Manic Monday

Weigh In
Mallory saw the lactation consultant/nurse, Linda, and weighed in at 8lbs 3oz. Hurray baby! 8lbs 4oz would have been perfect weight gain, but we'll take the 8-3. Since there were no appointments right after ours, and our little girl was ready to eat, I fed her under observation. The results? Mallory is too laid back to be bothered with eating (like I hadn't already guessed that she was a lazy eater). In fact, although she hates being naked, as long as there's a boob involved, she could care less - making it that much more difficult to get her to stay awake and feed like she's supposed to. So, in the hour that we were with Linda, Mallory managed to only suck down a whopping 32 cc's -- essentially 1oz. Mind you she should be eating at least 2.75 oz each feeding to keep up her weight. Sigh. Linda said, "you sure have your work cut out for you!" Gee, thanks :) I'm going to continue pumping after each feeding, and I've now started on herbs too (fenugreek). Hopefully Mallory's lack of 'demand' won't diminish my supply if I keep up with these counter-measures ;) Supposedly she'll get better at eating as she gains more weight. Fingers crossed about that! We go back for another weigh-in in two weeks.

Emergency Oral Surgery
Backtrack to Friday - I woke up feeling like I had something stuck in between my teeth and was like, oh great, thinking I'd slept that way and had irritated my gums overnight or something. Well, there was nothing stuck in between my teeth and by Saturday afternoon I was unabashedly taking the evil vicodin they'd made me take home from the hospital and icing my face, thanking my lucky stars that they had been so insistent at the hospital. First thing Sunday morning, I broke down and called 1-800-dentist for emergency assistance. Unfortunately because of the holiday weekend, none of the providers in Texas were open. So I toughed it out, and called my dentist when they opened Monday morning, by which time the whole side of my face was swollen, red, and hot to the touch. I also had what looked like a large blood blister on my gum line above the tooth that was killing me.

I saw the first available dentist at my practice in the office closest to our house at 9AM. At 2PM I was at the oral surgeon's office having my tooth extracted. It was so inflamed/infected that they had a hard time getting the area numb and keeping it that way. They also lanced/drained the horrid nastiness protruding from my gum line, which was not only incredibly painful but also tasted so vile, I gagged. Due to the inflamation/infection they were unable to "preserve the socket" with a bone graft, which was supposed to make the implant better somehow. At any rate, I feel like a hick now with a missing tooth, but in 2 -3 months after everything is healed, I'll get an implant of some sort and no one will be the wiser.

Bottom line, my issues with this tooth are finally over! About 10 yrs ago I cracked it (from grinding my teeth and night) and wound up with a root canal that failed once, was redone by an endodontist, and basically was never right. Turns out the longest root was protruding into my sinus cavity. When they install (is that the right word?) the implant they'll have to do a "sinus lift" as well.

Thankfully I'm now feeling 820 times better than I've felt in days and my mouth is a lot less sore than I was anticipating.