**This post is about breast milk. If you don’t want to read about breast milk, I would advise you skip on down to the cute pictures and videos of the children. :)
Last week when I found out I was probably going to have a root canal and that I wouldn’t be able to nurse James while the anesthesia was in my system, I started pumping!
I didn’t know if I’d be able to pump enough (I was being told by the pediatrician’s office that I should expect the stuff to be in my system about 24 hours.), but any amount that I pumped was that much less formula he’d need. I was trying not to stress about it, but of course I was stressing about it. :)
Last night I had this crazy dream where I had milk stored, but somehow after the root canal we all got kidnapped and I was out of it (in a coma or something) for a week! So of course I wasn’t pumping during all that time and I may not have milk anymore and James was having formula (not to mention we were kidnapped). Waking up from that was good.
I went to the endodontist this morning with James and Matt, thinking I’d like to feed James as late as possible if I needed a root canal. They did x-rays and decided I did need a root canal on my back tooth so we got started! I sent Matt and James home (my mom had the girls) and I had lots of fun for the next couple of hours. :)
Actually, a root canal is not so bad. I had thought this before with fillings and such, but it takes a LOT of lidocaine, etc. to numb me up! I guess I have a high tolerance for anesthesia or something. In fact, I will confess that I actually felt some pain during the procedure (bearable of course), but I was tired of raising my left hand and having them take everything out of my mouth to pump more drugs into my cheek. Once the nerves were gone, I stopped feeling the pain. :)
I would say for me the worst part was all the x-rays! I have such a tiny mouth that it totally gagged me for her to x-ray the roots on the bottom tooth. Oh well. And holding my mouth open for that long didn’t feel so good either. And my crown is so short that the rubber dam thingie had to go over my gums so they’re kind of sore.
Mr. James however, had a very good day! He took his first (and second and third) bottles with no problems at all! He just sucked ‘em right down – I’m so proud!
Of course with every bottle he drank, I pumped… and dumped. :(
Oh, well. All for a good cause. :)
The endodontist said the anesthesia would actually only be in my system a few hours, so I will nurse James this evening. I’m ready! This bottle stuff is too much work! And I looked up the anesthetics; it turns out they’re only a L2 lactation risk. Not that that means I want them in James’ system, but I feel better about the possibility he could get a little.
The tooth was abscessed and the endodontist was very surprised I had cold sensitivity since the tooth was dead. So the root canal was very needed, but I’m a little worried it didn’t completely fix my problem. Maybe I had two problems all along. Right now I’m on ibuprofen for my sore mouth so I can’t tell for sure, but I may still have a little pain on the top of my tooth where I did all along. For sure I don’t have the intense, want to cry all the time, throbbing toothache. I’ll take it! I’ll go back to Dr. Bozzo sometime in the next few weeks to fix the crown (that they had to drill through) as it only has a temporary filling on it.
Now we’re off to enchilada night at Grandma’s house – oh how I’ve missed it!!
