"Aaaaaa" is for airplane.

We are 10 weeks post activation and sister continues to rock her CIs and blow us all away at her progress!

Hoarding cups.

Here's what we are doing now:

She turns almost all of the time to noise, sounds in her environment or her name being called. The exception being if she's in a noisy environment or if she is preoccupied with another activity. You know, kinda like your husband who is in the middle of watching an Alabama football game... (Love you, Pookie.)

Here she is responding to her name, fake laughing, ignoring my requests for a wave, grinding her teeth (which she still does on a regular basis) and a tiny example of her "I'm frustrated" scream. She is totally into Legos, but she lives in a house full of them, so I can't blame her. Ignore the laundry basket on the table. She put it up there.

No magical words yet, but definitely imitating coughs, laughing and other random sounds like "say ahhhh!" when I try to get her to open up to brush those tiny teeth. She usually obliges by copying what I have done and the sound I made. During speech therapy the other day, she randomly picked up the airplane and flew it through the air, making the "aaaaaaaa" sound. Which was a huge deal, because we've only done that with her 47 million times! Repetition counts, my friend. Even though I'm ready to chunk that plane out the window...

We've added a few signs to our repertoire, mainly because the level of frustration with no communication skills was going through the roof! She has a very distinct, ear splitting scream when she wants something. We sometimes get off track, but I can usually encourage her to use a sign or take me to what she wants instead of screaming. (Her favorite is dragging me to the fridge!) The best is when she uses every sign she knows at the same time if I'm not moving fast enough to satisfy her. I imagine in her mind she thinks she is screaming at me!

She has learned to give hugs. Which we love, but once she starts hugging, everyone in the room gets hugs. Multiple times. Ironically, her first spontaneous hug was for her speech therapist, Mrs. Cheryl. Which I suppose is fitting.

She has always had a little hip-hop-skip dance move that she does when I sign for her to dance, but now that she can actually hear the music, she will randomly dance to the TV or radio on her own by adding little crazy arm motions to her moves. Sister has zero rhythm, but I can't blame her. She doesn't really have a great dancing model...

What happens when a 13-year-old gets a hold of EK's hair.

And just because I measured her the other day to help a friend compare sizes for her new daughter, she weighs 19 pounds (fully clothed!) and is 30.5 inches. That means squirt is still wearing a size 2 diaper and mainly 12 months--some 18 month--clothes (needs 18 months for pants, definitely) and a size 3 infant shoe! Yes, she's tiny, but we have gained 6 pounds and grown 3.5 inches since June!!

Below is the speech banana, that gives better idea of how loud sounds are, etc.  The yellow part shows where sounds that we use for speech are located.  EK is now hearing from her right ear at roughly 25 db. Although remember her little ears are only about 2 months old and she often doesn't know what to do with what she hears.  This means she can feasibly learn the speech sounds now.  We will continue to tweak her CI to make sure we are maximizing her hearing.  We go back to her audiologist on Tuesday.  I'm eager to see how she does in the sound booth.  Since last time she flat out refused to participate.

Not at all a toddler thing to do...

(For reference, without her ear, she's between 100-110 dbs.  Essentially nothing.)

I'm still holding out for her first word.  Kenny has taught her to imitate "mmmmmmm" so we have bets on what it will be...

(Mommy.)

Happy day, boys. Happy day.

Six years ago today, two little fellas showed up at an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Without much info to go on, they were both given March 11th as their birthday.

People.

I have a 7 year old and an 11 year old.

What...??!!!? How...??!!?!

I know. I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around it. Doesn't seem possible. Read as: I can't possibly be 2 years away from having a teenager!!! (Where's my panic button??)

When we made the trip to Ethiopia to add these two to our family over four years ago, I was consumed with them. Just them.

How do I help them adjust? How do I help them learn English? How do I help them understand that this family is forever? How do I help them remember to flush the toilet? Heck, how do I get them to remember to actually go IN the toilet?? How do I get Sam to stop screaming for "dabo"? (That's bread, by the way and he's over it now.) How do I get Charlie to stop pushing every button he sees? How do I get Sam to take a nap? How do I get Charlie to think I'm hilarious and stop staring at me like I'm crazy...?

And how, oh how, do I ensure they keep their ridiculously cute Ethiopian accents??

We failed at the whole accent thing, but every once in a while I'll pick up on a little redneck mixed with Amharic.

And that makes me smile.

Because I was so focused on survival in the beginning, I overlooked a huge piece of the puzzle that made our family who it currently is. But more often lately, I think about our Ethiopia Mommy and wish I knew more about her. I know March 11th probably wasn't the day that she gave birth to the two that have been woven into the fabric of our family, but on that day, I have to wonder what she had planned for her sons, what she felt their future held, what she hoped they would grow up to be...

Although this woman has no name or face, she is a hero to me. She holds a special place in my heart although it's likely our paths will never cross. And although a huge deal, our sole common thread is motherhood to two handsome boys who are quickly growing into the young men I hope she would be proud of...

Happy Birthday, Charlie & Sam!!

A beautiful family.

In the early pre-school hours of February 26, 2013, we received word of a tiny 16-month-old in Huazhou, China.

Words cannot even describe the excitement, the fear, the joy, the overwhelming-oh-my-gosh-this-is-really-happening feelings that took place in the days to follow as we filled out every form known to man to make this sweet child part of our family forever.

Even though you've only been with us for 8 short months, we've known your face for a whole year.









Even though international adoption is a crazy rollercoaster of complete unknown, there are moments when God shows up and gives gifts that you had no idea you needed.

Even though I never in a million years imagined my family would be grown the way it has been, in His infinite wisdom, The Lord has blessed us immeasurably.

We spent some family time last weekend at Great Wolf Lodge, thanks to some Christmas money from the great-grandparents. Although I honestly don't normally think twice about it and find it somewhat humorous to watch people try to figure out our family, for some reason, I had mentally prepared myself for the on-slaught of questions, stares, smiles, disapproving glances we would get over the weekend being in a different environment. All the things we normally get when ALL five of us are together. And apparently adding a ridiculously cute Chinese toddler with a cochlear implant hanging off the side of her head to our mix didn't help our blending in factor.






We got those stares and disapproving glances, just like normal. But in true putting-me-in-my-place fashion, The Lord put three different individuals in our path over the weekend that approached me and said the EXACT SAME WORDS...

"I just wanted to tell you that you have a beautiful family."






The third time it happened I almost cried. Kinda like I am now typing this out. But you couldn't have wiped the huge grin off my face if you had wanted.

Yes, there are plenty of people that think we are crazy and can't imagine why in the world we have a rainbow of children at our house. (I only have three, people. Not that odd.) And while I can't refute the crazy part, I have never once doubted our decision to adopt. Maybe a few "what have we done??" moments...but never a question to God's calling to grow our family.









God's children are a His and deserve a family regardless of what shade of human they are, what country they were born in or what the world deems is wrong with them. Can you imagine if that same God discriminated against us for any of those reasons?? So what gives us a right to do that?

Nothing. Not one single thing.

Which is why I can answer when people ask me why, with a simple "Why not??"

And I promise you can't give me an answer that makes sense.

At least not for our family.

-----------------------

Sorry I got all preachy on y'all. I just love my kids! If you need more info about adoption, I know a rockin' awesome group of people who love Jesus and would love to help you out. Check out Lifeline Children's Services. Now.

A scattered update.

We are 7 weeks post-op and Friday was 5 weeks post-turn-our-ear-on.  She is still rocking the CI and making progress everyday. Here's a scattered post with random pictures about the process and how things are going...

We are asking for our ear after nap time. Not everyday. But it's happened about 3 times this past week, so it's a relatively new development. This, my friends, is a HUGE deal!! At least I think it is. It shows me that she's making a connection between the CI and what it does for her. And the more she wants to hear, the easier this whole process will be!

"Lady!  Where's my ear??  You know...the one that makes me hear stuff??"

We no longer cry the pitiful cry every single time we put it on. Sometimes, yes. But not all the time. We have a theory about why the crying has decreased. Y'all know she has a magnet in her head. And a magnet in the coil that makes it stay on her head. Well, long story short, her magnet was way too strong and had made quite the little sore on her head by the time we were able to get it changed to a weaker magnet. Our audiologist said a magnet that is too strong can actually cause the internal magnet to move. HOLY MOLY! Does that weird anyone else out?? Since decreasing the strength in her magnet way, way down (to let the site heal) she has stopped the terrified screaming. I think part of the issue is that initial connection was causing her a little pain. I'm gonna go with just a little pain because I really hope it wasn't causing a LOT of pain. After 2 weeks with the new magnet, it already looks tons better and now I know better what to look for if the magnet is too strong. A red spot is a red flag. Check!

EK's favorite after dinner spot.  She gets down from the highchair and goes straight
to Daddy because she knows he'll give her more.

Downside to the weaker magnet...it falls off even if she's just walking. Or doing her little hip-hop-and-skip-walk. Which is typical for her. It's been hanging on a little better the last few days, but I'm hoping we can bump that strength up a tad once it's healed and we won't spend all day sticking it back on. Although if it does come off, she's really good about letting me know so we can get that sucker back on.

A lego-fabulous snow day.  We've had so many snow days I don't even know which one this was.

More lego fun.  With EK sized legos. AKA: How to keep EK busy while Mommy
cooks dinner!

Her vocalizing has continued. She is definitely babbling more than her pre-CI days. Even imitating sometimes...like pretending to cough when I cough which she is doing as I type!  Little faker.  Of course, I'm pretty sure she has said "mommy".....ok, not really. But fingers crossed for her first word? She has said "mmmmmmmmm!" That's really, really close....

She's also using more signs and using them spontaneously (and with some help). Yes, we are definitely focusing on words (which means I talk to myself all day long), but that doesn't happen overnight. And the screaming and whining to get what you want is totally not cool. So to bridge the mounting frustration with our lack of communication skills, we are still working the signs. (Excuse the pj's and crackers in the middle of the day in the video.  Mommy & Daddy got to "enjoy" another round of the stomach bug last week and this was one of those days.)

We had our first fever and "oh my gosh, do we have an ear infection?" scare since surgery. I say scare, but really more just concerned parental units. Ok....so we completely acted like first time parents and immediately rushed her straight to the pediatrician. A fever and yucky snot and cough makes me worry about ears. They actually tested her for RSV since we had a RSV-ish cough. It was negative and ears were clear. She felt generally crummy the rest of the week, but it was only a virus.

Hanging out at the dentist office.  Who's idea was it to take all
three kids on the same day??  And all by myself!  Really...they
did well.  Well, the boys did.  And the dentist got to actually
look in EK's mouth in between the screams....

She's on the last program of her most recent map. We go back to the audiologist this week for another sound booth test and to continue to tweak things. Our audiologist confessed at our second mapping appointment that she was turned up louder her first time around than she normally does...."I just kept turning it up and she just kept hanging in there and not having an issue with it, so I left it turned up higher!" But what that means now, is 5 weeks into her hearing career, she is hearing at pretty much the level we want her to...speech, all kinds of noises, etc. Now, the big disclaimer is she obviously still doesn't know what to do with those sounds, so while she may be able to hear us, in the fashion of a 4 week old newborn, she straight up ignores us. Most of the time.

This is in the sound booth at her 2nd mapping appointment.  Hanging out with
an UofL audiology student.

See the freaky looking Winnie-the-Pooh bear in the corner??  That's what
they flash when she responds to the noise on her left side. I'm not so certain
the motivation with the scary bear would keep me looking, but she did well.

Now that we are 7 weeks post-op the swelling at her surgery site has completely gone down. I thought it was down before, but it wasn't until I realized I can literally see and feel the implant and cords and magnets right under the skin that all the swelling was really gone. And it freaked me out just a tad. I mean, it's kinda big! And bumpy! Made me want to put a helmet on her all waking hours.

See the incision from the top of her ear down the backside of her ear?  It's looking
really good.  And if you look really close...there's a bulge.  That's the goods, folks!

Incision above her ear.  And yes, that's a dirty ear.  We took care of that.

We started speech therapy on Friday and have her IFSP meeting tomorrow for her next 6 months of First Steps (early intervention). She has come soooo far since we started in September.  Seriously.  She was so much farther behind than she is now.  But in the last 6 months we've started walking (kinda skipped walking and went right to running!), doing much better eating table food and still learning how to play and just be a toddler. She will continue with play group, will keep seeing her Developmental Interventionist, Ms. Paula (who has been loads of info through this whole process!!) and Mrs. Cheryl with Speech.  And we can't forget super service coordinator, Adrienne!  We shared an office during my First Steps days, sooooo....I'll just leave it at she's the best and rocks her job! (She needs a raise, Deb!!) But we have a great team helping us learn, make big strides to listening and talking and helping us every step of the way.  But they keep wanting to talk about what we will do when she turns 3....and I don't want to talk about her turning 3.  She's just a baby!!

We've had way too many snow days, so I'll leave you with a few snowy pics and a video of EK trying to blow kisses.  Just because she's cute.  Enjoy.

"I'm ready for the snow, Mom!"

Two happy boys!  Enjoying one of our snow days that it wasn't -20 degrees...sledding!!

Apparently the girls thought snow and sand were interchangeable and buried her.
Good news is she loves the snow!

Precious baby.  Wiped out from learning to listen.  And playing in the snow.

Progress, people. Progress.

We were supposed to return to the audiologist on Friday for a sound booth test and to turn things up a little more.  But then this happened...

Stupid snow.

A bit of ill-timed snow threw the city into a panic and although we tried, it was gonna take me all day to get downtown. (Normally a 40-45 minute drive.) And in the interest of our safety, we returned home after 30 minutes in the car and only a few slippery miles down the road. I was terribly bummed. Like almost in tears, bummed. Who knows...hearing hormones, maybe? But our fantastic audiologist was able to fit us in this coming Thursday, so hopefully that won't set us back too much.

This whole thing is a very, very gradual process. But I'm interested to see how she does in the sound booth with almost three weeks of hearing under her belt.  Other than crying.  She always cries when we first go in.  But then she gets over herself when they bring out the toys.

Here's a few videos practicing our new found hearing skills. I usually take advantage of lunch time when she's strapped in and still to make lots of noise, so excuse the lunch meat hanging out of her mouth.  She is still only hearing loud sounds, but she's got the squeaky dog toy, the drum and the vacuum down pat.

She often giggles now when she hears something. Or cuts her eyes towards her right side, which is the side she can hear from.  Hilarious.  And how I caught her the other day when she realized this doll made sounds.  I thought it was a little quiet for her to be hearing it, but the doll also moves, which I think is where some of her surprise came in.

"What's that??"

We started playgroup last week and it went way better than I expected.  After I hid behind a tree in the lobby of the school (mom of the year, right?) and they were able to whisk her off before she realized what was going on, she did great and never shed a tear.  And I got to watch her the whole time from a little booth with a one-way window.  While I'm grateful for the opportunity of the playgroup, seeing the other kids that are ahead of her made me realize just how much work we have in front of us.  It was good for me to see.  The little girl next to her is two months younger, implanted on one side at 18 months and the other side at 22 months and is using words already.  I was impressed.

And encouraged.

Why does she look like such a big girl sitting on her carpet for circle time??  She's just a baby!!
FYI:  that didn't last long.  She checked out and headed back for the toys and
had to be redirected multiple times.  Can you blame a sister??

So, we are making progress.  Slowly, but surely.

Now, will one of you guys tell her it's almost 10pm and it's time to give it up and go to sleep....

A meet-n-greet.

Many of you have asked about what is actually on EK's head now, so let me introduce you.

Mr. Processor, meet your public.

Behind her ear is the processor part. That's the brains of the operation. There's a few buttons, but right now they are disabled except for the on/off button. Mainly so she won't accidentally push a button and jack things up. But also so the parents won't push a button and jack things up.

There are also two microphones up there. And my understanding of the two mics...one for the things you want to hear. And one to filter out the noise you don't want to hear. This is the biggest change in the Nucleus 6 versus the 5. Being able to change depending on the wearers environment and filter out unwanted noise and sounds. Think about going from your quiet car to a windy sidewalk and then into a noisy restaurant. All things we don't think about, but makes hearing way more difficult for EK.

The part that seems to magically stick to her head is the coil. And it's not magic, it's a magnet. In her head. All jokes aside, yes, she's a 18-lb magnet now. Without that piece "stuck" on her head, she can't hear.

The cord is the coil cable. In layman's terms, it's what allows the coil and the processor to talk to one another. And apparently it breaks easy. Maybe they should cover it with Teflon or something.

The flesh colored part is called a Snugfit. This is the part where we say "Praise Jesus for snugfits!!" We were so worried it wouldn't stay on her tiny ear because it is bigger and heavier than her hearing aids. But with the help of the tiniest snugfit they make, it's hanging out on that tiny ear like they were made for each other!

The brown cord you see coming off the processor is our insurance policy. In case the snugfit fails us, little bit decides she no longer wants to wear it or even knocks it off accidentally, the cord is attached to her shirt with the little owl clip and keeps it from hitting the ground and shattering. Or even worse, losing it. Hopefully. She wore a clip with her hearing aid. And yes, even with that clip, we lost one. But this clip uses a silicone band to hang on tight to her CI and I'm hoping it serves it's purpose well. I found these on an Etsy site called The Bebop Shop and we LOVE them! In fact, I just ordered two more for backups. And cause a girl needs to have options.

On her head, it looks like little more than a big hearing aid. You can barely see the coil because it's under her hair. The most noticed thing is her flashing green light that tells me it's on, working and connected. Orange means "Houston, we have a problem", which other than a dead battery, we haven't had to deal with yet. The kids at church get a kick out of her lights...."Uhhh, Mrs. Jana, Ellie Kate's ear is flashing."

And the inside...well, I won't show you the bloody pictures of the inside of her head, but this is what's in there.

Photo courtesy of Cochlear America website.

Pretty cool, huh??

I moved her up to program 4 about a week ago, which is the final program until we go back to the audiologist to be turned up more. She paused and looked at me, as if to say, "What did you just do??" but then went right on playing.

Her tears when we first put it on have continued to diminish.  They are definitely still there.  But much better than the hysterics of two weeks ago.

Maybe they will learn to be lifelong friends after all...

First time trying a PB&J, which is both brother's meal of choice.  Every day.  She's not sold yet.  

A week of hearing.

You know that moment in time when you realize your child is a genius ...but you struggle with how to tell others without making them feel like their own children are obviously morons?

Well. I'm there.

You see, Ellie Kate read a book to me on Wednesday.

Honest. I've got video proof.

So you see, all parents of children not as smart as mine, I can only hope that one day your child is to reading with such poise and diligence and inflection in their voices.  Because I was pretty stinkin' impressed!

Yeah, I'm talking about the child that just choked while drinking her own nasty bath water.

Nonetheless, today is our one week hear-a-versary. Yaaaaaay! And she has been much more vocal this week than she has in the past. She literally ran her mouth the whole time we were at the surgeons office for her post-op visit on Wednesday.  I love it.

The visit went great, by the way. He had no concerns, her incision at that point looked like little more than a scratch with a little bit of scabbing.

And a heck of a bald spot.

This was last Saturday night after the steri-strips FINALLY came off (less than 2 weeks out).
I was shocked at how well it looked!!

See the upper curve above her ear?
Amazing.  What's inside that head is making her hear.

We'll follow up again in April with Dr. Gadre.

Her screaming fits when we put the processor on, who has been lovingly dubbed "Bear" (But Sam's the only one that calls it that..."Mommy, Bear is still on Ellie Kate's ear."  He reports to me.  I like it.) have diminished....ever so slightly.

I'm a routine kinda person.  So, of course, I have a routine for this.  I try to make sure the processor is on her head before we leave her room in the morning and after nap.  One, because we obviously want her hearing all of her waking hours.  And two, this way she just knows what to expect.  She crawls up into my lap crying.  She knows we are going to put it on and knows she isn't gonna like it.  But she willingly lets me do it.  Bless her tiny, hearing heart.

She has also been signing more.  Which I love because it's so stinkin' cute to watch!  She tells me "thank you" after every puff that she eats.  I'm sure that has to get tiring.  And "thank you" when she wants me to do something.  But before I actually do it.  Gotta work on our timing.  Also signing sleep, no and please on a more regular basis.  We have also sorta, kinda learned to wave.  But are always a little delayed on that one.

It's cute either way.

That was a smile.  Promise.

The first couple of days.

Y'all know how happy and laid back sweet little EK was on Friday when we first introduced her to her new ear?  How she didn't seem to care that her entire world had just changed?  Or that we had just hung thousands of dollars of equipment on her ear like she was a human Christmas tree? And how cute she was flinging Lego bricks at us because we were making too much noise??

Well, scratch all that because she hates her new ear now.  (I need to give the 'lil fella a name...)

She's still ridiculously cute, but oh...do the tears come when she sees that processor headed her way.  I've tried multiple ways of introducing it, let her play with it, we've put it on her stuffed animals and dolls, played with the koala that came from Cochlear America who has toy CI's on his head, me and the boys have put on the toy ones so she can see it won't kill us, laid it next to her so she can see it and they can make nice with each other, tried to sneak it on while she takes a bottle, etc.  It really doesn't matter how it happens, she's just not a fan.  Now don't get me wrong...once it's on her head and we've moved past the 5-10 minutes of hysterics, she's fine.  (Except for after nap on Sunday.  That meltdown lasted over an hour.  But I'm gonna blame that on the super-short-mini-nap that she tried to pull off as a real nap.) It's just the initial shock of going from silence to noise that gets us every time.

Poor, pitiful baby.

This was Saturday morning.  After I changed her clothes and tried to put it back on her.  Before she realized she was scared of just the sight of the thing.  I'm posting this not to make fun of my crying kid, but so I can show her when she grows up how cute and pitiful she was.  Please ignore the bed head and pj's.

I promise it's not hurting her.  She's not in pain.  And it's not too loud.  Or she'd probably be taking it back off herself.  This is just a HUGE, HUGE transition for her.  I can't even wrap my head around what she has to be thinking each time she goes from the perfect silence she's known all her life to the noises of our house.  It really is quite an overwhelming thing if you give it any thought at all.

Now on a happy note, we moved up to the 2nd program this morning and it didn't phase her in the least.  Like I said, once she's past the initial shock, she's pretty good.  As long as you don't mess with it.  She doesn't want you touch it either.  It is actually staying on her really good.  We were all worried about it being so big on her tiny ear and not staying on, but the 'lil guy is hanging in there and I'm not having any trouble with it falling off.  Or her taking it off.  Which is more than I could say for the hearing aids.  You would think with her strong dislike, she'd be flinging the thing across the room, but she toughs it out.

Rock star.

We've been making lots of noises for her, hollering her name way too many times in a day (the boys are really getting in on this and it's not annoying at all), and giving words to all our signs.  Every once in a while, we get half a response.  Or an eyebrow raise.  Or she takes away whatever we are using to make noise.  Meaning:  please stop it now.  I play music a lot during the day when we are home and I'm pretty sure she was rocking out to some praise & worship jams at lunch today, but I couldn't find my phone fast enough to catch her jamming.  (Really she probably wasn't.  Just my wishful thinking and her being good at picking up a beat.)  If you don't like noise, I'd stay away from the general area for a while.

It's all about teaching her how to listen right now.  I do a lot of pointing to my ear, signing "listen" and saying "Good listening!!!" in my best sing-songy-preschool-teacher voice.  I'm good at it.  Just ask me if you see me out.  I'll demonstrate.

Now, please remember she's not going to respond to her name.  Yet.  And she's not going to just start talking to us automatically.  And lots of people and noisy rooms are a little terrifying right now.  (AKA church on Sunday)  And no matter what Charlie says to you, please know she is hearing now, she just doesn't know how to respond yet.  He's certain we are lying to him.  He totally cornered me and called me out this afternoon.  "Mommy, Ellie Kate can't really hear.  I know."  He's certain in all his 10-year-old wisdom he's always right.  About almost everything.

She's also decided in the last week that naps aren't for cool kids and she's not taking one anymore.  I'm not sure who told her that naps were optional or if that magnet in her head has messed with the napping cycle thingy in her brain, but I'm not okay with it.  Between being sick, surgery and then holiday traveling, her normal routine is all messed up so I'm hoping with fingers crossed that getting back into our normal schedule will make her appreciate a good nap again.  Plus, with no nap, by 5pm we are an absolute joy to be around.  J.O.Y.

Love her sweet sleep deprived face.

Keep praying we can get over this hump and be friends with our new ear.  It's gonna make life quite frustrating if they can't get along.  I've been told this is a good sign and we'll get past it, so I'm banking on that.  I don't like to make my kid cry multiple times a day, even if I am doing something that I know is for her own good.  Makes me want to cry too.  And my cry isn't near as cute and pitiful as hers.

Next installment:  I'll introduce you to her ear.  He's really an amazing fella.

Oh...Roll Tide.  Just because I'm feeling a little extra crimson tonight.

Can you hear me now?

Do you know how difficult it is to not say "Can you hear me now?" to someone who just got their ears turned on??  It's really almost impossible.  And completely cliche.

Nonetheless, it's been said in this house about a bazzillion times today.

Waiting on Dr. Katie in the Heuser Hearing waiting room.

Ellie Kate got her cochlear implant on her right side activated today.  She is turned on and fully operational!  Well, I say fully...but more like she can hear some loud noises and it's our job to make sure we are super loud to teach her what sounds are.

YAY!! New toys to play with!!!

Wait......what's about to happen???

She did not at all respond like I thought she would.  I thought we would at least get a whine or a slight cry...

Nothing.

In the first 30 seconds, she basically ignored us, then got really still and cut her eyes at me as if to say, "What's going on here??"

Here's the first 4ish minutes of EK's hearing career.  Me banging legos together, us yelling her name....anything...anything....??  She was hearing us.  You just have to watch closely for indications.  Please ignore the rednecks talking and laughing in the background.  (And please don't feel obligated to watch all of this.  Really.  It's more for the grandparents.)

There was more of this and more of her just hanging out tolerating us trying to get her to miraculously look up and say, "Mom.  I got it.  I can hear you.  Just stop with the banging already."

That never did happen...

Then she heard us laugh.  I'm certain of that. (We got a couple of giggles out of her in response around 24 seconds.)

We took them off and got schooled in the world of cochlear implants.  Sister has more accessories now than any girl should really need!  A whole briefcase, in fact, of CI paraphernalia and goodies to make life easier.  She even has her own dehumidifier and remote now.  Seriously.  She definitely jumped all of us in the technology realm today.

I'll just wait patiently while you guys talk.

After we were done with our lesson, we put it back on her and got a little more of a response the second time around.  Almost like she was nervous.  And she needed her Mommy.  Hey, I was fine with that.

More banging the Legos.  And she kept taking them away as if to tell me to stop.  And when I didn't...she just chucked them (around 1:20).  And I'm her mom and I think she's fantastically great and does hilarious things.  So this was funny to me.

So the rest of the day...she's keeping them on fairly well.  The bigger problem is that her ear is so tiny and the CI is so huge.  So they tend to slip off if bumped or if she gets a little bouncy, which happens when we are excited.  We've said her name a half a million times today.  And she has ignored us almost every single time, but she's just practicing being a teenager.

Really, I just have to remind myself that she has newborn ears today.  Really less than newborn, if that's even possible, because a newborn would have had 9 months of in utero hearing that she hasn't had either.  She has a lot of learning to listen and then learning to talk ahead of her.  But we and her therapists are very optimistic that she'll move through these milestones fairly quickly.

She's a smart little cookie.  And I don't say that just cause I'm her mom.  She really is.

I'm gonna need a drink after all that.  Gimme the full fat vitamin D stuff.

Speaking of cookies, we got some to celebrate her hearing birthday, but I had to eat EK's because she had to go to sleep.  In true toddler fashion, she chose to skip her nap yesterday.  And missed it today because we were getting our ears turned on.

We were lucky to make it through dinner all the way to 7:15pm.  But during all the meltdowns, she still kept the CI on.  Which is encouraging to me to know that even when ticked off, she'll leave it on.  Even left it on in the car on the way home even though she took off her socks, shoes, bow and tried to get her shirt off.

We are gonna learn to hear.

Even if we do it naked.

Happy Birthday, EK's ears!!!

New.

Okay.

For all you blog stalkers...you know who you are...the ones who creep me out when we meet in public??  Joking, joking...sorta...

I updated the look.  Yes, I know it took 6 months for Ellie Kate to not be "coming soon".  We are going simple this time.  I may still change it up.  We'll see.

I also realized that I need to get back to using my actual camera and quit posting crappy iPhone pics.  Ugh.  Grainy pics are like a weird pet peeve.

And huge thanks to Cherilynn Magee Photography for the new family pics!  If you need pics for anything in my area, she does a fantastic job.  And she's fun!  I'll share more of those soon...

Day 8.

Yesterday was 1-week post-op and she is doing fantastic!

After we took her q-tip off on Christmas night, she still had quite a bit of swelling. Like her head and ear were literally touching. And they don't normally. It's hard to tell in the picture. But her ear is fat.



(Day 2. Just after taking off that horrible hat. Sponge bath. She sat so still.)

But the swelling is pretty much gone from her head and face. And her tiny black eye is more of a yellow eye now.

And the incision looks really good, although it's still covered with a lot of steri-strips. We've avoided tub baths and full-on hair washing, although I did put her in the sink last night. (She lays down in the tub as soon as I put her in and the incision needs to stay dry and bacteria free, so we've been avoiding the tub.) I just felt like she needed to be submerged in water to get good and clean after a week with only sponge baths.






(Pics are from day 4.)

She's been on an antibiotic (remember all the puss?) and ear drops (since they took out the tube and put her ear drum back together again...similar to Humpty Dumpty) but no pain meds or Tylenol since last Thursday morning. She does favor her right side and won't lay on that side or let me hold her on that side. We've been taking toys to bed with us to keep hands occupied if we wake up instead of messing with our head. That little trick has worked because she's barely laid a finger on it. And we finally wore an over the head shirt on Friday night. (Daddy was worried that Mommy might harm EK in the dressing process, so it's been footie zip-up pjs for the week. It is a little like dressing an agitated octopus when you dress her, so I can see where he would be concerned.)







This is day 7. Not much different than above except swelling gone.

I mean, this chick is a rock star!! Major head surgery...no problem for her!! After the removal of the ROLLS of gauze, she's been 99% back to normal. Maybe a little extra clingy to Mommy, but no complaining about that.




Oh....Happy New Year's Eve from our little dysfunctional family to yours.
Just keeping it real...kids all smiled out, I needed a snack and Kenny standing a little too close to the light. Mood lighting, perhaps?




Activation Day in t-minus 3 days!! Stay tuned.......

Germs, delays and surgery. Merry Christmas.

I started a blog post documenting our delay and the epidemic we experienced over the last two weeks, but decided no one really wanted to know about that.

Just know that everyone in this house but Kenny has ran a fever, had body aches, puked, coughed lungs up and had horrible runny noses. All at the same time. And for 8 days straight. It was a nightmare.

And everyone was finally well just in time for EK's surgery date, only to be delayed the day of when the surgeon came down with pretty much the same ailments.

I realized later in the day on the 16th, just how worked up I had gotten myself over this surgery. When it was cancelled, we were both completely bummed. But it was almost like it was a relief all at the same time. I was mentally, emotionally, whatever you want to call it...exhausted. Wiped out by all the surgery hype, only to come crashing down when they told us it was a no-go for the day.

I knew we were doing the right thing, but I don't care how right it is or how much it's needed, having your kid's head split open is never something that gives you the warm fuzzies.

We'll call it the I'm-gonna-puke-ies. The official term.

By Wednesday, we had her surgery rescheduled for December 23, which was a big answer to prayer. You see, there's this little thing called out-of-pocket-maximums (it's not a small number, trust me) and fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) ours had already been met for the year. So getting this done in 2013 was a huge deal for us.

Huge.

Fast forward to Monday....this time around I didn't get myself near as worked up. Call it experience with the whole process...maybe. Although I attribute it to the tons of friends and family who I knew were interceding on our behalf. A God given peace. I was thankful for that. Plus, our surgery time had been moved up to 10am at the insistence of Dr. Gadre. Made me feel tons better about the whole situation. Especially after he told me on the phone that bad things happen when you start such complicated surgeries that late in the day when everyone is already tired. Ok. Stop talking. Didn't need to know that.




Sister did pretty well without any breakfast upon waking. But she knows what a hospital is and DID NOT taking kindly to being removed from the security of her stroller for vitals, etc. She kept trying to climb back into the stroller and buckle herself up. As if that meant she could leave. This flipping out, latching on to mom/dad, retreating to stroller routine continued each time someone new entered our little cubby until we got a small dose of versed and all was well in her floppy little world.




The surgery took about 4 hours and the hospital did a fantastic job of keeping us updated every hour. Her audiologist, Dr. Katie, even saw us in the waiting room on her way in and out of surgery and stopped to chat and fill us in on the progress. (Her job for the day was to test the implant once it was placed to make sure it was working before they closed her back up. Success.)

Once done, Dr. Gadre filled us in on all the details. All had gone very smoothly. And we have some pretty cool pictures. Well, cool if looking at the skull of a 2-year-old is your thing. He was even able to complete the procedure as normal instead of doing things a little differently as planned due to her tiny ears. Apparently hitting a 2mm hole situated between her facial nerve and nerve of taste isn't an easy job on someone with underdeveloped mastoids. But he did it. And I don't know what that means, so don't ask. He also said he removed a bunch more puss behind her ear which would have never gone away unless physically removed. Another result of 20 months of untreated ear infections. I got the feeling by the way he talked we are referring to a bunch of ear infections to have that much puss. Makes me sad.

He filled us in on all the do's and do not's for the next few weeks, warned us that she looked like a giant q-tip, gave us his home phone number and urged us to use it if needed and told us to let him know when she started college. [Smiles.] I know I literally have to wait hours each time we have an appointment with him, but it's completely worth it to feel this comfortable with the doctor caring for your child.

We finally got to go back and see her and yes, resemble a q-tip she did. They continued to monitor her and around 5ish, when they were satisfied with her vitals and level of awakeness, (I made that word up. You're welcome.) they sent us on our merry way.




The trip home was fairly uneventful. Read as: no puking. Which I'm not used to because I can just talk about being put to sleep and I'm yaking all over the place. Nice to have a kid who doesn't respond the same way to anesthesia. Kenny was happy. Since he's usually the one having to deal with that. But by the time we got home, we had an unhappy little chicken on our hands. Nothing made her happy, no position was right, she was still slightly drunk and agitated by the whole thing and had discovered her new hat. And didn't like it at all.

She slept ok during the night and we kept her loaded with pain meds to keep her comfortable. I slept in the floor beside her crib part of the night. But I'm not telling if that was for her or for me.

We took her turban off last night and I'll be honest, I was shocked at how much hair was gone. But it will grow back, I know. The incision looked good, still just pretty swollen. She was so happy to be able to scratch her head and even sat perfectly still while I gave her a sponge bath and semi-washed her stinky head without getting anything wet.

Honestly, she really has done as well as I would have expected. She's been fussy and ticked off, but who wouldn't be with an extra 10 pounds of gauze wrapped around a swollen head. She's done the whole play/cry/hold me routine over and over, which is totally fine. We are her parents. It's our job to hold and comfort said fussy baby.

Her activation day (AKA Happy Birthday EK's Ears Day) is still on January 3rd. Until then, it's just a hurry up and heal wait.

To top off the awesomeness that happened on Monday....December 24th marked 6 months since a frail, scared, malnourished, 13 pound toddler who could barely move was placed in our arms. It scares me to think about where she was 6 months ago and makes me so excited to see where we are now. We are so blessed to have been chose to be her parents and to have a front row seat to her story of redemption, love and adoption as we pray for her to one day accept Jesus as her personal Savior and even understand just a tiny bit of the sacrifice that was made for her. And I'm definitely not talking about us as her parents...




What a Merry Christmas....new ears for EK. It'll be a year we won't soon forget.




And a journey that we have just begun...

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