Worth More.

We have been wrestling with dental care.

Once we can adopt him, he'll be on both of our insurance plans. For now, as a foster child, he is on the state insurance plan.

No one participates with the state insurance plan.

This is a child who has serious dental decay and damage due to neglect and malnutrition. His molars are more silver than enamel, with rows of crowns top and bottom. They hurt, and he tends to avoid extremely cold food because of the sensitivity.  He needs a palate expander to make room for his adult teeth (which will have some level of damage when they come in because they formed at a time when he was not well fed).

We want to fix all of these things for him.

I lost count of how many dentists we called. The amount of snark I encountered was staggering, and frankly disgusting. I was told by one office that they do not accept this insurance because they "cater to a certain clientele" and that we should take him to a free clinic in Philadelphia, but "be in line by 7am because it fills up fast." Another told us that for a kid like this, a palate expander would be useless and they'd likely just pull the affected teeth instead - after all, there would never be follow through, and a palate expander isn't a single visit fix.

The disdain and disrespect I encountered was positively vile.

He is a child. He didn't ask to be half starved. He didn't ask to not have a toothbrush or toothpaste in the house, and he didn't ask to never know how to use them if they had been there. He is nine.

The records say that he "screamed through" the procedures at the last dentist visit, and that they had to lay across him to force compliance. He is completely and utterly terrified of the dentist at this point. I have no idea what those bumbling idiots were thinking. You're going to take a kid who has been abused, hold him down, and shove painful things in his mouth? Sweet baby Jesus, it makes me want to beat the living crap out of someone.

This child may come in with decay and baggage, but he is no less worthy of humane treatment and kindness than the kids of the executives who come in from an afternoon at the country club. It makes me irate.

My mama bear claws are long, people, and I know how to use them.

We have found a dentist who participates and who has said all of the right things when it comes to treating a child who has had traumatic experiences both in and out of the chair. They have said that they will not only allow one of us back with him, but will also allow us to put him on our lap to be examined in a regular reclining chair while they build trust with him. This is what empathy looks like. This is what dignity and potential recovery for a child looks like.

If we have to come back ten times in order to get him to a place of being still, we'll do it. No one will ever pin him down again. Not while I am breathing.