A root canal & non-stress tests.

28.3! We hit our first big goal Tuesday- 28 weeks. It's been a month since I went into labor the first time, and we're still hangin' in there. Earlier this week, we experienced the worst night's sleep of this entire pregnancy so far- thanks to one of my bottom molars which was being eaten up by a nasty cavity. Now, I've had some terrible tooth pain in my day. Despite my love of milk, I have incredibly weak teeth. Just like my daddy! It's pretty safe to say that every one of my chompers has had at least one cavity over the years. I really do brush and floss my teeth, I promise. In fact, I'm pretty obsessive about flossing. But try as I might to take care of them, they're still a bunch of weaklings. Oh, well. Weak or not, I'm glad to have them. They come in handy from time to time. Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there. My point was that I've dealt with severe tooth pain before, and it's the worst kind of pain... to me, anyway. But in the past, I was always able to pop an extra-strength Advil if I had a cavity that couldn't be filled for a few days. Now the only thing I'm allowed to take is Tylenol, and Tylenol really doesn't do ish. So I was in excruciating pain from about 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM, when it finally subsided a bit. Poor Joey couldn't sleep knowing I was in so much pain, so he had to go to work the next morning like a zombie. Luckily, I have an awesome sister-in-law who happens to be a dental assistant. She set me up with a last-minute appointment at her office to see what was going on. So I went in for that yesterday. Turns out, my tooth was so infected that we had to do a root canal. I've had root canals before, but this was by far the worst. Even with 4 shots, I still felt way too much of the whole procedure. To top it all off, I have a pretty severe case of "pregnancy brain", so when the dentist asked me if I wanted him to write a prescription for Lortab or Percocet to deal with the pain of the aftermath, I said, "Oh, I'm sure I'll be fine. I have Tylenol if I need it." Well, I guess in my mind I was thinking that I've had cavities filled before without any pain afterward, so what's the big deal? The fact that I'd just had a ROOT CANAL and not a regular old cavity filling seemed to have been lost on me at the moment. Needless to say, last night was another interesting one. But Cherish came to the rescue again and got the prescription called in first thing this morning, so my mouth finally doesn't feel like someone is mercilessly taking a hammer to it. I hate taking any medicine while pregnant & especially don't enjoy the side effects of Oxycodone. But it's perfectly safe and I'm not in (much) pain anymore, so I consider that a win-win. Another thing we did today was have our first of many non-stress tests at the hospital. Basically they just monitor Noelle's heart rate and movement to make sure everything is going smoothly. They also monitor contractions, and I didn't have a single one the whole time we were there! Very good news. Just a little over 8 weeks until this baby is full-term. My doctor still thinks she'll show up early, all things considered. As long as we make it to term, I'll be ecstatic. In any event, I'll be a mom in about TWO MONTHS. I still don't think I'll believe it until she is in my arms. I dream about her every night. In fact, I've been dreaming about her since I was 12 years old. And in a matter of weeks, those dreams will actually be coming true. "Is this real life"? Yes... yes, it is. =)