It's Finally Friday!

It's the end of my first week of appointments with Dr. Colby for orthodontic care.

Monday was my first appt. It wasn't anything to huge. It’s just the beginning remember. As I sat patiently in the waiting room I thought to myself, “Today's the day you've been waiting for!" "It’s finally the beginning of the road to straight teeth!"

My name was called and I got to go back to sit in the chair. Dr. Colby came in and we met said our greetings and then he examined my teeth. After about 3 minutes he was done.

We sat down in his office and had a little talk about what things I may need before braces... ORAL SURGERY! :( Ohhhh NOOO!

It's not a positive yet, but because my top teeth go behind my bottom teeth (under bite) I may need oral surgery to realign my jaw before actually straightening them.

I can’t get oral surgery! How am I supposed to afford that? Did I have too much hope when I found out I was accepted? Before I lost hope I had to go to a place called “Cranial Facial.” I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some good news!

Seriously Unbelievable!

I got ACCEPTED! I found out through an e-mail from the SCL program coordinator, because she knew how antsy I was to find out, and when I read the e-mail my jaw dropped! I screamed with joy and started to cry. It was tears of joy!! I cried so hard. It was truly the best feeling I have ever felt. I called my boyfriend - he is everything to me and the best supporter I could possibly have- he’s truly incredible - and I told him the good news. He was so happy for me as well, he knew how much I have wanted this and how important braces were to me - even though he tells me daily how beautiful my smile is “just the way it is." I honestly felt like I just won a million dollars! It was seriously unbelievable.

Just being told I was accepted gave me a feeling of confidence. Better than the one I built up on my own throughout the years of being teased about my teeth. It was as if I had already had my braces on and off! It’s truly the greatest feeling ever; and I owe it all to Smiles Change Lives.

For me, this isn't going to be my typical first appointment. Yes, I will be doing the same thing I have done at every other first appointment I have gone to at the orthodontists, except this time I KNOW I will be going back! This time, there will be more than just one appointment.

I may have had to wait until I’m 18 to start my braces process due to financial problems but it has been worth it; this has been worth every trial I have had to go through my whole life. I truly believe it has made me the person I am today. I am so truly grateful to have Smiles Change Lives on my side. Thank You!

A sense of hope...

At the end of April I went to my dentist for a cleaning and checkup. I had a new dentist who I really liked. Once again she told me how much I need braces. At this point, with my increased insecurity, I broke down. I started to cry sitting in the chair. I couldn’t help it. I told her how bad I wanted to have braces, but I just couldn’t afford them! She told me, "You know, Christina, I believe you suffered a lot of pain and confidence issues due to your teeth. I know of a program that may be in your reach." She looked up the program called “Smiles Change Lives” and downloaded the application for me; she gave me the information and told me all about the process. She said she thought I had great potential on getting accepted into the program.

I went home that day with a sense of hope. I e-mailed Kirsten Myers from SCL to ask her, since I am now 18, if I was still able to qualify for the program. She e-mailed me back and said, “Yes,” and that if I were to qualify after the screening I could be accepted! That day I finished my application. I remember talking on the phone with Kirsten and she told me she had a screening open in the beginning of March, only a couple days after I faxed in my application. I got the screening done with and then the wait began…

The Struggle Continues

Since high school, I had been telling people “yeah, I’m getting braces soon, I’m just not sure yet.” More came with the story: “Well my insurance doesn’t cover them and I don’t have $4,500 to pay for metal on my teeth”… I just gave up. I had the friends I needed, and guys I was interested in liked me. I just learned to deal with the fact that I wasn’t going to get braces and that I would have to love the teeth I have. I started to get my confidence back because, like I had said before, I had the friends I needed and I have a beautiful personality and the guys I was interested in didn’t look at my teeth.

Finally, my senior year-- the end of High School! It was second term in school, in December, and I was enrolled in a class called Minority Studies. It was a class that taught about stereotypes, prejudice, racism and crimes against minorities. It’s a class I believe would benefit a lot of people. In this class we were assigned a project presentation on any topic which we had an interest in. Anything you could think of such as: African Americans, Women, Civil Rights Movement, Obesity, Amish, and even Religions. I had interest in those topics but I wanted to talk about something I knew was not going to be taught: Name Stereotypes.

Name stereotypes is very much an uncommon topic, which left me limited in research materials, but it didn’t seem like something that would be a stereotype. Wrong! This topic taught me that people with unique sounding names or unusual spellings of common names are judged. There are statistics that prove more “American” sounding names on applications get more interview callbacks than African, Asian, Mexican, or Latino sounding names. When someone looks over a resume or an application, they try to put a face to the name. That’s wrong!

Mention names such as “Ashley,” “Sarah,” “Brad,” or “Kevin,” most people picture white Americans. When you hear names such as “Diego,” “Latisha,” “Lia,” or “Rashad,” we think of those as minority names. And that’s probably right. But many of us know that “Christina” is the more traditional American based spelling, while Cristina, without the “h” is more of a traditional Hispanic spelling. Same as the American based spelling for “Ashley” while “Ashleigh” is considered the common spelling for many African-Americans, which I had found through my research.While I was doing this presentation research I realized something. While some are getting judged on their skin color, weight, height, or even clothing choice, others are getting judged on their names! Something they didn’t even get to choose. It’s something their parents chose for them, based on their religion, culture, history or simply because they liked the name.

You may be asking “What's your point?” Well here is it, if someone can judge you on everything I mentioned above, well then I know for a fact they are going to take someone more seriously with straight teeth versus crooked teeth. This topic brought back my insecurity. It reminded me once again of my imperfect mouth. My confidence sunk back down, back to where it was in middle school.

In the beginning...

Growing up a girl from Newport MN, I’ve always known I needed braces. It’s a necessity I could not afford; nor could my mom. When I was about 9-10 years old, I really started to notice that my adult teeth were not coming in correctly straight and let’s just say I was not the girl with the prettiest smile. Kids around my age had metal braces on. I did not. I was amazed by how many different colors there were to choose from. I wondered when I was going to have braces and what my first color was going to be!

Time went on and I was about 12-13 now, I still hadn’t had braces. Now living in Hastings MN, it was harder and harder to fit in. Middle school is not a fun place to be when you are one of the outcasts. Most of my friends already had their braces so their teeth were perfect! Bright white and Straight! Well my teeth are white, but not perfectly straight. At this time in my life I have started to notice I was becoming more and more insecure about myself. I wasn’t the girl in class with the best clothes, the best hair, the best makeup, the best SHOES, or the prettiest smile. I was average, below average if I had to judge myself. I had friends; they had straight teeth and cute boyfriends. I just had my friends. I didn’t love smiling back then. I would smile around people I knew but people I had just met I would just give a grin. Just say polite things and grin with my mouth closed!!

My mom had taken me to many orthodontist appointments time and time again and I’ve gotten my teeth checked out for braces so many times but could still never afford to get the braces on! They always told my mom the same story over again: “Your insurance does not cover braces…but she needs them!” It also did not help that at occasional dental appointments, my dentist would remind me how badly I need to see an orthodontist for braces… “Well it’s easier said than done and paid for,” I finally told her. I was just a teenager stuck with insecurity, still trying to stay positive.

It was at the end of my 7th grade year when my mom got a better job in River Falls WI. So we moved to a new town, which meant having to make new friends, and trying to overcome how insecure I really am.

First day of 8th grade, EVERYBODY LOVED ME! Except a group of some pretty harsh girls. That was also the year the Lindsay Lohan movie Mean Girls came out in theatres. I did make some new friends the first day. I decided I was just going to be myself as much as possible because not smiling wasn’t me. I just said to myself every day, “Some day you’ll get braces!” One memory of mine is when this girl had told me, “Christina you are so beautiful. If only you had straight teeth, you’d be the talk of every teenage guy’s lunch table!” L A great compliment gone straight down the drain; I didn’t know whether to take it as a positive comment or negative. But I said “thanks” and walked off to lunch.