Ike's Tongue Clipping Saga Resurfaces

I never wrote about it, but Ike was born tongue-tied. The hospital nurses asked us if we wanted it clipped but didn't really explain it to us very well. They made it sound like he didn't really need it done so we declined. We regretted our decision just a few days later but we had switched insurance and our new pediatrician totally blew us off. We couldn't understand why it was such a big deal since at Kaiser they made it sound like it was just a quick snip and healed up really fast. And as a newborn Ike had been losing weight for three straight weeks and we were really concerned. We pressed the issue and told her we wanted to see a specialist about it. (And we changed pediatricians.) We drove to Fresno to see the specialist who also looked at us like "why are you even here?"and said a lot of kids grow out of short tongues and we would have to wait until he started talking to see if he still had a problem. He said at that point he would have to be sedated and have a minor surgery. So left with no other options (we thought) we just waited it out.

Fast forward to Ike at 18 months old. At his checkup the doctor was concerned that Ike was only saying a few words and recommended him for a special evaluation. Since that time his vocabulary has really blossomed (although most words are only comprehensible to us) so we haven't been too concerned. But today was his evaluation and...he needs his tongue clipped! Surprise, surprise. The speech therapist was concerned that he isn't able to articulate the ends of his words because his tongue is too short. She even said that without the tongue problem she thinks he would already have been saying three and four word sentences at this point. I'm assuming the surgery is not too big of deal, but he's still going to have to deal with anesthesia, ugh, and I'm left wondering why we couldn't have avoided this problem altogether by just making a little snip two years ago.

So moral of the story I guess is that  I should listen to my best parental instincts and keep pushing until I get a doctor who will listen. I don't look forward to a surgery that will make my son feel like this:

(And yes, that's about how far he can currently stick his tongue out)

 If they had just clipped it when he was a few days old, he would have been forever as happy as this:  :)

Well at least as happy as often as most two year olds are. :) And I am glad that its getting taken care of now instead of even more years in the future when it would be even harder to change speech patterns, but still! :)