Interestingly enough, Stephen is giving us some indication that he is hearing with and without his hearing aids. He turns to localize higher pitch sounds---like a rattle, tapping of fingernails, crinkle of paper, etc.. I have been able to see some reaction to speech as well. All of this makes some sense because he does have some haircell function. The big question is if he is hearing enough to produce sound for speech/language. This is something that his Audiologist and Speech Therapist have to determine in the next couple months. We are still moving ahead with implanting him at 10months, unless we see something that will make us wait.

We came home from vacation to find that our poppies were in full bloom. Molly picked a few of them, held them tight at her chest and said "bride". She is such a little girl.

Here are a few shots from our vacation in Hilton Head last week.

Happy Spring!!!

I have been meaning to post all the fun new things that we are hearing from Molly. She is now forming 3 to 4 word sentences with her limited vocabulary. She is singing quite a few songs---still a bit monotone. And now she is reciting all the Bible verses that she has heard over and over for a year. I will have to get some of this on video for you in the near future.

Trout Unlimited had Kids fishing day at the local creek yesterday. Daddy was so proud to take his little two year old out with the rod for the first time. She was quite scared of the worm on the hook and terrified of the fish that they (I mean Daddy) caught. We need to take more opportunities like this to toughen her up. :)

After Molly's nap yesterday, I left her alone with Stephen for a few moments and came back to find Stephen looking like this. His eyes tell it all. I was not too thrilled with her seeing as she came VERY CLOSE to his eyes with the pen. I'm afraid this won't be the last time he is her victim.

Here are a few goals we are working on in therapy:
~ understanding here vs. there (she is finally using them)
~ Molly is asking questions. She asks "what is that?" (sounds like "wa sat") and "where?". She will ask me "wa sat" when she wants to know a certain person’s name. We are working on "who is that?". :)
~ working on he/she. I think she is starting to understand this concept. Working on me/you. Not getting it yet.
~ understanding "what is he doing?".....she is using some "ing" words and I think understands this question.
~ understanding 1 vs 2. She can count, but she does not completely understand what the numbers mean.
~ understanding a possessive + noun (ex. Can you hand me daddy’s spoon?)
~ understanding behind, in front, on top, beside, under

Yeah--a video!!! Now you can finally hear Molly vocalize. This should give you a good idea of how well she is forming words. She can't quite say a few letters/sounds. This could possibly be developmental or because she is not hearing the sounds.

Hearing Aids on Stephen????
Yes, it wasn’t exactly the news we wanted to hear AGAIN. After Stephen was born we were quite anxious to have the nurses do the new born hearing screen. They were having some trouble with the OAE testing equipment that day, so they decided to test him the next morning. He actually passed the test and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We set up an appointment to have our audiologist do an ABR test on Stephen, whether he passed his OAE or not. We knew that he had a 25% chance of being deaf if what Molly has is genetically related. We never did do the blood test, but we were pretty sure it was genetic. So we were optimistic that he would pass his ABR, seeing as he passed his OAE (Molly failed her OAE). Unfortunately, our Audiologist was not able to get a response from the hearing nerve pathways. She said that he most likely has what is called Auditory Neuropathy. In my understanding, this diagnosis is given when there is hair cell activity present in the cochlea (which the OAE shows), but no neural components of the ABR are present. AN seems to be quite rare in congenital hearing loss. AN patients could have hearing loss ranging from moderate to severe. There is an outside chance that he could get by with just hearing aids. Our plan is to monitor Stephen with hearing aids for the next 7 months. If we see that he is not hearing enough for speech/language, we will move ahead with the Cochlear Implant when he is 10 mos old.
We take great comfort in knowing God’s purposes in all of this are right and good. Molly’s progress has given us much hope for Stephen’s future in the hearing world.

Long time no blog....... I have so much to tell. Where do I begin??? I will start with Molly and give you the news on Stephen later.

I would never have described Molly as "sweet" before baby Stephen came along, but she has proven to us that she does have a tender side. She really does adore him and wants to be mummy’s little helper, particularly with diaper changes and bath time. She looks for him when she wakes up in the morning and after nap. She is quite concerned when he cries (she calls it "cwyin"). She always wants him next to her when she is sitting. She pats the floor and says "sit down here baby" (how’s that for a four-word sentence). When Stephen was a couple days old, Molly noticed his umbilical cord and said a three-word sentence, "oooh dirty cut". Since Stephen’s birth, Molly has had somewhat of a speech/language explosion. Could be because the daily focus has been taken off of her — not the center of attention. She loves to say the full alphabet over and over in speech babble. She is identifying most colors and shapes by name. In the last two weeks she has decided to care more about numbers. She likes to combine them with the alphabet ("1-2-3-4-i-j-k"). Just a bunch of sounds to her at this point. A couple days ago, I noticed that Molly was counting Stephen’s fingers aloud. Pretty cool.

Molly announces the arrival of her baby brother, Stephen Michael. Stephen was born on Tuesday November 20th. Molly is very proud to be the big sister. She adores him!

Could this be another reason why we are saving Molly's second ear for new technology??? Check out this new research on how to simulate hearing via infrared laser radiation. Will be pretty wild to see what's next.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/19206/page1/

It has been a fall of celebrations! Molly turned TWO in early September and last Friday marked a year of being implanted. I’m not exactly sure where this year went. We must have been on over-drive with all the changes that were taking place in Molly’s life. She is now such a big girl and full of life. Busy, Busy, Busy and into everything like a normal 2 yr old. Plus she continues to test us each day with her strong will.

Molly has finally realized that it is far more exciting to have mom/dad read to her than to sit and look at books alone. This is a good thing for me now that I am in my 8th month of pregnancy. I know that reading will help expand her auditory memory.

She has recently been very interested in colors, shapes, letters and numbers. Seems age appropriate, huh? She can say yellow, green and pink (not perfectly) and has a sound (not quite identifiable) for most of the other colors. We were taking Molly up to bed the other night and I was saying "A B C D" and Molly followed by saying "E F G". We were both stunned! Guess we don’t realize all that she is taking in and remembering. Repetition is paying off!

New phase in Molly's world:
~She has finally decided to say " yeah" as her answer to all of our yes/no questions. Seems hypocritical to correct her with a "yes" when we find ourselves saying "yeah" all the time.
~When we ask her "what does a cow (or any animal) say?", she immediately responds with the appropriate animal noise. Great way to get her to talk in public.
~Molly jabbers on and on to herself, to her toys and to us (with all kinds of hand movements and facial expressions). Makes perfect sense to her, but we can barely make out any of the words. Seems like a great foundation to building sentences.

Last week I met a mom with a one year old recently diagnosed with deafness . We were in the audiology waiting room and they were waiting to have him fitted with hearing aids. I was reminded of the constant battle of trying to keep the aids in Molly's ears, not to mention a gentle dose of her prior screaming. I dug up this video clip of Molly at 7 months. This is for you Jennifer!!! :)

Well, it’s about time I give an update to the few of you who are still checking on this blog.
I must say that Molly has come a long way in these last 3 months of not posting. We were struggling for months to get Molly to do what her speech therapist wanted her to do at home. We focused so hard on getting Molly to be attentive and listen during home therapy. I guess we began to wonder if Molly was getting enough input in her "ear" or if it was just her strong will. She does choose to do things on HER TIME. Finally, Molly had a mapping session in early May and her audiologist upped her levels significantly. This has made all the difference in the world for her. She has grown by leaps and bounds in expressive and receptive language since then.

Molly will directly imitate vowel and consonant sounds, as well as combination sounds. She has recently imitated the letters "T", "S", "P" and "K". She may not have heard these sounds prior to the mapping. Molly is now saying 7 full words and over 75 sounds/sound combinations for specific words. Her receptive language is obviously greater than this. She will respond accordingly to many commands, without visuals (from up close to across the room). Go upstairs, sit down, brush your teeth, sit on the potty, stop, throw the ball, jump, dance, pick that up, throw it in the trash, etc.... It has been a tremendous encouragement to us to see such progress. Reminds us of how blessed Molly is to have the opportunity to hear. We praise God!

Most mornings after breakfast we do what I call organized therapy in Molly’s "listening chair". When I put her in the booster seat at the table, Molly knows that she has to listen. Some days I get 5-10 minutes out of her. I don’t push it! Each week we have a lesson to follow from her speech therapist . Sometimes it is accomplished in the chair, but most of the time it is done while she is playing.
There are some kiddos who react to sound quickly. Molly is not always like this. Which makes me wonder often if her device is working properly. We are realizing that Molly is more of a "thinker". She is always busy doing many things and looks like she is not listening, but she will respond appropriately in her time. Seems really silly that we are figuring out her "learning style" at 18 mos. Guess a lot of this seems silly to all of you who are reading this!
As far as receptive/expressive language.... Molly says Hi to everyone and everything. She can identify the nose, eyes and ears on people, animals, toys, etc... She says "oh" for nose, "eyeeeee" for eye, and "eeah" for ear. She is saying "aaa eee" for Daddy and "ma eee" for Molly. Right now she seems to be obsessed with birds, which she calls "er". We bird watch out the back window each day.

Molly's cousin from Texas came to visit this past week. As seen in the photo above, the girls are bundled up for a cold day at the park.

Where do I even begin??? It is so exciting to look back over these last three months of activation and see results. Kids are little sponges. They absorb more than we think they do. With an implanted kid, you have no idea what sounds they are taking in until they spit them out.
Last night I wrote down all the sounds/words that Molly understands or at least seems to understand. To my surprise I came up with about 25. She is saying 15+ sounds for specific words. It has been so cool to see Molly’s unbelievable desire to communicate.

She is quite obsessed with "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". If I start to sing the song, without visuals, she will do most of the motions. On occasion, I find her in her highchair or carseat doing the motions and "singing" along. You know, I was singing this to her ad nauseam for the first 2 months and she showed zero interest. I took her to storytime at the library and she saw the librarian and kids singing/doing the motions and she decided it was pretty cool. Go figure!

Here is a picture of our little singer in her rocking chair.