Today we went out and bought wine so we could celebrate the end of our adoption case together with our new friends, the other four adopting couples at the hotel, and Alain and Bernadette, the French couple who stays here for two months every two years.
When we came back from the shop, we relaxed on the terrace with the other couples, while the children were playing. Suddenly we heard Jakob's voice crying from inside the hotel. We both went inside, and our crying child came running towards us, blood running down his forehead, nose, cheeks, and mouth, making a trail of blood drops on the floor!
We reacted as any sensible parents who experience this for the first time with their first child, would: We panicked!
We cleaned his face with water, localized the wound to his forehead, and put a band-aid on the cut. Then we took Jakob in our arms, and ran to the clinic 400 m up the street, where they have an emergency room. Despite the language barrier, we got the best possible treatment for our son once we showed them our Europeiske insurance card.
And though the visit to the emergency room was expensive (over 700 000 pesos), apparently we had not overreacted. The doctors said that it was a deep cut which needed stitches. But because Jakob is black, they did not want their regular pediatricians to do the sutures, they had to call in a specialist in plastic surgery, to sow up the wound in such a way that it will not leave a white scar on his forehead. (Incidentally, the plastic surgeon was white.)
Later, we heard from the other children what had happened. The bigger children had been playing with Jakob, pushing him around in a baby stroller, which he enjoys a lot. They had lost control of the stroller on the stairs outside our room, and it had raced down the wheelchair ramp with Jakob in it, so his head hit the cast-iron bench at the bottom.
After we came back from the hospital, Jakob wanted to play more. So Marie came to our room where they played peacefully until his bedtime. Then all the parents gathered in the sitting room and drank some wine and had a really nice chat about the things that we are all going through. We were even able to laugh about Jakob's dramatic last evening here, knowing that it won't be the last time he gets hurt. But the first time is really tough on the parents!
In the end the day ended well, just like our stay in Cali. (Tomorrow at 10 AM we will be leaving for Bogotá.) We like to think that we have made some new friends during these three weeks!
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