ER

We had our first trip to the emergency room on Sunday.

My beautiful baby was walking around in the kitchen while I was making breakfast and she headed for the back entryway.  She fell and hit her upper gum on the bench.  There was a lot of blood and when it finally stopped bleeding we could see that her front baby tooth that was just breaking through last week was sticking straight out towards her lip.  We tried to not panic and fortunately Lucas and I each lost it at separate times.  I called the nurse line hoping that there was some other option than the emergency room during the snowstorm.  There wasn't, so we packed our bags and carefully drove up the hill. 

We waited for several hours (about 10-2) to have a doctor look at her.  She was such a good girl.  She couldn't have a bottle or a pacifier and fortunately I had a sling along that I put her in and she was able to take a short nap.  I hadn't even given her any pain medications and she was smiling and laughing.  The doctor there couldn't do anything for us but check to see that she was alright and there wasn't more damage than we could see.  She contacted an oral surgeon for us to go see on Monday. 

It was a long night with no bottles or pacifier.  She definitely wanted more snuggles than usual. 

Monday morning we were able to get into the oral surgeon immediately.  What a blessing considering she wasn't supposed to have anything to eat in case they had to give her anesthesia.  (I've mentioned before how she really likes her food.) 

The oral surgeon was wonderful and we were impressed at how he answered our questions and reassured us.  After checking out her x-ray there was really no way we could save her tooth.  The good news was that the surrounding teeth were not damaged and it looks as if her permanent teeth were not really formed yet so should also not be damaged.  We might have problems farther down the road, like having to have teeth pulled down surgically if they won't come on their own.  She'll most likely have to have braces (who doesn't now a days?)  For now things are very good.  She was a trooper when her tooth was pulled and really enjoyed getting a Elmo sticker (except for the fact that it kept sticking to her hand.)

By looking at her you wouldn't even know that it happened. 

I'm still trying to recover and continuing to have a hard time letting her walk.  She seems even more determined to walk or maybe she was already walking more than I realized.  I have a feeling it will be awhile before I don't flinch every time she walks towards something hard or falls.