Today, however, I went to the dentist (I’m starting to feel like I’m always in that chair one way or another) and had my tooth filled. I was a nervous wreck last night and this morning and I felt like I was going to pass out or throw up or both while waiting in the office for my name to be called. The dentist did an excellent job on my tooth though, as far as I can tell. You can’t even really tell there was ever an issue with that tooth, much less one that almost made me lose a prominent front tooth. I do have to admit that I love Hoobastank for the assistance though. The drilling really gets to me so I turned the music up as loudly as I could stand it and thought about everything but the work the dentist was doing. Unfortunately, there is still so much more than needs to be done and as soon as we have the money or insurance (or both), I will be. Yuck. I think there’s two extractions and two root canals with crowns in there somewhere…not to mention a dozen or so fillings. *sigh* And Dr. P’s office tried to say it wasn’t genetic!

Whatever. Afterwards, we went over to Shannon’s house and I looked through a ton of clothes she had set aside out of Joe’s closet. We have clothes for Noah from 3T through size 6; mostly play and house stuff but it’s all nice and I’m relieved to have them. It’s one thing to buy a few quality pieces for nicer events but it’s quite another to try to outfit an entire wardrobe for a boy that grows in feet, not inches (I’m not sure I’m exaggerating). There was quite a lot to go through, have I said that before?

I also went through all of the boxes in their storage closet. I wiped out our wedding box – stuff either went into the yard sale pile or the trash bin and I saved a whole ziploc baggy worth of items (Dad’s candle, a couple of bells, a picture, a piece of my dress and two small flowers). Joshua and I kept our Bride/Groom champagne flutes and my wedding bouquet (that I made) but those are always on display. I felt really good about paring down because I know three years ago I couldn’t have done it. Now, I just want what we do keep to matter to me, not to the story they might hold some day.

There were quite a few boxes that needed to be consolidated or weeded through and we did that. We have a decently sized stack of boxes in there still, along with our coats and luggage, but they are all packed and ready to be loaded into the moving van. I’m grateful that my in-laws are so generous with their storage space. I wish I had decluttered a lot sooner but I don’t think I was really ready until more recently. This move certainly kicked my butt into gear as far as keeping stuff on hand goes.

So that’s our day. Joshua, Noah and I got home, ate chili (using our pantry stores) and watched Bewitched. Noah took a two hour nap, played in his playroom and finally crashed around 1 AM (mostly because he had such a late nap today since he refuses to sleep at Shannon’s house).

I’m happy. I feel like this move is sanctioned by God for multiple reasons. I’m excited to see my family, to get back on our feet and to get into a new place. One more month!

Yep, you heard me. A second one.

See, about a week after his first surgery, I noticed the tiniest of grooves on the other side of his mouth in relatively the same spot as the last one. I kept an eye on it and it seemed to be getting bigger so I brought him to the local dentist. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Dr. W and ended up seeing a different dentist who didn’t have the best bed side manner but did know her stuff. She immediately referred us to Dr. P (formerly known as Dr. P², since the original Dr. P is out of the picture).

So Tuesday, we trekked up to Newnan and stayed in a hotel (graciously provided by my in-laws) where we watched Hell’s Kitchen, The Nanny and otherwise enjoyed a short break from home. Since Noah couldn’t have anything to eat or drink after midnight for the procedure the next morning, we were trying to avoid having to drive him up to Newnan while hungry AND tired AND fussy. Noah did relatively well that night, sleeping a solid six hours without wanting to nurse, which is pretty unusual for him. I did pump him full of squash and applesauce before I brushed his teeth and gave him a good nursing and I hope it helped. Whatever did it, he slept through and we got him to the clinic.

When we got there, we waited a good thirty minutes before they got us to the back where one of the dental assistants tried to tell me that a predisposition to cavities just couldn’t be genetic and that it HAD to be the breastmilk that was causing Noah’s teeth to get cavities. While I can say that he doesn’t need to nurse all night or all day long without having his teeth brushed, I can’t say I agree that I should suddenly switch to cow’s milk because someone without a dental degree says so. She also couldn’t get through to her head which tooth had the issue and kept asking if the “filling” (his crown) came out, so I’m sure you can imagine why I am skeptical of anything she had to say to me.

Anyway, when Dr. P saw his teeth, she confirmed that he had two brand new cavities. Thankfully they were pretty small since we had caught them so early (score one for vigilant mommy, finally!) and said he didn’t need the Versed to be sedated for the procedure (so we starved our kid for 8 1/2 hours because…?). Not that I want to put anything into Noah’s body that is unnecessary so we were thankful – at first.

She swore that the papoose board would be the best choice, as it would take longer with Joshua holding him (squirmy) so I went against all of my natural gut instincts, personal fears and intelligent thought and agreed to try it that way. What I didn’t know, until they had already started, was that they weren’t going to give my little baby boy ANY numbing medicine whatsoever! Both fillings were done within five minutes or I would have raised far more hell but I will tell you, I will never. ever. ever subject my son to that again. Parents that are reading this and are debating on using the papoose board on a toddler without sedatives or pain medicine – DON’T! It’s traumatic for the parents and it isn’t easy even for our resilient toddlers who scream for five minutes while a stranger puts them through pain (necessary procedure or not). Since Noah is so young, I don’t expect him to remember any of it and after a nap he was back to his normal, sunny self but I can’t forget the way he was sobbing in my arms after I yanked him out of that stupid papoose board. And I mean yanked – as soon as they scooted back and said they were done, I was ripping the velcro apart and scooping him into my arms.

I trust Dr. P as far as knowing her stuff. I know she did a good job and this visit was a huge contrast with the other one, where he needed a tooth extraction and a crown. With that one (I’ve already written this much so I may as well keep going), we went to Newnan the night before, where Noah woke up every two hours wanting to nurse. I think he fell asleep on the hotel floor three times and I would promptly move him to the bed. That was a fine night…not.

That time they got him in within two minutes, weighed him and then gave him a carefully measured dose of Versed. Within twenty minutes, he was giggling and snuggly and trying to play with his car and ball but not really able to grip well. Within forty-five minutes of being given the dose, he was about to fall asleep and actually did so in the assistant’s arms as we were made to leave the room. They extracted his tooth (I need to get a picture of this posted, actually – yes, I kept the tooth) and put a crown on the tooth next to it to prevent any cavities or weakness. He woke up screaming for mommy (mostly because he was around strangers) and immediately went to nurse. Within a few hours he was back to normal and within 48 hours he was mostly healed up. It was nerve-wracking for me but not traumatic for any of us in the least.

So, you know, two entirely different experiences and I can say that I preferred the first one, though I preferred the lack of severity of the second (fillings versus extraction). I’m not entirely thrilled with Dr. P’s practice anymore but since we’re leaving, I don’t think it will be an issue. The reason has a lot to do with how she handled the fillings but also that, though she claims she is a “big proponent of breastfeeding”, she did everything she could do get me to wean Noah. First it was about night-weaning. Then it was about weaning during the day. Then it was about sippy cups (we’ve told her he’s already using sippy cups and have done for a year now but she insinuated we must not be).

Her dental assistants also don’t know that breastfeeding is a clear liquid and actually cautioned me against breastfeeding Noah after the first procedure because “dairy would mess up his tummy”. Mind you, I don’t expect dentists to know an excessive amount about breastfeeding but I do expect a pediatric dentist to at least be aware of the current recommendations by the AAP and WHO, as well as the basics in regards to the infants in their care (clear liquids, not dairy, etc).

Maybe my mama bear side has just come out and I’m protective of my son. It’s also no secret that I’m a lactivist at heart…but I just can’t understand why someone would choose to work with infants and young children and not take the time to learn simple facts about other important areas of their health. Maybe I’m wrong to expect that much…but I don’t think so.

Whatever the case may be, I’m just happy Noah is happy and healthy.

I rarely do meta tags or keywords but since this entry may help other parents, I am.
Keywords: toddler teeth, versed, sedation, dental work, pediatric dentistry, papoose board, breastmilk, breastfeeding, sippy cups, cavities, fillings, crowns, weaning, grooves in baby teeth

I called another local office on Monday and told the receptionist that we desperately needed to get Noah in before his surgery. Since Dr. P made us wait almost a month before getting an appointment, I was worried that this office would be the same. She managed to get one set up for the 16th but about two minutes after we hung up, she called me back and said that Dr. W, the owner/dentist at their clinic, was wondering if we could come in that same day. Evidently, he heard “17 months old” and “putting under” and wanted to see him immediately. Of course I took him in!

Noah liked the office. It used to be a house, like many of the places here in town, and he had fun running from room to room. Like always, he was the center of attention as he flirted with every girl in the room. I think the youngest was 7 and the oldest was easily 60!

He really liked Dr. W, too. He was giggling and opening his mouth really wide so Dr. W could get a good look at his teeth. Dr W. took one look and said that it wasn’t a cavity but more than likely a developmental delay in the enamel growing on his teeth. He set us up for a consult in Newnan with Dr. P² on Thursday (yesterday).

I think Dr. W liked Noah quite a bit. He scooped him up to give him a hug and his nurse ended up scolding him because evidently he had been having back pains all day. I told him that if I had known, he wouldn’t have had the chance to pick up my 30 pound chunker! I don’t think he cared though…he gave Noah a big hug and handed him a token so Noah could get a bouncy ball out of the toy machine (you give Noah a choice of a bunch of toys and I guarantee you that he’ll go for the ball). I’m not sure if it was this or the fact that Dr. W just seemed to have an open, refreshing personality, but the feeling was mutual for Noah too. Heck, I liked Dr. W and I don’t like dentists. (Sorry.)

Unfortunately, Dr. W was wrong (he did say that he might be) and it turned out that the tooth is definitely decayed. We went to Newnan yesterday and got to the new clinic about thirty minutes early (when, of course, Noah fell asleep just as we got there). They were very accomodating though and let me fill out the paper work (Which was laminated papers and a Vis-a-Vis! Is this standard now?) and then let me wait in the car with Joshua and Noah while Noah napped. They came out and got us just as Noah woke up…but really, I couldn’t blame them. They probably wanted Noah to nap as much as we did!

That’s when we met Dr. P². She has a very strong personality, but in a good way. She’s the type of person that walks into a room and is the center of attention. However, that’s a good thing for someone in a position of authority…it gave me confidence.

Unlike the other two dentists, she had Joshua hold Noah in his lap in a chair, as opposed to the dentist chair, and put Noah’s head in her own lap. She asked us questions about my pregnancy (For those who need to know, fevers in pregnancy, especially during the third trimester, can result in developmental delays in teeth.) and Noah’s health and whatnot. She checked his teeth and confirmed that there was definitely a cavity that needed to be worked on, one that is quite possibly already to the nerve (I’m amazed and terrified of how quickly it grew, as we called a dentist as soon as Dr. Z pointed out we might need to.) and immediately started listing our options.

As she is a pediatric specialist and has an anesthesiologist in office (which is beautifully designed, by the way – I was impressed), she could do the procedure in their clinic as opposed to in a hospital. This also meant that they did not have to do anesthesia by IV but instead, could do sedation (so Noah does not care about the pain or remember the procedure). This carried the lowest amount of risk, as with full anesthesia, Noah would not be breathing on his own but instead, through tubes. (Why Dr. P immediately jumped to this option despite the higher risk of incident, we’ll never know.)

The only hiccup came when she mentioned that 1) Noah would be in a velcro blanket after he’s “schnookered” (her term) and 2) we could not be in the room during the actual procedure. I think I started hyperventilating and when she asked me if it that would be an issue, I started crying as I said yes.

I never used to tell people this but as an adult, I’ve put most of it behind me so I can, but as a child, I had a terrible experience with my pediatric dentist. I won’t go into the gruesome details, but I will say that I am grateful to my parents for being so vigilant and that they really prevented something worse from happening. Unfortunately, I deal with what I am told is called Merinthophobia and the idea of leaving my child with any medical professional unsupervised absolutely terrifies me.

Dr. P² was actually really good about it. She didn’t seem offended, even though I fell all over myself apologizing for crying and having such a negative reaction to the idea. She told us we would need to call around to find another pediatric dentist and see if they could do it with us in the room, as she absolutely could not (I’ve made a note to ask why, mostly out of curiosity). She also said that if we talked about it and decided we were okay with it, she was still happy to do the procedure…but she wanted us to be completely on board. She did mention that she wouldn’t do anything with Noah that she wouldn’t do with her own kids and that we were responsible for his health and we were the ones that had to make the decision.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to do. Noah’s teeth need to be worked on. We left, got out to the car, and then talked about it. There really is no way around the issue. Another dentist might do it with us in the room but that means more time waiting for a consult, more time waiting for an open appointment to do the procedure, possibly not finding a dentist we “synch” with…you know, a lot of issues.

So we made an appointment for July 1st and now we wait. Noah can’t eat or drink anything after midnight the night before, poor little one, so they gave him the first appointment for the day. We were dreading the idea of a 45 minute drive with a hungry, tired Noah right before a (albeit minor) surgery so Joshua’s parents really came through for us. They are going to pay for us to stay in a hotel the night before so we can be about ten minutes away from the clinic. Isn’t that wonderful? I am so grateful…you just have no idea how much.

I’m nervous. I’m scared. Yet I trust Dr. P² and I trust my husband and I trust my instincts. Noah’s tooth needs to be fixed. His other teeth need to be saved. We’re doing our part…we’ve drastically cut out sugar (there is still some, but mostly because I refuse to throw perfectly good food away) and I brush his teeth as much as I can. We’re also working on night weaning, which is a relief for multiple reasons. Dr. P² said that she was a strong proponent of breastfeeding (in those words) but she felt that night weaning was a large part of what caused the issue for Noah. As I’ve said before, I have horrible teeth, and it’s a genetic issue. Therefore, night weaning seems to be the logical step, and considering that Noah is 17 months old (today!), he’s old enough…in our opinion anyway.

I still feel guilty for giving him bad teeth. I feel like I could have done more, though I don’t know what. I guess I could have listened when everyone told me to bring him in when he was two or three but I didn’t…does that give me points?

I just hope it isn’t too late for him and that they can save most of the tooth. I also hope we can establish some good habits with him while he’s young so he never has to deal with what I deal with. *sigh* I just want my little boy to be 100% healthy.

I’m disappointed that Dr. W didn’t really work out. I’m sure we can take Noah back there for smaller things but since dentist visits should be fairly rare once this is squared away, a drive to Newnan to visit Dr. P² shouldn’t be too bad. At least we like both of them!