Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I didn’t have any specific plans, but how my day unfolded was not what I expected.
Mother’s Day is the day I reflect upon the gift of both having an awesome mom and the joy of trying to be an awesome mom to my twin boys. During the second year of my career as a teacher, I was told the chances of me becoming a mother without medical assistance was between 1/2-1% and with intervention about 40%. After going through several rounds of infertility treatments and a difficult pregnancy which included four months of bedrest, my sons being born ten weeks early, and them staying in the NICU for two months, I know my sons are miracles and I don’t take the privilege of being a mom lightly. The other reasons, I believe my boys are miracles is because every infertility treatment before and after their birth failed. There are days this information weighs heavily on me, but on my 33rd birthday, we decided we were done with infertility treatments. This was one of the best decisions my husband and I made because now we can focus on the children we are blessed to call sons.
Knowing the road was long and arduous to motherhood, I expect, at the bare minimum, to have a nice Mother’s Day each year. I thought about walking through the 100 acres at Newfields or walking along the canal with my boys and eating at a restaurant downtown or in Broad Ripple. I was making these makeshift plans while I was sitting in 8 a.m. Sunday morning service. Each Sunday, once the pastor is about to preach, I open my purse and distribute gum to my husband and sons. After the distribution, I pop a piece into my mouth. This Sunday morning was different. I chewed one time and felt a crunch. I first thought there was plastic in my gum. Recently, I heard there was a beef recall because there was plastic found, so maybe it could have happened with my gum. Once I pulled the gum out of my mouth, I realized it was not plastic, but instead the filling I had in a tooth on the lower left side of my mouth. 
After showing my husband the hole in my tooth, I searched for a place to go on my phone. We couldn’t go right after church because we had a meeting with our pastor about a new class we will be teaching next month. It is so hard to get on his schedule and my mouth wasn’t hurting…yet. After my husband and I talked to the pastor about the class we were going to teach, we drove to the emergency dentist.
Once we arrived and I had completed all paperwork, my boys and I took a couple of selfies and I had my husband take a photo of me with our boys in the waiting room because I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to smile nicely afterwards. After the evaluation, I was expecting the dentist to go over the cost for refiling the hole in my tooth. In addition to this, he pointed out that I had surface cavities on both the left and right side of my mouth. This made me mad. I went on to explain how I brush, floss, and use mouthwash and this made no sense, to which he responded, “I had two surface cavities at my last dental appointment; it just happens.” If you were wondering, his words of comfort brought me no comfort. Since he already was going to be on the left side, I agreed he could drill off the surface cavities on the left side and fill them. I plan to get the right side cavities dealt with at some other time.
I estimated that I would be there for an hour tops, but I was wrong. I was there for three hours because they couldn’t get my mouth numbed up enough for me not to feel what he was doing. After three rounds of shots, which ended up numbing my left ear, eyelid, left cheek, left side of my nose, and most of my mouth, he was finally able to do this work. The nice part was I was able to watch several episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. I watched this show while on bedrest during my pregnancy. There’s something about the simplicity of that small town of Mayberry that I enjoy watching. The other reason I got hooked to this show is because my parents were pretty strict on us about what we could watch and this show was on the safe list.
Even though my mouth was in pain, I was able to enjoy a show I like with minor interruption from the dental drill. Then, when I finally got to my parents’ house, I was able to rest for another three hours while curled up in my dad’s leather recliner. After I left my parent’s house, we had to go back to the dentist. I could finally feel my mouth 3 1/2 hours later and I realized, there was too much filling on the top. The dentist fixed this and I went home and watched America’s Funniest Home Videos with my boys in bed.
Although this was painful Mother’s Day, it was still a blessing. This was the most I rested in weeks. Today was the first day in a long time where I woke up and didn’t immediately say to my husband, “I’m still tired.”
Even though I wanted to do something else yesterday, I’m glad everything still worked out. Now, I just have to avoid getting more cavities, but that’s another story for another day.