I think she'd keep them indefinitely at this point, if it wouldn't arouse some major suspicion!

what an interesting outcome. I guess you may have to settle for fakes but your journey has been a fun one for you (both) no doubt!!

I posted a new video of Carrie talking about her struggles adapting to the asymmetric triangle elastic configuration: https://dereferer.me/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGTK7vU2GB8.

Hope you enjoy.

Carrie had another adjustment (her tenth) on the evening of Friday the 26th. Not a whole lot of changes, but some interesting things happened.

-   The ortho made some more tweaks and bends to her archwires, but kept the same sturdy rectangular stainless wires.
-   He told her to continue wearing her elastics in the current asymmetric pattern (Class 2 on the right and a triangle on the left) to continue work on midline and overbite.
-   He did some initial shaping and polishing of her upper front teeth, with more to come once her braces are removed, to get her closer to the “Hollywood smile” ideal.
-   He estimated a mid-January removal date.
-   We discussed retainers. He prefers to use Essix, so I told him I wanted to get Carrie a set of both Essix and Hawleys. He thought it was weird, but of course anything is possible with money!
-   She went with silver ligs.

So we have a tentative removal date, which causes mixed emotions for me. While I’d obviously prefer she stay in braces longer, I can tell that her smile is going to be absolutely deadly when the braces come off and the ortho does the final shaping. I am oddly excited about seeing that killer brace-less smile.

I’m also looking forward to playing with Hawley retainers! She already understands that she’ll need to wear her Hawleys at all times when I am around, though I will give her special dispensation to wear the Essix on dressy occasions (like the symphony, for example).

I did the usual video, but we took a trip to Flagstaff over the weekend and I haven’t had a chance to edit it just yet. I hope to get to it tomorrow. I’ll post here when I upload it to YouTube!

Thank You very much for the new Video!

I finally got the video edited (my usual trash quality, haha) and uploaded to YouTube: https://dereferer.me/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nTR98p0A6U

Sorry for the delay, fellas. Hope you enjoy.

Just a quick update. We've been traveling a lot this month, with trips to Prescott and Flagstaff (Arizona) and Las Vegas. Had a little braces hitch in Flagstaff. We were having dinner with some friends Saturday night after a beer festival and Carrie's rearmost right-side lower bracket popped off. This is the one she uses for her Class II elastic. She had to wait until Tuesday to get it fixed as a walk-in, which took about 90 minutes (most of which was waiting).

That's her third popped bracket, but luckily her ortho gives three "freebies" before charging to replace them!

We're now very close to her removal date, which is Thursday the 31st. I've ordered her both Essix and Hawley retainers. I'll do a video of the removal process, teeth shaping that her ortho has promised, and retainer delivery. She's also doing a whitening immediately, at home with a dental hygienist friend (also in braces!) who will just bring the supplies home from her office.

I think I'll also do a video where she can reflect on her whole braces experience and give the good and bad -- at least for normies.

My feelings are mixed. On the one hand, I'm sad that the active-treatment part of the "journey" is ending. On the other hand, I'm excited to explore the Hawley retainer aspect. I'm glad that Carrie can breathe a sigh of relief that the braces are finally coming off and she can feel she looks her best again. But mostly I'm profoundly grateful that I was able to experience this, and that I have a giant record of photos and videos documenting it all.