Not sure if it's the best place to post this, it's a long one sorry but appreciate it if you read it.
Please no hating comments as I hate myself enough already.
My 14 month old DD loves slides and there are a couple playgrounds next to my house with tiny slides where she can climb up and slide down on her own (on her tummy - feet first if that makes sense).
She's been doing this for a few weeks now. Whenever we go to a bigger playground with big slides there isn't an issue as she can't climb up and I just slide her down while holding her (me not being on the slide but standing next to it).
Well, 2 days ago I took her to a new exciting playground we've never been before. This one had a big slide but the issue was that she was able to climb up and she really wanted to go. I thought to myself this slide is dangerous she could fall at the end and hit her head... she started throwing a fit when I didn't want to let her slide so I thought I will help her from the top, holding her hands and slide her down halfway where I let her go. It was safe, she loved it, she stopped at the bottom of the slide and climbed down. She absolutely loved it we did it 2 more times, big laughs and everything. 4th time I didn't pay as much attention and felt a false "safeness" and I let go of her arms higher up. Now that was enough for her to get to a bigger speed and she didn't stop at the bottom of the slide, she fall down. Smashed her face at the bottom of the slide started screaming immediately I run down picked her up she was bleeding from her mouth and I could see she knocked a tooth out.. I was devastated, called my husband to come and get us. She stopped crying after about 5 min, we called 111 went to an out of hour dentist followed by A&E to make sure she didn't inhale the tooth as we couldn't find it.
Now she is missing one of her top central incisors and the other one is pushed back into her gum, already started to go gray and it is at a weird angle.. dentist told us we need to go back for a checkup in 2 months but that tooth is most likely dead and will stay gray and hopefully doesn't get infected etc..
I am devastated. She is fine, she doesn't seem upset, plays laughs etc. But everytime I see the gap I am in physical pain and want to burst into tears. I've been crying for 2 days, I can't eat I can't sleep and the amount of guilt I feel I cannot even describe. I hate myself so much for being so careless and I hate that I allowed this to happen to her, well I actually made it happen. I feel like I am the worst mom and she will have to live for God knows how many years without her top teeth because of me. I'm keep playing over in my head all the what ifs and I'm so heartbroken.
I should've kept her safe and I shouldn't have let this happen. All I ever wanted is to be a best mom for her and I'm clearly not that. I don't know how to get over this feeling. I don't want to feel this pain everytime I look at her precious smile, I don't want her to feel that her smile is making me hurt, I don't want her to be self conscious about it, but feel like my own emotions will cause this - making me even a worse mom.
I should add i had terrible teeth growing up and spent thousands on it getting it fixed a few years ago. Before that I didn't laugh or smile, always kept my mouth closed so I think all this are adding to it. I should be grateful that nothing worse happened but I just grieve her perfect smile and have crazy amount of hate towards myself.
Don't even know what I want from posting this but I just want this guilt to stop and I want to be there for her and make her feel like her teeth does not matter.
Will I ever stop hating myself? Will I ever be able to look at her smile without wanting to cry?
I know i am probably being over dramatic and it's only teeth. But it would be a different story if she just knocked it out running around or something. That I could live with much easier. But the fact I caused this is killing me.