Activation!

Emmalyn's 1st activation appointment was today and it went much better than expected! They were able to activate 8 electrodes which is exactly what we hoped for! She seemed to tolerate it well and even responded to "ah" and "ba-ba-ba" which she has never done on that side before. It will definitely be a long road and it may continue to be challenging because of her ossification, but we are excited to get the process started! We took a great video, but the file is really large, so we need to edit it before trying to upload. Hope to get that up soon.

In other news, it looks like Emmalyn will be having her second CI surgery pretty soon. We did another test on her left ear today and her hearing has continued to decline in that ear. We are a little concerned that she is losing the hearing she has because that ear is also ossifying, so we want to get the implant in as soon as possible.

1st CI Surgery

Emmalyn had her first cochlear implant surgery on December 14th. Before surgery she was pretty happy hanging out in the waiting room with Mom and Dad.

Then we headed back to the surgery prep room and she started to get hungry after many hours of no eating. The sweet nurses tried to distract her with a ride around the halls.

One last pic with mom before heading back to surgery.

Emmalyn did OK during surgery, but there were some unexpected complications. The surgeon discovered that her cochlea had ossified, which basically means it was becoming solid bone growth. This made it difficult to place the internal portion of the implant. Until her activation date, we won't really know how many electrodes we will be able to activate. We are hoping for at least 8. Ossification is something that is normally seen in children after they have experienced hearing loss caused by meningitis. Emmalyn has never had meningitis, so the ossification was very unusual and unexpected. After surgery they kept her in recovery for a while and then we were finally released to go home. Sweet baby did not feel very well and was still very drowsy from anesthesia and pain medication.

Once we got home, we settled in on the couch and stayed there for pretty much the next 24 hours. 

But by the next afternoon, Emmalyn was definitely feeling like herself again but was about tired of that silly hat.

8 months

7 months

Six months!!

Trust God With the Impossible

As a mother, my job is to take care of the possible and trust God with the impossible. ~ Ruth Bell Graham

Wow! How true is that statement? There are so many things we do each day as parents. We make sure to feed and bathe our children. We provide them with shelter and love. We help them with their homework and encourage them when they are having a bad day. We clean the house, do the dishes and the laundry, take care of the pets, pay the bills, get the oil changed in the car, and the list goes on and on.

I don’t know about you, but my list also includes worrying about things I can’t control. As a mom, I think that usually comes with the territory. My youngest daughter, Emmalyn, will soon be 5 months old. The day after she was born, testing showed that she has profound hearing loss. There were so many times in those first weeks when we were following through with more testing to confirm her diagnosis that I wondered what could have caused it and what we could do to fix it.

As her diagnosis was confirmed, my husband and I came to realize that while this isn’t something we would choose for our daughter, her hearing loss is not life threatening. There are treatment options available for her. Now, at almost 5 months of age, she is already wearing hearing aids and is in therapy. Doctors tell us that she should progress at a normal rate of development because her hearing loss was found at such an early age.

We are blessed. And more than that, we realize that God knew everything about our sweet Emmalyn long before we did. We are learning to give our fears and worry up to Him.

Our oldest daughter, Lilliana, is 4 years old. For the first time this week, she asked me, “Mom, why can’t Emmalyn hear?” and I told her, “That’s the way God made Emmalyn.” Her response? “Mom, I’m going to pray and ask Jesus to let Emmalyn hear.” Her faith blows me away. As parents we need to remember that our God can do anything He wants to do. We need to trust Him and let Him take care of those things we think are impossible.

 This post originally appeared on the ParentLife blog.

Photo by Melanie McGaughey

5 months