Orthodontia

Isaac has braces now!  He is our 4th child with orthodontia.  Our orthodontist is a very nice man, but I'm sure he had an avaricious gleam in his eye the day we first met him.

Not really, he's very nice.

Anyway, yep, orthodontia for Isaac. We have a genetic predilection for overbites.  We aren't as concerned with the cosmetic issues, but the overbite means that the kids in question might well have their teeth wear down prematurely and/or have jaw trouble.

A long, long time ago, Naomi was 7 years old and our dentist at the time recommended she see an orthodontist. We consulted with 2, including the practice we are using now.  This practice said no, wait. She doesn't have all her adult teeth in. Actually, at that point, she had NO adult teeth in. It made sense to wait.

The other orthodontist recommended immediate orthodontia.

We decided to wait.

A dental technician gave us kind of a hard time about it.  I pointed out it was expensive and we had 6 young children and she said we could pay in installments at most orthodontist offices.

Which is true.  We could have. But we didn't want to.  We had 6 kids at the time, now we have 9 children. We REALLY don't want to go into debt for orthodontia unless we felt it was a medical necessity, and it wasn't.  

We've saved up through the years and have been able to pay cash for all 4 kids, though in Isaac's case we delayed a year because we were saving up.

So all this is to say that while we obviously put a priority on getting our kids' teeth fixed, we also realize this is a "first world issue" to some degree.  We are blessed in many ways that we have access to good medical and dental care. We also need to be wise not to put ourselves into debt about something which is GOOD but not VITAL.  We would, of course, go into debt if a kid had an appendix out or some other problem that would kill the child if it wasn't addressed. Of course we would.  But for orthodontia, it made sense to wait.

Oh, as an added aside, it turns out Naomi is missing her wisdom teeth and 2 of her 12 year molars and none of that was obvious when she was 7 years old. It is very good we waited on treatment for her because her particular situation was complex and unexpected, and her current treatment takes into account her missing teeth.