pediatric- my foot!

Just a minute to report about this morning: Emily and I left bright and early for our 8:00am dentist's consultation. When we got there, the assistants started to numb her and when I explained what I thought we were there for, I was told, "Knocking out a child is the last resort, first we try." Two hours, three stories, lots of hand holding and hundreds of tears (from both Emily and me!) later- Emily and I left the dentist office having survived two pulbotomies (kinda like a root canal for baby teeth) and three silver crowns!!! The pediatric dentist, who is supposed to have all this fancy training for dealing with kids, basically just did what he had to do to get the work done even if it meant Emily was crying through the whole ordeal. It was an old office, no tv's or gamecubes- just a boom box playing in the corner. Nobody loved or babied Emily, except me. If I didn't know how badly the work needed to be done, I would have caved. But her teeth have been hurting her for over a month now and she was numb and still (even though sobbing!) I thought she wouldn't go back after the last visit (remember the emergency extraction!!) but now I'm sure she'll NEVER want to go back! I told her this was SO much harder than x-rays but she doesn't believe me and they can't do any more work until they have a full set of x-rays to show them what's really going on with her teeth. What to do?

So, I go in the morning to get my wisdom teeth pulled. I'm not worried about the pulling. But the smell of the dentist's office may now be permenantly associated with dental horrors for me and I am praying that I can get past the front desk without collapsing into hysterics. (Yeah, yeah- you can tell where Emily gets her dramatic personality from! YOU try sitting with your baby while she is pinned down, wearing a green rubber dam on her mouth and crying a river!!)