytime his pacifier hit the floor. I thought if you can survive that, then I'm not sterilizing everything that goes into your mouth. I found a way to floss the teeth of a 1 yr old. And I found out NOT to listen to your husband while cleaning the carpet as he yells out to me that the only reason Bryan ATE the poop is because we fed corn to Lucas the night before.

mom21kid2dogs replied: Wow!! Yikes!!!Sorry, I got nothing to match that one!!!

blue72 replied: School conferences and having to help my children deal with the death of their grandfather.

MyBrownEyedBoy replied: This.....



Logan's first open heart surgery. I say first because I know there are more to come. But that sucked huge.

cameragirl21 replied: omg, DeAnn, i was horrified at your story till i read that last line about what your DH said! LOLOLOL!!!!!!

lovemy2 replied: Thankfully it hasn't been near as bad as some - but the reflux - it has been much worse for my DS than it was for my DD but it was rough to see either of them in obvious discomfort......

mummy2girls replied: mine is this one...

A&A'smommy replied: Probably when alyssa came out of the anesthesia after getting her tubes that was hard... she was failing and screaming and couldn't understand what was going on. But other than that I haven't really had to deal with too much I have been extremely blessed with an easy child.. next child though is going to be hard!

CantWait replied: Watching Robbie get stitches. I had to leave the room because I was getting dizzy. Then of course I felt even worse because I couldn't suck it up for him.

Brias3 replied: Ryan had a small seizure when he was about nine months old. At the time, we were living overseas and Bruce was out of town. It was a really frightening ordeal to have to go through alone. He had to have a spinal tap and all sorts of tests to determine the cause.

Scary, scary!

The second scariest would be two summers ago in FL when Aliyah was swimming less than 2 feet from me in knee deep water. I turned for a split second to toss Ryan his goggles back and she got swept out by a huge wave. She was never more than a few feet from me as I frantically swam after her, but kept getting pushed far enough away that I couldn't reach her.

I shudder to even recall any of these times!

HuskerMom replied: The only scary thing that's happened to us was the day Keith was born. I still couldn't get out of bed and Keith was in his bed across the room sleeping. Dan went over to check on him and he had spit up some and had started to turn a little blue. Scared us sooooo bad. Since then we've been pretty lucky and haven't had anything bad happen.

MoonMama replied: Nothing bad so far.

redchief replied: I've got nothing to compare to many, but I know what that fear of the future for a child is like. When Erin was a week old, Lisa was still in pain from the delivery, and she noticed there was something amiss with Erin's eyes. I took her to the pediatrician's who admonished me for not believing there was anything wrong. In his words, "Mothers always know when something is wrong with their children." That began two weeks of pure hell that had me making an appointment to go to Will's Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. The Ped thought Erin had glaucoma and maybe even a brain tumor. It turned out to be a rare condition called Peter's Anomaly. We found out this after seeing all of the young doctors in one of the country's leading eye hospitals and not getting any answers. Finally we got to one of the more experienced doctors who named her condition right away, but warned us that the odds of her having usable vision were on the outside. After testing of every kind we ruled out tumors and other things often related to her condition and we began to try and save vision in her left eye. She went under anesthesia 11 times from two weeks of age to 11 months. It was a stressful year.

And then she grew up and started dating....

Kentuckychick replied: I admire all of you
Just wanted you to know that...

Of course, though not really by choice, I'm not yet a parent... but to see the pictures of your beautiful children in the hospital... I can do what I do, work with sick children, be studying to become a child life specialist and I never get used to it... I never will. And I guess that's a good thing.

I can't put myself in the shoes of the parents that I know... I don't even try. I can't imagine having a sick child, especially one sick enough to ever be in the hospital. Even working with them, I just don't picture myself ever being there and I hope I never have to be. But those parents, you, any parent I've ever met who's had to have a child in the hospital or who's had a sick child... you are all so very strong, so very brave and you are because you love your children.

You are all amazing...

Maddie&EthansMom replied: You all are making me cry!!

redchief replied:
That's the truth. I never put myself in those shoes, and certainly neither did my poor wife. They were strapped to me when I wasn't looking and I didn't know how to undo the straps; for if I could have I would have. I'm sure the others who've had to deal with sick babes will agree with this analogy. I lost count of the number of times while in bed Lisa asked what she did wrong. All I could lamely answer was, "Nothing. It just is." And we were fairly sure early on that Erin's life wasn't in danger. I don't know how you guys who have had to deal with the uncertain mortality of your children do it.

Iluvmyboys replied: Probably having Ben go through drug rehab when he was 16 That was tough on all of us. Espically since it was a huge surprise. I sometimes think hes going back to his old ways though espically lately

flirtycuddle replied: When dd was born I was 42 weeks along and had a perfect pregnancy. I was induced and after 10 hours ready to push. Jackie swalloed meconium, had the cord around her neck 3x and had to use the vaccume to get her out. She was blue and not crying when born and the doctor said they didnt want her to scream right now cuz of hte meconium...she was taken to the warmer and the next thing I hear is all the specialist saying come on baby breath for us...then cpr starting on her while I was stuck in the bed being stiched up and didn't get to see her for 5 hours after. she was in NICU for a week and was only 6lbs born and the pedi said she was litterllay using her body fat to survive and if she had stayed in any longer she would have been dead.

Now it is with ds and still not knowing what is causing all his reactions. I just don't know what to do with him and what to expect next.

paradisemommy replied: my story is far from any of these stories but the most difficult for me so far is having to help hold down my son who was about 3 at the time while we were in the ER getting about 4 stitches in his tongue..not fun..

My3LilMonkeys replied: So far (knock on wood) nothing serious. A few late nights with very high fevers, 2 possible concussions and some tests on Brooke's heart when she was 2 months old (but we were assured going in that it would not be serious even if the tests came back positive, which they didn't).

C&K*s Mommie replied: Nothing serious..so far. Thank God!
Christian was not handling labor well, the day she was supposed to be born. Her heart rate dropped with each roll of labor, and they put me on oxygen. I;m not 100% sure of all the details, but I knew she was in distress. I was at a birthing center preparing to give a water birth to her, but I had to be rushed to the hospital due to the complications of the labor and her. Her heartrate continued to drop, I was being swamped with questions from the hospital staff, so I did not have time to process information, but I was told later that Chris, my mother, and his parents were outside of the teeny L&D room that I was in with their ears glued to the opening of the door trying to hear what they could that was going on inside. They were all in tears fearful that Christian would not make it into the world. They finally let Chris in, and kicked some of the staff out, and Christian made her appearance (just shy of having to have an emergency C) in the knick of time with the aide of a vaccum.

boyohboyohboy replied: caleb has been my miracle child all along. I was single when I was preg with him, and went thru a horrible preg. full of stress. I went into labor at 21 weeks, and then again at 24 and again at 32 and gave birth at 34. He came out blue and had to have CPR for 2 mins before he started to breath on his own. Then when he was home with me, he was sick all the time as an infant. Constantly in and out of the hosp. there was talk of RSV. and he seemed to have pneumonia every other month. His asthma was out of control, and I had to hold the nebulizer mask over his face while he screamed until it was done every 4 hours day and night.
Then when he was 1 he stopped eating, and his stomach became distended, he was hospitalized, with pink eye, pneumonia, allergic croup and uncontrolled asthma. his espophagus was swelling shut all the time, and the pediatric ENT came in and told me that they needed to cut a whole in his throat for him to breath, and his termanology upset me so bad, it was the first time in my adult life that I swore at another adult and kicked the dr out of his room, and got a brand new ped. who was able to diagnosis caleb and sent us to a GI dr who said caleb had an occulusion in his rectum. I know someone else wrote also, that anethesia on a baby is the worst thing to watch, I had to hold him while they put the mask on his face and feel his tiny body go limp. it was horrible. but as soon as the mass was removed, his entire life changed, he no longer had the swollen belly, he ate better, and his asthma has cleared. he is perfectly healthy.

then when he was in daycare, a child pushed him and he fell into a bench and split his lip open almost completely off his face, and I had to drive him to the DR and hold him while they stitched his face, it was horrible.

So far thats it.

Caleb is the most kind hearted loving child, I have ever met. I just know he is going to do something great in his life, i just hope I am around to see it, and encourage him on!

jcc64 replied: Nothing even remotely close to the trauma experienced by some here.
Some "lowlights":

Noah's epilepsy odyssey- standing by the MRI machine for 45 minutes, waiting to hear if he had a brain tumor or not; waiting for the seizures to stop in the middle of the night, wondering if he'd ever be able to drive a car, etc...

Waiting for Noah to "come to" after falling out of a high chair as a toddler and being knocked unconscious.

All of the various ER visits- the last one as recent as 2 days ago (14 yo wiped out on a snowboard jump).

Part of doing business, but man, the grey hairs are adding up.

amymom replied: This topic is having me in tears!!!

I would have to say the surgeries that my kids had were scary 'moments'. Billy's appendix and Mary Beth's biopsies / upper endoscopy. The 'putting them to sleep' part is scary.
Twice my son has been 'missing' .... that is frightening. No that was three times. (and he is our unadventuresome one )

16 years of parenthood ... I guess there have been some things we have gone through. I cannot pinpoint exactly which is the worst. When I first read the question, my thoughts went to times I did not want to be a parent, those times I needed to punish / discipline the kids, or deal with fall out of something they did. The scary times, I listed above, I still wanted to be a parent just wished I wasn't dealing with the issue at hand. The worst thing I dealt with as a parent so far is Billy's friends (and him too) drinking. Also, right now Billy has a 'friend' who has shoplifted at a local store when Billy was with him. Billy will now have to testify against this kid, and I am not allowing Billy to go to this store, as Billy is constantly under suspicion. Understandable on the shops part, but still not fair. These to me are the worst parts of being a parent, the scary parts I don't like, but embrace them.

MomToJade&Jordan replied: I can think of some with both, but none have been as serious as some above.

When Jade was 6 weeks old she caught a stomach bug and couldn't keep anything down. It was really scary and had us in the emergency room for about 5 hours. There wasn't much that they could do, but told me I had to feed her in small spurts. It lasted about 2 days and I was so happy when it was over.

Jordan's delivery turned scary when her heart rate kept dropping with contractions. I managed to give birth without a c-section, and was showed the cause shortly after she was born. Jordan had managed to tie a knot in her cord.

Two nights after she was born Jordan had to go under the lights because of jaundice. She was 5lbs 11oz at birth and all she wanted was me. All that tiny little peanut did was scream. The morning nurse came in and looked at me and suggested that she be taken to the nursery so i could get some rest. It was probably the hardest 12 hours I've ever been through, but the lights helped her in the end.

lisar replied: I have had many downs with Lexi. But nothing that I didnt know she would be fine. Raygen on the other hand was a whole other ball game from day 1. I cried daily.

Reading this post made me cry, cause I know I have not experianced what some others have and I just couldnt even imagine what it was like for yall.


Here is my worst time.

Raygen in the NICU. This was the first time I got to hold her.

Old Mom Hubbard replied: When my son began to be attacked in middle school by a small group of bullies (he has Asperger's, severe speech and language issues(Central Auditory Processing Disorder), depression, was very underweight and small for his age, suffered severe anxiety as well and was being assessed for a siezure disorder by doctors; well, the school did nothing to punish the bullies and did NOT implement his IEP and had him going into regular classrooms throughout the day and NOT his single class with an aide as they were supposed to. After many letters of complaint, meetings to try to resolve the issues, things only became worse. This was in 2001. Turns out he was not only being assaulted by the bullies, but by a teacher and a counselor and likely another we have named.

We do not know why to this day or even know exactly what happened to our son, but the rage displayed by this so-called special education teacher in regards to "having to deal with these things" HER WORDS during a meeting about children with special needs. She said MANY foul, disgusting, perverse, crude things regarding our son with such anger as to shock one. We pulled our son out of the school, but the damage had been done so severely as to cause our son a breakdown. She apparently tied him into a chair, and through years of therapy all he can tell us at this point is that she said she was going to hurt him and make him pay. This was said in retaliation for us filing a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights as the school and this so-called teacher did nothing to help him in any way and ignored our MANY complaints about the attacks by the bullies. Such attacks included having his PE shorts pulled down by a thug at the same time being clled homophobic names, having his head flushed into a toilet, being thrown in trash cans, being told he would be beaten or killed if he did not bring $300.00 dollars to school, and worse. We highly suspect sexual assault by this teacher and the counselor and have even put our MANY complaints into writing and have a website that has been up for over two years. They have denied NOTHING as to what we have said. This teacher still retains her position, while to this day our son suffers severe school phobia and post traumatic stress disorder. He is on a mild dose of Zyprexa, and so far it is the only thing that has NOT given him any side-effects whatsoever to help him at least be able to attend a learning center where he gets his schooling.

Yes, that last day when he came off of the bus, his clothes all wrumpled, torn jacket, and crying and incoherent and completely scared, he just was like a scared caged animal is the only way I can describe how he came off of the bus on his last day at that hole of a school, March 15 2001. Once he got inside our place, he ran under the table, began to rock back and forth saying "Don't hurt me, don't hurt me, don't hurt me," all the while covering his head with his hands and crying and shaking all over. FINALLy when he calmed down, I noticed marks on his neck. He said a bully did it by pulling his jacket. He said he hated school and never wanted to go back and that the teacher told him he was a stupid waste of space retard. He hated it and nobody liked him he wished he were dead.

THAT had to be the very worst day of my life, watching all of the years of help that my son had to be able to be at level with his age peers, to where he LOVED school and learning, to where his speech had come so far along to where he was understood...all gone in that moment.

Well, years and years now, he still suffers the anxiety and school phobia. Psychs tell us that he will talk about "it" whatever when he is ready. All he has been able to tell us so far besides what has been mentioned, is that the teacher tied him into a chair, he couldn't breathe and thought he was going to die. This same teacher he tells us sat her full weight on him, and also he was in pain and couln't breathe. Anyway, through years of being in the Learning Center, he again LOVES learning, is graduating next year, and in spite of the continued School/campus phobia has a desire to go to college to take classes to become a writer and a myrmecologist (a person who studies ants). He loves writing and is actually very good. So whatever happened to him, we are told he will open up to talk when he is ready. Well, I guess all I can say is, parents with special needs children, be careful in dealing with the schools, ESPECIALLY in the higher grades as they really do not do much to protect your children from bullies, and worse, bad teachers. God bless any parent who are with children starting out. I must tell you, if I had to do the school bit over again, I would have home-schooled. I am so glad we did find a place where our son could love learning again though, in spite of all he has been through.

momtoMegan&Alyxandria replied: Ok, I had to stop reading, the tears are flowing. I have a couple scary moments. The first was when Meg was believed to have CF. The test was a breeze, but waiting for hours on the Dr. to call and let us know if the test was positive or negative was horrible. Thankfully, negative.
The second is when Meg's friend talked her into getting into the pool alone. That was scary.
The third was when Alyx was born, she had swalloed meconium.
And the last was when Alyx was admitted to the hospital for one night due to be dehydrated.
Thankfully, I have not had anthing worse than that. Some of your stories were so shocking, I don't know how you dealt with it.

Calimama replied:
Reading that really made me hurt for him. My nephew also has Asperger's Autism, he just got diagnosed 4 weeks ago at 4 years old.

Boo&BugsMom replied: For me, two things...having Tanner in the NICU after he was born and not being able to hold him until he was out. Always and forever the constant worrying we do as parents. Always wondering "will he be ok" because you never know what life will throw at you.

Old Mom Hubbard replied: My hubby and I deal with what our son went through, and still does with re: to PTSD just one day at a time, and KNOWING he has found a new love of learning thanks to such a wonderful program he is in at the Learning Center, run by the most wonderfully loving and compassionate people we have met. Our son, thanks to them, has been able to re-develop his talent of writing, and re-discover a love of learning that has inspired even hubby and I to continue in our educational endeavors too.

Even though he still has the phobia of school campus, and get nervous at least he knows he is NOT a waste of space as to what that teacher told him many times all those years ago, he still has a love and compassion for all of life.

Well all, got to get to my part-time work then later, school myself so you all have a great day!

I hope with any parent having medical issues with their little ones, know you are in my thoughts and prayers that all goes well and speedy recovery. May the Guardian Angels grant you comfort. Peace be with you all...

Old Mom Hubbard replied: Bellasmommy10-

Like I said, If I could go back in time, I would have home-schooled. I wish that I could make changes and get laws enforced, or new laws created so in order to prevent such from ever occurring again, anywhere in any school. After ALL these years my hubby and I keep hoping the news media will take a stand against schoolyard bullying and those who should correct the problems yet do not by writing our letters, as well as to members of local, state, and federal political agencies and persons. NOT all teachers I know are bad most actually are quite wonderful loving compassionate people. THIS one though...very scary. I just hope with our complaints to the OCR and other agencies that they have improved conditions for those children following into that school behind our son.

Anyway, got to get myself to work, then to class later so again one and all...blessings to you and peace be upon you all and your families.

luvmykids replied: By comparison, nothing too bad.

The worst by far was when Colt had a full blown asthma attack. I was absolutely unprepared medically because I thought he'd outgrown it and it was terrifying.

alice&arik replied: I can't say I have endured anything as bad as some of you. All of you are very strong. I would have to say that when his father died the same day I heard his heartbeat for the first time was tough. Then being in the delivery room alone, first day/night at home alone, and having company only so often was the hardest thing I have dealt with. Not to mention raising him alone, having a constant reminder what happened. And having family/friends tell me everything I am doing wrong is hard.

But I love my son more than anything and wouldn't change anything.

redplaydoh replied:
Oh gosh that is so sad!!!

Y'know I didn't expect to hear so many heartbreaking stories when I posted this topic. I was thinking more of stories like Bryan eating poop... But gosh what an amazing bunch of people we have here, that are so brave and strong in the face of horrible things. You all are AMAZING!!

ZandersMama replied: The day after Zavier was born, I remember sitting in my hospital room listening to all the other babys crying and knowing my little man may never cry.

Waiting for the neonatologist to come in and tell me he crashed.

Wanting so desperately to touch him and knowing that if I did it could cause his heart to stop beating or make him "forget" to breathe"

Finally getting him home and being afraid to pick him up, because there were no nurses or doctors or moniters.