A Mother's Adrenaline

All you mothers out there... have you ever had a mother's adrenaline rush. One where your children are in danger or something is happening to them completely out of your control and you feel that surge going through you. We were playing outside and were coming in the house. Savannah ran in ahead of the rest of us with Mirian right behind her. I was gathering things up and coming up slow behind when I heard Mirian screaming hysterically. I looked up to see her four fingers shut in the hinge part of the door where Savannah had closed the door on them. She was screaming, and I had images of the tips of four fingers being cut off as I ran to the door to open it, only to find that Savannah had locked the dead bolt. So there we were on the front porch me holding Isaac, screaming and pounding on the door at Savannah, which she was not responding to, and Mirian screaming hysterically in pain.

I was running through every option in my mind in case Savannah didn't open the door. Pull her finger out - no that could be really bad, run around back and try and get through the back part of the house and hope it wasn't locked. All I could do was scream louder hoping Savannah would understand the immediacy of the situation. I'm sure the whole neighborhood wondered what was going on as well. One lady was walking by and came up to ask if she could help right when Savannah finally unbolted the door and opened it. I was so dazed by everything that was happening, I could hardly respond to her, as she mentioned she saw her fingers stuck, and asked if I was ok. By then I was much better knowing her fingers were out and the door was open. I thanked her and told her we were ok. I had a look at her fingers and were relieved to see they weren't severed. They were smash flat though, indents which I'm not sure if any bones were crushed. Where she's so tiny I think they were probably ok. The tips had a bunch of blood spots, and she was just crying now instead of hysterical.

So after sitting down with her and in the middle of lecturing Savannah it hit, and I just started crying.. The adrenaline let go but the heart was still pounding. 10 minutes later my heart was still going..and my body was trying to release all that adrenaline, I was an emotional basket case, thinking about what could have happened and was grateful it didn't. I wish I could have talked to the lady again and thank her for offering help as in the moment I just wasn't able to respond to her. So it got me thinking about future times when I probably will have greater accidents or things happen to my children, and if I'll be able to remain calm in the moment, which I usually do, but it's the afterwards part that I fall apart. I guess that's what a mother's adrenaline will do though... afterwards she realizes how more attached she was to her children than she thought she was.