To Stitch or Not To Stitch?

Yesterday morning Jasper took a tumble. He was in his bedroom, and I was in the kitchen - so I did not witness the actual deed. However, the cry he let out definitely alerted me to his pain. I ran in to comfort him, and after holding him only a short time noticed the cut on his face near his eye. It really bled only a tiny amount. No blood ran down his face, so initially I didn't think much of it. Well sort of. ... I did freak out initially and took a photo on my cell phone which I immediately sent to Drew (on a business trip to Michigan). But in the time in took for Drew to call me back (and after I had considered calling Uncle Jon to get his medical advice) I had recovered my senses a bit and felt it wasn't too bad.

So then I spent a little (lot) more time thinking about this cut. I looked up in the childcare books what was to be done about cuts and read that face cuts should be stitched for cosmetic reasons, especially ones over the eyebrow and lip lines. This cut did not cross the eyebrow line, so I didn't think it was of much concern. However, I considered that this cut might leave a scar on Jasper's face. I'll admit that "chicks dig scars," often quoted by Ryan Connelly, ran through my head over and over throughout the day as I contemplated the risk of leaving the cut untreated. I mean, was this really true? What if my son wanted to be an actor or a model? What if my decision to not have this treated left him with a really noticable scar? Or would he grow up (hopefully) with no vanity about his gorgeous Scandinavian-inspired good looks? How could I know?

So I called the pediatrician's office and was advised after multiple phone conversations that I should take Jasper into the ER to get stitched by a plastic surgeon. (The nurse did actually call multiple plastic surgeon's offices to see if we could get in, but we couldn't.) After a tearful phone call to Drew I gathered up my confidence to stock our diaper bag for a potentially long visit to the ER. Our friend Teri Burchfield was heading to our house for a visit, so together we conferred about the cut and examined it more carefully. It was no more than 1/4 inch long, and the fact that it did not bleed much led me to believe it was pretty superficial. Because I just didn't want to expose Jasper to the ER if we didn't need to but was concerned about my selfishness getting in the way of taking care of him completely, I couldn't decide what I should do. Therefore I thought I'd leave the decision to our pediatrician. She wouldn't be able to stitch it up, but we were really hoping she wouldn't even think it needed stitches.

Thankfully Dr. Sharp didn't think we needed stitches! woo hoo! She cleaned it, tried to pry it apart to then get it closed more tightly with steri-strips - but she actually couldn't get it to pull apart. So she covered it with a steri-strip and called it good. Here we are after the doctor visit.