Our first visit to the emergency room happened when Elisha was only three weeks old. It was a Sunday morning and we were going to the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. This was our first long drive with him and entire day out of the house. I wanted to go because its my favorite sheep show and both of my parents are involved in the festival. My Dad was there showing animals and my Mom was doing a demo with her spinning wheel. As I was getting Elisha dressed that morning I noticed that around his belly button it was slightly brown. I didn't really think about it and we continued to get ready to go. We got to the festival and walked around a bit, fed Elisha, and got lunch for ourselves. Then around 2:00 I went to change Elisha's diaper--and below is how I found his belly button . . .
Needless to say I began freaking out because belly buttons are not suppose to be gray, orange, black, and blue. So I call our pediatricians triage line and left a message with a secretary. Five minutes later I get a call back from a nurse and I explained what we saw and I told her that on Wednesday (four days prior) we had been to the doctor's and they had put silver nitrate on his belly button because his umbilical cord had fallen off but it was still a little gooey. The nurse said she had not heard of a belly button looking like this before. She asked me a series of questions like: Does he have a fever? Is he still eating? ... all of these things were normal. So her response was "If it gets worse go see someone but if not call your pediatrician in the morning to make a sick appointment; but I have never heard of this before." Well having only been a mom for three weeks I did not like the, "I have never heard of this before." So needless to say, off to the ER we went.
Once we got all checked in at the ER the nurse came back and said well did you try wiping it off? I said I used a baby wipe on it but nothing happened. She then got out alcohol wipes and tried those; again nothing happened. Then the pediatrician came in and asked us 50 questions and I told her all about how on Wednesday they put silver nitrate on his belly button for the third time. (We went to the doctors a lot in the first two weeks of his life because he was not eating well). So she examined Elisha and he was acting perfectly normal. She then said I think its just a skin stain from the silver nitrate so I am going to have the nurse come in and try to wash it off. I was skeptical because the silver nitrate was put on four days ago and neither of the other times had this result. I asked her, "Why would this happen this time when it was not a problem before?" She said it could just be residue that was left over from the treatment so they would try to wash it to see if that took care of it. The nurse came in and used this sponge and sterile water and tried to get it off and it started coming off a little bit but there was still a lot there. Then a while later the pediatrician came back in and said, "Well it is coming off so it is definitely a skin stain but this method is not cleaning it well so I'm going to give him a full sponge bath." So after much scrubbing and a very unhappy baby we left the ER after getting the diagnosis of a skin stain and a treatment plan of a BATH. Seriously!?! That is the most expensive bath Elisha will ever have.
So chalk that one up to a new over-reactive mom but seriously his belly button looked horrible and the nurse said, "I've never heard of that before." I was completely freaking out!
Here is the song that Andrew had stuck in his head the entire time: VeggieTales: BellyButton - Silly Song: http://youtu.be/n5uujMb_hbo
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