frenulectomy????

Tongue-Tied

So Monday (yesterday) my "Little Man" had a frenulectomy (sp?). He was tongue tied, which means that little piece of tissue that holds your tongue to the bottom of your mouth was too far out. We went to the ENT last week, all prepared to get his tongue fixed, and found out it was just a pre-appointment check-up. It turns out that his tongue is tied all the way to the tip. (Our doctor recommended that he get it done before he starts talking and eating solid foods.)

So I had to mentally prepare myself for the procedure again. I couldn't help but stare at his tongue for a week. How cute and heart shaped it is. How he really can't stick it out of his mouth. I had the video camera on hand all week, hoping to get good video of the cute heart shaped tongue. I did get one that is pretty cute.

So before any surgery you can't eat past midnight. The procedure was at 7:30 am. That is a long time for a baby to go without eating. I was dreading it. So we called the anesthesiologist, to ask them how late he could eat. He told us he couldn't eat past 1:30am so that gave us an additional hour and a half. I actually had a hard time sleeping that night, all I could do was pray for him to keep sleeping. We got up and got ready, and at the last minute put him in his car seat. He didn't wake up until 7:30am. Which was great, but the doctor who was doing the procedure was late. So Peter and I paced the hallways until he got there. The procedure went fast (6 minutes) and he was done. The anesthesiologist came by and said he'd be back shortly, and he was kicking and screaming ready to eat. I fed him and we went home.

Once he woke up he was screaming. He was so hungry, but sucking hurt. So we couldn't get him to suck on anything, making eating hard. So we ended up feeding him with a medicine dropper. That helped, but the day was still hard. At 10:45pm he finally nursed and slept for 6 hours straight. And then nursed again and slept another 3 hours. Today is much better and he is actually smiling and talking again. He is still sore, but I bet tomorrow he will be back to new.

I'm so thankful that Jon was home to help me through this, wow it's tough being a mom sometimes, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. You should hear his "L" sounds, and how cute his tongue looks now. He can't stop playing with it.