I Found Something Alarming in My Grandson’s Diaper While Babysitting, and It Sent Us Racing to the Hospital

For the first few minutes, everything seemed perfectly ordinary. I checked the room temperature, made a bottle, and settled onto the sofa with him tucked gently in my arms. He looked serene, eyelids fluttering, breathing slow and steady.

But only a few minutes later, as if someone had flipped a switch, he began to cry.

It wasn’t a soft fuss, or the restless sound of a hungry baby. This cry cut straight through me. It was sharp, strained, full of discomfort. I had raised children. I knew the difference.

I lifted him, rocked him, whispered to him. I even hummed the old tune I used to sing to my own son when he was little. But nothing helped. In fact, the longer I soothed, the more distressed he seemed.

His tiny body tensed in my arms, curling toward his stomach, almost writhing.

Something wasn’t right.

Thinking he might have gas, I gently positioned him against my shoulder and patted his back. The crying only intensified. A knot formed in my stomach, the kind that only instinct can create.

I placed him carefully on the bed and lifted his clothes to check his diaper.

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