Well, here goes...
I had braces for about 3 years from 5th through 7th grade. I never really payed much attention to what was done because at that age I didn't care what it was...it hurt! I had one of those doohickeys in the top of my mouth to crank for a while and then a bunch more stuff was shoved in my mouth to torture me.....and that was only phase one!
I was put in a retainer for a while until I was to start phase two when they were going to finish straightening out my teeth. They weren't terribly crooked so I didn't feel a huge need to finish doing the final touches. My orthodontist also had one of the most gigantic and frighteningly perfect smiles I have ever seen. I wanted my teeth to look natural and not like I was wearing dentures. I'm sure you are wondering why I wouldn't want a perfect smile, but trust me when I say his perfect smile looked really creepy and fake on him. I was about to start high school and I totally did not want to get braces on again, even if I needed them to save my life. I mean, like, there were boys in high schools!
Flashforward to this summer and I'm now a freshman in college. I noticed that one of my teeth was bleeding excessively around the gum. I was thinking "oh crap, I'm going to need a root canal." I went to the dentist and it took him about 2 minutes to tell me it was a baby tooth I was loosing. He then laughed at me and charged me $100 bucks. In the words of Homer, "DOH!" When I was in braces the first time I knew I had a few baby teeth still left. I don't know why I forgot about them. This opened up a can of worms....
I go to the dentist regularly but they never mentioned any of the following. I have no 12 year molars and I still have 3 baby teeth with no adult teeth in sight. There is a fourth baby tooth but there might be an adult under it although they think it is "frozen." The dentist sent me over to the periodontist next door who recommended that I get implants where the baby teeth are. I decided to go get a consultation from my old orthodontist to see if maybe teeth could be moved to fill the gaps and to fix a few teeth that had decided to get funky on me.
During my first round of braces my orthodontist assumed Id get my 12 year molars and adult teeth in later....no cigar though. Six years later they still hadn't debuted in my mouth. (Where are you teeth?
) He told me the odds of missing this many adult teeth were pretty high. Figures, just my luck. Even though I hated the thought of braces I knew that my orthodontist was amazingly thorough and talented. I think he was a little to eager to put me back in braces again 
Well, the final story is that I'm going to be in braces for an estimated 12 to 24 months. I'm going to need 3 implants for sure. There is a possible fourth depending on one adult tooth that may be "frozen" above a baby tooth. I still don't have 12 year molars....but theres not much I can do there! I still have a small mouth, even after that palate doohicky as a kid, so there really isn't much room anyways. I also have tiny roots on my two front teeth and my orthodontist says I should be a little concered about loosing them. Theres a couple more molars in the back that are totally out of whack and almost horizontal and a few teeth that are funny shaped. (I can blame that one on my dad, hes got almost perfect circles for teeth.) Other than that, its mostly just some straightening. Woo hoo!
Ok, thank you for listening to me ramble. I needed a break from studying for midterms.....take care!