Someone ate 1700 dollars

A few nights ago I noticed Lilli was missing an ear, i could hear it whisteling but couldnt find it. I then realized the entire thing was in her mouth, dont worry they are made with that in mind for tiny babies that like to eat everything, so not a choking hazard. Well, after that, it started making sounds like a modem dialing up from 1996. We went to the dr today and sure enough the slobber has caused a shortage and the entire thing has to be replaced. So, this also means that for the next week and a half she will only be able to hear in one ear...which may make sleeping difficult as well as her therapy. UGH, not to mention on the way home tony truck had a fuel pump issue leaving me, her and my dad stranded on 16. Praise God daddy was with me or I would have freaked out! Ironically it is more to replace her heraing aid then it is to fix the truck! Technology is amazing but it sure is expensive, but another blessing is that NC has the wonderful Deaf and Hard of Hearing program so the bill will not be comming to us for the replacement. As an update, she is starting to babble more and beginning to make consonent sounds as upposed to just vowel sounds and she is only 2 months behind on language developemnt. It doesnt help that she has a former play therapist for a mommy that does at least an hour of therapy a day w/her, but I am just so proud of her for learning so fast, now if we can only teach her, "NO that stays in your ear, not in your mouth" LOL I love my sweet girl! :)

Update

So, I know i havent posted in a while, our life has been quite busy! After meeting another mom of a deaf child at our wonderful cousins wedding, we have decided to start teaching Lillian SEE (Signed Exact English) ALthough she will be able to hear and speak I want her to be able to communicate w/the deaf community as well as the hearing. This lady, Robin, is so wonderful! She does the signing at a local church and it is so nice to know someone else who has been in this spot before. In the 3 weeks we have known her she has been so helpful with information and advice and just there to listen and relate to what I am feeling. Lilli seems to love her too! She laughs and plays w/her like she has known her for ever. The Lord always knows what he is doing but when you meet the right people at the right time it is amazing how you can be reminded of that 100 times more!
Lillian has had her aids for a while now and is doing GREAT! Usually doesnt bother them unless she is tired or not feeling good. She has been having therapy once a week and we do smaller sessions just the 2 or 3 of us, depending on if Tony is home. I LOVE my sweet baby girl so much and I am so thankful I am her mommy! God is amazing and I cannot believe I have already spend 7 months with this tiny precious child. I am so blessed!!!

Learning to hear is hard work!

So, Lilli has had her aids for a full week now :) She is doing so well. It takes her a few minutes to get adjusted once they are on, but the therapist says her 10 minute adjustment is wonderful because it is usually a 30 minute one. We have therapy once a week and the other days it is up to me and tony to "homeschool". We are thinking of homeschooling her anyways so I guess were getting some good practice now. When it is time to actually teach her to hear, we put her aids in, turn EVERYTHING off, TV, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer etc. While the world is not a quiet place and she will need to learn to hear with background noises we have to work hard now to just help her learn to identify sounds and where they are coming from. We sit her down and play while engaging in front of her we create sounds behind her, wether it is a rattle, a toy bird etc. The goal is to get her to at least stop what she is engaging in and hopefully turn torwards the sound. We also play 2 sounds in front of her such as her lamb that plays a longer song and sort of interupt w/our voice or another sound like the quack of her toy duck or oink of her pig. The goal of this is for her to turn her focus to the interupting object. This is the foundation laying part of learning background sounds from important ones. Getting her aids in has gotten so much easier over the past week, what used to be a 10 minute process is now a 30 second habbit. The aids have created so much stimulation in her brain that she is now sleeping through the night. The goal for pediatric hearing aids is for children to wear them at least 2 hours a day and work up to all waking hours. Tony and I are so nervous and anxious to ensure her developemnt is not hindered that she pretty much already wears them all waking hours. She does get tiny breaks, when she needs a nap or is hungry. Feeding w/them is difficult because the way she lays in our arms causes feedback/whistling which isnt anything that can hurt her but it is very annoying to us. All in all this has been a much smoother transition then expected. I have only really had one breakdown because it is hard sometimes to get her to want to listen and that streams into me thinking this isnt fair why us, but then I am reminded its not why did this happen to us in a bad way it is why Lord did you trust us over everyone else we know to bless us with this baby :) Continuing to pray for good progress and so excited to see what is instore :)

LILLI GOT HER EARS!!

Today Tony Lilli and I went to the dr to get her hearing aids. We have such a wonderful audiologist. Not many doctors this day and age allow you to sit in their office past 5:00 to ensure all of your questions are answered. Lilli did so well with us putting them in and it is very obvious she can hear better now because she blinks at random sounds. When we got home she had a minor meltdown because she heard the car door shut and it scared her to death! We took them off of her so she could calm down because her crying was so loud to her she didnt know what to do! It kind of broke my heart. Today has been bitter sweet. Bitter because it is all real now, sweet because now she can hear everything. She LOVES all of her musical toys, which in the past had just been fun to look at. She laughed and was so excited she was literally shaking when we played her musical sheep which had always been her favorite, she now loves it more! My mom and I sat in the floor crying at her reaction because it became obvious that she had never heard it before. I am so excited to go through this next chapter of our lives with my best friend/husband and our wonderful families and friends. I know that through all of our struggles and triumphs that the Lord is in control and this is all happening to bring Him glory! There is so much more to write about but I am exhausted as it has been an emotional day for us! I will update again soon since we have hearing impaired therapy in the morning! :) XOXO

Thursday was BUSY

So, Thursday was a super busy day. We went to visit our audiologist to get Lilli's ear molds done for her hearing aids! YEY They should be here in the next week or so. I cannot wait, although I know seeing her in them will be bitter sweet. Getting the molds done was not so much fun for her. They use stuff similar to the stuff the dentist uses to make teeth impressions. They put a little thing down in her ear canal so it doesnt get the mold stuff in them and then put the mold in. Lillian was not happy. I had to hold her arms, Dr. Bochinno had to help because she was very squirmy and just trying to get it out. Poor baby girl! The ride home was awful too because it was pouring down rain and traffic on 85 was going about 5mph and I had a screaming baby in the back seat! Once we got home I had to rush in and finish straighting the house up because her therpist and state audiology consultant were comming for a meeting with our whole family. My mom and dad, and mother and father in law were there. This meeting was more for the family so that everyone could ask any questions they had. My mother in law is still in shock over the situation and I am very glad she came because I know she had a ton of questions and I think it really helped her see that even though this may not be what any of us had originally wanted everything is going to be ok. I was very surprised that my usually reserved and quite dad and father in law had more questions then I ever expected. We truly couldnt ask for a better family support system! The meeting lasted for quite a while almost 2 hours. I am very greatful for Kristen and Lizzie for coming and staying longer then expected to ensure everyone got the answers they were looking for. After the meeting we all went out to dinner! It was so much fun! I love spending time with our whole family! We couldnt be more blessed to have such a fantastic family and a perfect sweet baby girl!!

I cried a little bit tonight

Today we celebrated Tony's grandmother's 80th birthday. She is a wonderful woman and she and Lillian have a very special relationship! :) If you arent very familiar with my in-laws, the sing, all the time, they love to sing and sound VERY good doing it :) Of course since it was granny's birthday party they took the time to sing some of her favorite hymns. They sounded beautiful. I realized sitting in the back of the room that the family up front had caught Lilli's attention. I decided to move her closer to the sound (which is what our therapists enocourage) When we got up to the front of the room, the family was in full swing singing sweet music to bless our wonderful Lord. Lilli was amazed. She was shaking! I think she was a little scared because she had never really been that close to them singing that loudly before, plus Aunt Joy rocking it out on the piano added to the decebels in the room. Although shaking and unsure of what was going on, she loved it and laughed at the same time. I cant explain the feeling that came over me. Part joy, honestly a tiny bit of sadness, not for little Lilli but for the other children. They are all such WONDERFUL children. I could not ask for a better family! Chidlren really are a blessing and it is obvious our entire family thinks so. I love them all. But while the family was singing the other kids were running around playing tag, which is expected given that most of them are boys. But I was just so shocked that they didnt really stop to listen to the joyful noise being sung. They are so used to it and honestly 4 months ago, while I enjoyed listening to our family chior I feel like I took advantage of it. Tonight I stopped to embrace that I CAN hear the wonderful harmonies and seeing Lilli truly hear something so well just overwhelmed me with joy! I am so blessed to be in such a wonderful family with so many cousins for her to grow up with. In my head I feel like she will always stop to cherish the times that they stop and sing, but in reality I know that in a few years she too will be running around playing tag in the fellowship hall :) Anyways, I cried a little bit tonight and took a moment to pray over my sweet baby and thank God for all he has blessed me with :)

Overwhelmed

Today Lilli had DHOH therapy. She was asleep for most of it which gave Kristen and I a chance to go over some resources and other information. I dont know why it hit me so hard today. I have accepted Lilli's condition and am totally OK with it. First of all there is just something about the word "deaf" that I just cannot stand. My child isnt deaf, she can hear, she is just hearing impaired, yet almost every pamplet emphasized the word deaf. Kristen is very aware of our feelings torwards that word and doesnt use it with us which I love! :) She is a very caring person and I feel she goes out of her way to satisfy us as a family. The information she gave us (was a lot!) but so far what I have seen is very helpful. But today I just had to stop and breath for a minute, remind myeslf that there is a purpose in all of this and no matter what Lillian is still perfect. Going over all the information I was hoping she would wake up so I had an excuse to get up and pick her up and hold her! I didnt want to wake her up from her rare nap. Luckily she did wake up and I got to hold her and smooch on her! She is my world and I want to do EVERYTHING in the world for her which is why I am very greatful for all of the agencies we are working with, but I just had to get it out of my system that today was a kind of hard day. When Kristen left my sweet husband watched Lilli so I could take a nap before he left for work. I am such a lucky woman to have such a wonderful family! :) I couldnt ask for more! Now excuse me, I have to sign off, my sweet girl is waking up again LOL