“My son swallowed my wedding ring.” A sentence I never thought I’d utter.

It started on Sunday afternoon. When my son started to cry we assumed it was another stall tactic to avoid nap time, but my husband went to his room anyway. A minute later he called for me to come upstairs. I asked what was wrong.

“He swallowed the rings.”

“What rings?” I said, thinking that any sort of toy rings were packed away with the baby toys. It couldn’t be the Slinky he just got from one of his friends. That thing was huge.

“Your wedding rings.”

I thought we had made it through that part of toddlerhood unscathed (he wasn’t the type of kid who swallowed weird stuff, right???). I looked over at the shelf where my rings had been sitting for the past month or so of my pregnancy. Gone.

Doctor’s office? Emergency room? Since it was a Sunday afternoon, I panicked and called 911. He wasn’t choking, and was breathing fine, but the operator sent the paramedics anyway. Within minutes, we had a firetruck and police car outside our house. The men told us there was nothing to do but wait, and they waved the ambulance by our house (I can’t wait for the hi-drive-by bill, btw).

I called my doctor’s office and talked to a nurse who said it would take 2-4 days to pass. Poop watch was officially on. One thing I learned when I had my son was I quickly became desensitized to poop…until this. But after intimately searching through poop for a wedding ring, there is not much I can’t do. If Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps were nearby, I might challenge them to a race. How could it possibly turn out worse than going through someone else’s poop for your wedding ring?

Thursday came and went with no sign of the ring. With a long weekend approaching, I wanted to know where it was (and yes, I wondered if this was all some make-believe story, and the ring was hiding somewhere in my house). Friday saw a visit to the doctor and then to Children’s Hospital for X-rays, where the story was confirmed:

There it was, the symbol of my almost 9 year marriage, past the small intestines and traveling toward the liver and large intestines. A nice little road trip planned for labor day weekend. The doctor told me it would still be a few days, so I went and bought some bran muffins and prunes, and settled in for the conclusion of the story.

(Thanks to Children’s for the X-ray: this picture will come in handy for years to come. I will make sure it’s prominently featured on his wedding day!)