Right Decision

For those of you who know how much I agonized over the choice of giving Mikaela a CI or raising her culturally Deaf, it was not a pleasant time. I never want Mikaela to feel as if I don't honor her deafness. I do. Ultimately what lead to the decision to implant, for us, was we want her to have all options open to her. Hopefully, the majority of the Deaf community will welcome her anyway. It is my understanding, for example, at this time at Galludet, that close to 50% of students do have a CI. So maybe they are accepted or maybe there is a community within a community.

Anyway, at this time, I feel we made the right choice for Mikaela and our family. Every morning and after nap time, when I put her processor on, she lights up. HUGE smile and a little wiggle/dance thing! She really seems to enjoy listening and wants to be engaged in everything around her. She is much more vocal when wearing than not. Like I said in the previous post her receptive and expressive is really amazing for only be activated two months. I wasn't expecting much for the first 4 months or so, but I am thrilled to see her comprehend more each week.

She loves to laugh when she hears us laugh. She imitates so many things we say it cracks me up. Of course, she only imitates duration at this time, but if you are paying attention, she does it for a lot of what I say!!

Her newest sound is 'o'. She often says Uh, Oh when she throws her water off her high chair - or anything for that matter. She also says Oww, like in meow when we see the cat. So those are completely new for her. With her hearing aids, she only had Ah and MMM, or more like NNNG for sounds.

She turns to her name pretty consistently now. She loves to listen to her sister sing and do silly faces with funny noises. It amazes me to see her play with toys that make noise. She loves the refrigerator phonics that we had for Juliana. She plays the ABC song and starts to dance! She has a baby that plays lullabies and she likes it now. Before it as just a plain baby that she would throw to the side. She is beginning to turn to Daddy when he talks, Juliana when she talks and me when I talk. So she may be beginning to have some discrimination.

Most importantly, SHE loves to hear. She loves to be a part of every conversation and her total environment. I am finally convinced that we made the right decision for Mikaela. It is quite a joyous relief!!!