My Little Monster No More

Some of you may already know of our troubles with Bella's teeth, for those who don't I will give a quick summary.
When Bella's top four front teeth came in they came in all yellow, I was really concerned.  I didn't take her to the dentist because she was under 1 year old and who takes a baby to the dentist?!  Anyway, by the time she hit 18 months the yellow parts of her teeth just chipped off super easy and it was like over night that it happened.  From then on we had a little monster.  I took her to a doctor and they said to take her to a dentist.  Then she got sick and her gums were bleeding at random times and we were completely freaked out.  We took her to an emergency dentist who refused to even look in her mouth!  We took her to another dentist who said there was nothing that could be done to help her.  We KNEW this could NOT be true.  Luckily we are in a ward (our church) with several dentists!  A couple of them took a look at her but by the time we had them do this her gums finally stopped bleeding, but her teeth were still really bad.  But one of them, who will forever remain my HERO, Dr. Matthew Bahen of Emerald Valley Dental http://emeraldvalleydental.com said he could help her.  We took her to him twice to get resin bonding done, which is just kind of like a fake tooth attached to the original shards of teeth still there.  The first time they didn't take very well and we were only able to get two done, Bella was of course freaking out and Dave had to hold her there in a bear hug while she was worked on.  The second time only two were able to be done but one was lost fairly quickly because she had a cavity and he couldn't drill it out because of Bella freaking out again (she was too little to give her any nitrous oxide).

I had been growing more and more anxious about her getting her teeth fixed for a few reasons.  One, SHE LOOKED LIKE A LITTLE MONSTER!!!  Poor thing!  Two, sometimes when she would fall, the sharp points of her monster teeth would cause much more damage than regular teeth and third, she is approaching the age where kids might start to notice and poke fun at her and I didn't want that for my sweet baby girl.

But just this last week we got in to see Matt :) (that is a SUPER big smilie face).  He was able to use the nitrous oxide on her which took a good 10 minutes of her screaming until she got enough in her system and was completely complacent!  CRAZY, I have NEVER seen my daughter be so complacent, EVER.  Unfortunately, Dave was there as he was being the one holding her, but as soon as Matt took out a needle, they almost lost Dave.  He had to lay down, he turned green and almost passed out.  Yup, my husband is that man, the big guy who passes out because of needles.  It isn't that he is scared of them, we are actually told by doctors it is an actual physical reaction to something foreign entering the body and the body is saving it's blood for other vital organs and muscles such as the heart and lungs.  Anyway, so Dave had to leave while Matt did his beautiful work.  Matt was able to drill out the cavity and fix ALL FOUR teeth!!!  I can't even tell you how THRILLED I am about it!  She looks like a normal little girl again :)  I am one happy Mamma!  And I am FOREVER indebted to Matt!  It isn't super normal to have a lot of work done on one so young and they had to make sure the rest of the office was clear of other patients so they wouldn't be freaked out by Bella's screaming.  Their office is a bit away but it is so worth it for us!  Anyway, his staff was wonderful, friendly and super nice.  And his office is SO nice!  I THANK YOU MATT!!!

Here are some before and after photos of Bella.  Sorry if they are blurry.

BEFORE

AFTER

I should note that Bella hates getting her picture taken, she hates the flash :)

Oh, I forgot to mention that Bella's bad yellow teeth were formed in utero and what the docs think is that I got sick while the teeth were forming and my body needed all the good stuff to fight the illness which then took away all that Bella needed.  Again, that is a theory that two doctors told us, but who really knows.  All we do know for sure is that it happened in utero.