Braces…

In January we learned that Camy was going to need braces.  I never had braces, neither had Josh.  It’s like a whole new world for us.

After the initial consultation where they showed us what she would look like after, told us everything they would need to do, and let us know how much it was all going to cost we made our plan.  We would use our tax return to put the 30% down and then pay out the rest for the next 36 months.  I called and scheduled her appointment.

The appointment to get the braces was actually three appointments.  I took her to the first one, where they made molds of her mouth so they could set the braces prior to the next appointment so that putting the braces on would only take about an hour.  The molds were fun.  There was quite a bit of gagging, but thankfully there was no puking.  It was hard for me to watch her go through that.

Josh took her to the second appointment, where she would actually have the braces put on.  This appointment went well, although afterwards there was quite a bit of complaining and grumpiness.  We did learn later in the week that it was not all braces related.

Here she is during the visit.

And afterwards…

And, because we are spending about a million dollars on all this new hardware, she got a “free” t-shirt.

Last week I took her back to get her Herbst Appliance put in. They had put spacers between her teeth to make room for this.  It’s the weirdest thing I have ever seen. 

Apparently, this is what it will do:

The Herbst appliance has revolutionized the way orthodontists treat an overbite: It uses a tube and rod mechanism to put pressure on the lower jaw to help it grow forward and on the upper jaw to help it grow backwards.

This is before she got it put on.

I am sure that one day she’s going to be so happy that I posted this.  This is what it look like in the top of her mouth.  We have a little key that has to go in to this and get’s turned once a day for 24 days.  When we go back in eight weeks they will attach arms that will connect this top portion to the lower portion, and then in 24-36 months her jaw will be where it’s supposed to be.

So weird!  She says that when I use the key to move it that it doesn’t feel like I am choking her.  My only issue with this so far is that she talks so fast and she now has a little bit of a lisp, it’s hard to understand her some times.  I guess I’ll keep reminding her to slow down.

Bright side is that if Carson ends up needing braces we’ll save 10%.  It’s always nice to get a discount for the second kid.  You know when I was pregnant it was going to cost me $2,000 to have a baby, since there were two it ended up being $3,000.  It’s always nice to buy one, get one half off.

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