NCEI-DHOH TOO many acronyms!

Today a lady named Kristen came to the house to do an initial home visit. She is an early interventionist for the NC Early Intervention Program for Children Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. What a mouth full! Today we just talked about our concers for Lilli and her role in our lives. She will come out to do a form of play therapy that is speech based (but not speech therapy). She is an expert at teaching parents the right way to interact with a child who wheres hearing aids. ALthought it is very similar to interacting w/ a typical child there are many differences, such as the TV cannot be on while Lilli has on her HAs unless she is watching TV bc the hearing aids dont know when to filter out the TV so that she can focus on who ever is talking to her. Also, teaching her to leave them alone, which is the most challenging part of pediatric HAs. I am very excited to have Kristen on our team, while I am very familiar with early intervention, my degree focused more on over all delays and I am finding out more and more every day that pediatric auidiology is a field all its own! My mom attended the meeting today too. I was glad because she got to ask some questions that had been on her mind. We also talked about how to help some of our family members "digest" the fact that Lilli really is hearing impaired. She said that it can take longer than a year for some people to accept it. Kristen also said some people, even parents never fully accept it and that only hurts the child because they dont ever get what they need. :( I expressed to her my concern that some of our family experiences diapointment repeatedly because they hear a wonderful shiny story about a child who needed hearing aids and now they dont. We have heard these stories a few times while going through testing and each time I had to watch as my husbands hopes were crushed as well as the hopes of other close family members. I guess I have just been praying for the best and prepairing for the worst. Dont get me wrong in the beginning I was devistated and had a why me attitude, but quickly the Lord changed my heart and showed me that He has a plan for us and I know now that in a weird way the Lord is giving Tony and myself such a compliment by trusting us to raise this sweet baby! I continue to pray every day that her hearing improves, however, I know that if it doesnt, it is God's will and something crazy amazing will come from all of this. Kristen, who expressed her faith once she knew we were both Christians, said she feels the same way. So far everyone on our team seems to be a Christian and that brings joy to my heart as well! On another note, she told me that Lillian is advanced for her a typical child age and VERY advanced for a child w/a hearing impairment! I cannot lie, that made me smile from ear to ear! :) We have "homework" each week however we have compleated the first 4 weeks worth before we even knew it was an assignment. It is to make sure we are w/in 3 feet of Lilli when speaking to her. The other is to provide her w/2000 words a day. Typically developing children learn to speak by hearing 1000 words a day and HI children need double that to keep up. Good thing she was born into a very loud and talkative family :)