For someone who hates the dentist, I’ve spent a lot of time there this week. After some discussion, Joshua and I decided that we wanted a second opinion regarding Noah’s teeth. Anesthesia isn’t a joke, especially when putting a child under, so we wanted to see if we could find an alternative.

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!