Lost my baby

We went on a mammoth day trip into London today. We comprises of me, Ethan, Hannah, my brother, his wife and their two children.

Towards the end of the day we'd just walked past Downing Street and were waiting at the stop for bus number 11. And waiting, and waiting.

Anyway, after some pressure from Ethan, we boarded a different bus which would stop at Trafalgar Square where we could change.

We hopped on the bus and in front of us a lady was having a lengthy discussion with the driver. I showed the tickets and waited for some acknowledgement that the driver had seen them. The driver wasn't talking but was waving someone into the bus. It took me a while to realise he meant us, and not the woman he was looking at. As soon as we moved beyond the driver's cab, the bus started to move.

Children trying to walk along a bendy bus, whilst it's moving, is not a good idea and I rushed to ensure everyone was sitting down. It was then that I asked "Where's Ethan?" and I didn't get a response. We looked around but he wasn't with us.

I shouted to the driver to stop, I'd lost my boy. Nothing happened. I kept shouting and everyone else in our party sensed my complete blind panic and joined in with Hannah bursting into tears and all efforts focused on stopping the bus.

Finally the bus stopped but we couldn't open the door. I was screaming hysterically at this point to the driver to open the doors, I'd lost my little boy. I screamed and screamed and, after what seemed like an age, I found an exit. The rest followed.

As we hit the pavement my niece said "Ethan was on the bus" which put me in a quandary. We'd just left the us without looking at every inch of the bus before leaving it. We had though about splitting up but, because Hannah had been so distressed, we decided to stay together. What if we'd just left him on the bus?

My brother, Ian, found a policeman at the side of the road and, whilst he was explaining what had happened, I was running back to the bus stop yelling for Ethan at full volume.

I was frantically looking everywhere, seeing nothing except people staring at me as though I was mad. That didn't stop me screaming Ethan's name.

Shona my sister-in-law was following me with Ian and the children and the policeman and as she ran towards me, a woman said "Is this what you're looking for?"

She was directed towards me and I saw my little boy in the arms of a stranger, crying.

I think I thanked her, but I really can't remember. I just wanted to hug my little boy and let him know everything was OK. My heart was pounding but I was relieved.

Ethan recovered almost immediately. My heart took about an hour to return to it's normal level.