13 Years, 3 Monther, Early Intervention, Etc.

Jason and I were married 13 years ago today. I can hardly believe it's been that long. I still remember that cold January evening when I walked down the aisle to the man I was totally in love with. I don't think I've ever been calmer or more peaceful than on that day. I also still remember the excitement I felt when we drove away from the reception in my '97 Honda Accord as Mr. and Mrs. Jason Exum. It was SO MUCH FUN!!!

Now, 13 years later, I'm lying in bed past midnight typing a blog post for our blog that I've been desperately trying to update over the past two months. I've been in bed for three hours reading about cochlear implants and connexin 26 and the anatomy and physiology of the ear because our baby girl Elizabeth was born profoundly deaf. I've been reading rather than spending time with my man because our children were particularly needy for their parents tonight and needed us to lie with them while they fought their sleep. Jason had to work all weekend, but we were able to slip away on Saturday evening for four hours while Jackson and Allison stayed with a babysitter for the first time since we moved to Utah. Jason and I went to an awards banquet (with Elizabeth in tow) dressed up as Toby Mac and Pat Benatar. We were supposed to dress up as some kind of rock star and it was a lot of fun. Today, we had our first home visit with the Parent Infant Program (PIP) and talked at length with our Early Intervention Therapist. Jason said, "That was a great anniversary present" because he got so many of our questions answered about the baby girl who we love so much. But even with PIP appointment, laundry overflowing from a toddler who changes clothes six times per day, snow to shovel, work to do, Transformers to search for online with an excited 5 year old, dishes to wash because our dishwasher has been broken for two weeks, etc., Jason still made time to have flowers delivered to the house (they arrived while I was shoveling snow) and to sneak away and get me the most amazing anniversary card and a pair of diamond and garnet (January's birthstone) earrings. The earrings are beautiful and the card was one of the best he's ever given me. He wrote me a long letter inside the card, and in one part he said, "I know our life is a little unorganized at times, but I see that as a part of our lives, and a beautiful part of our lives, because it shows how much we love and care for each other and our willingness to give up our desires and needs for each other and our kids." He's brilliant! I love the way he can take something that I view as a negative - the craziness and seemingly disorganization of our life - and look at it from a totally different and wonderful perspective. I told him that I will need to leave his card out so that I can read it often and be reminded. I am so blessed to be married to him!! We've had 13 fantastic years. I could not have asked for a better partnership in life and I'm looking forward to the years to come.

Today, we also celebrated 3 months of enjoying our Lizzie Mae.

She is absolutely precious and we are all so in love with her. The minute she makes a peep in her sleep, Jackson and Allison are eager to run check on her. Once she is awake, they can't seem to hug and kiss and touch her enough. For the most part, she loves it, but she can get a little overstimulated with too much touch, especially from her big sister who loves to pat and rub and squeeze and kiss. She is a FANTASTIC baby. Seriously. Fantastic. She is calm, laid back and happy, and she has the sweetest smile.

She sleeps wonderfully, which is something my first two did not prepare me for. It's been a huge blessing! She engages in conversations with us, which is extremely exciting considering she can't hear. The best time to talk to her is when she is lying on her back. She LOVES to lie on her back and look around. Most of our conversations occur when we're changing her diaper. She loves the area where we change her diapers on our bathroom counter. She will also talk to herself in the mirror that hangs above her on her play mat while she grabs her toys. She grabbed her first toy on 27 December.

Even though she's our third baby, firsts are still so exciting. We were all shouting, "Yay Lizzie!" She rolled from her tummy to her back for the first time on the day she turned five weeks old. We had just arrived at Jason's mom's house for our Thanksgiving trip to Houston and I had put her to sleep in the pack 'n play. I thought it was a fluke and that maybe I'd laid her partially on her side, but she did it a couple more times that week. We also discovered her intense love for swinging while we were in Houston. Sometimes, swinging is the only thing that will calm her down; although, she doesn't cry very often...at least not anymore. She cried a lot from weeks 2-8, but now she's generally calm and content. She loves to take baths. I just fill the bathtub a few inches high with water and lay her in it. She smiles and kicks constantly. I don't bathe her often because for every diaper change, I wash her bottom in the sink and use a warm washcloth to wipe between her neck rolls that are forever getting spit up in them. She's a spitter. It doesn't bother her at all. It just a laundry issue. I finally started putting her in a bib 24/7. She goes through bibs a lot like Allison goes through panties. Just to give you an idea, I did laundry today and folded 3 pairs of underwear for Jackson, 22 pairs for Allison, and 14 bibs for Elizabeth.

She's been in hearing aids since 22 November when she was 6 weeks old. I just realized that I never updated our blog since my first trip to OKC for her second ABR test. There was never time to update my blog, so I put all of my updates on Facebook. I really want to go back and document the journey because I don't want to forget all that we've been through the past seven weeks. It's really amazing because even though I think about her hearing loss many times throughout the day, it now just seems a part of life. And I think that I think about it as often as I do because I just don't know that she can hear. I put her hearing aids on her when she wakes in the morning and then I don't take them off until she goes to bed at night.

They stay on all day long because: 1. She's not old enough to realize that she has ears as permanent fixtures on her head that she can pull and grab whenever she wishes. 2. I use toupee tape to hold them to her head. It works wonderfully!

I have no idea if she's hearing anything with them. It's really hard to tell at this age. I keep the hearing aids on her as much as possible because I know that if she is hearing even a few sounds, then the stimulation to her auditory nerve and brain is very beneficial. I personally don't think she's hearing with them. I have never seen her startle to sound. Allison can be screaming to the top of her lungs right next to Elizabeth and she doesn't even twitch. I can be holding her and turning on all kinds of loud appliances and she acts as though nothing happened. When I sit her on my legs and talk to her, she will look at my face for a second, but then she looks away and is very interested in all that she can see around her, even if I am talking with a lot of expression and excitement in my voice. The best time to talk to her is when she is reclining on my legs or lying on her back. That is when we maintain the best eye contact. I have started using baby sign language with her. I think it will be very beneficial if she is able to get cochlear implants because it will help us communicate when she can't have them on (when bathing or swimming) or during the month between surgery and activation. I used baby signs with Jackson and Allison and it was very helpful because all kids, hearing and non-hearing, can speak with their hands before they can articulate and speak with their mouths. I know that Elizabeth already understands some of the signs because she smiles so big when I sign Mommy or Daddy. It's awesome!

Today, the Early Intervention Therapist from Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind came to our home to start the process for developing Elizabeth's Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP). I remember learning about all of these early intervention programs when I was in college studying science education and taking a class called Educating Students with Exceptionalities. I had no idea that five years later I would have someone in my home writing up an IFSP for my daughter. We just never think these things will happen to us, do we? The meeting was wonderful. We didn't get to start her IFSP because the nurse who does the initial evaluation was from the wrong county. We did get to talk at length with our therapist and we loved her. She answered so many of our questions about cochlear implants and what will happen in the future. Jason came home early so that he could be at the meeting. I love having him be a part of everything. I was so glad that he was able to be there because he got a lot of questions answered that made him feel a lot better about Lizzie's future. Questions like: Will she be able to talk on the phone and hear well? Yes. Will she be able to differentiate voices? Yes. Will she be able to tell the difference between a main speaker and side conversations that might be occurring? Yes. Will she be able to speak normally? Most likely, yes. It was an exciting meeting for all of us. And right after the meeting, we scheduled an appointment with the implant surgeon for 8 May. That's the day we should find out if and when Elizabeth can have her cochlear implant surgery. When we were talking about the blessings of each year of our marriage, we have already planned that the best of 2012 will be when Elizabeth hears for the first time. We can hardly wait!!