Bella's First Trip to the ER

Well sort of. Something is wrong with Bella but I don't know what it is, she is making this kind of gagging sound and spitting up clear fluid, like she just has excess salivia or something. No fever, and she is eating and sleeping and acting very happy. But she just is making this gurgling sounds and spitting up. I first noticed all this when we picked her up from daycare and it worried me so we rushed to the pediatrician's (which is just around the coner from daycare) but they were closed. So then I took her to the Urgent Care Clinic and they tell me they won't take her because she is a new patient and they don't take new patients after 6:30 (it was 6:36!) so I resort to begging and they tell me, well she probably has a bit of food stuck in her throat and needs x-rays and the doctor here really doesn't care to do x-rays on babies so just take her to the ER. And I'm asking, you mean he won't even see her? And they are all on cell phones making plans for after work and the doctor wouldn't come out and you could just tell they all felt like, it's closing time on Friday night and too bad for you and your gagging baby. So I had a few choice words for them and left. I drive her up to Kingwood hospital to go to the ER. The ER is not a happy place. A man came in that had cut his face terribly and he flung blood everywhere and then there was a girl with a puncture wound and the lady with a wasp bite that was illeriterate and needed me to fill out all her paperwork for her and the older lady from Colombia that only spoke Spanish and needed me to explain that her 3 week old grandchild wasn't breathing and the boy with a broken leg bawling left all by himself because his mother was outside chain smoking and the homeless drug addict waiting for a detox bed and Oh Lord, it was just awful. I waited about 2 hours and the whole time Bella is smiling and laughing and waving at people and showing zero signs of any problem whatsoever. So I ended up deciding around 9 PM that if puncture wound girl had been there since 4PM and chest pain guy had been there since 6PM that there was little to no chance that my smiling happy laughing child was making it to the top of the list anytime this decade and so we came home. I will take her to the pediatrician first thing in the morning because I really do think maybe there is a cheerio that went down the wrong way or something. Right now she is asleep and I'm headed that way myself. I've felt just about every emotion there is tonight - fear, panic, anger, compassion, exasperation, heartbreak and in the end I am only left feeling one thing. An abiding, bone deep gratefulness for the health and financial blessings in our life - and most of all that the three humans that are the very reason for my existence are all here in this house with me - safe, breathing, and whole.