Patrick is born

This month was crazy. I started work, met my colleagues and had a healthy baby boy.

 The repeat c-section was scheduled September 16th, and it went very very well. Patrick was born, big, healthy and strong. He a little bit of jaundice when he was born, but it resolved on it's own. He did not pass his newborn hearing screening, three separate times. I told myself not to worry too much about it as children born by C-section often have fluid in their ears left over than babies who are born vaginally. I still cried a bit when they did it the third time and got the same results, but was able to get it together again, and just say I'll take it one step at a time. I also told myself that at least I was somewhat prepared to possibly receive this kind of news. The girl who broke the news to us just did not do it very well, and I really hope she builds up her bedside manner FAST.

 My recovery went quite well. My mother-in-law, Dale, was here before and after the birth to help. She was a HUGE help what with Bryan needing to work and go to school still, and KB still being at daycare and home. I'm not sure how we would've survived without her! It was weird to not have my own mother there,or any of my own personal relatives for that matter, but I knew my parents would be able to come out sometime soon. I was able to go home a day earlier than planned.

The rest of the month had a lot of doctor appointments because Patrick was not gaining the weight he was supposed to do. This caused a lot of tears and stress for me, as I wanted to be able to get things right before I went back to work. I then got mastitis for the first time in my life. Something I hope to never have again. It was horrible and awful, and I don't think I have EVER felt so sick in my life. Once again, Dale was around for this and was a huge help in getting me to the emergency room in the middle of the night when I just couldn't handle it anymore. Below are pictures from Patrick's birthday, first bath and other fun things. :)
 

 And we can't forget about big brother KB:

 

Life update

So I got my CI update taken care of, now I can do an update on my little family before we become a family of four. This is a very short summary, a lot has happened :)

Back in January we found out I was pregnant, due September 23rd.
Fast forward to March, Bryan got accepted to a few universities for his Master's. He ended up choosing Georgetown in Washington D.C.

In May, Bryan moved out to Alexandria and stayed with some very dear friends (Chance and Jenny) while looking for a job to help prepare for all of us to be out there, while I stayed in Midvale to finish my contract for my job, and K.B. stayed with me. We did skype with Bryan every night, except for one or two nights, but those were taken care of with phone calls.

In June, I interviewed for an early intervention job in Fairfax County that would allow me to do basically what I was alerady doing, but with Listening and Spoken Language, Cued Speech and American Sign Language. I was offered the position and accepted it a week after the interview. We had a job with insurance lined up :) Bryan continued to look for work and a place for us to live.

In the middle of June, our Midvale lease was up, so I packed up all of our stuff, with the help of Kayla, an old college friend who did the entire kitchen (thank heavens, because I HATE packing the kitchen!), and Scott and Hannah who helped with some last things on the day of getting everything into storage. Since Bryan wasn't around to help load everything into a U-haul and unload it into storage, I wasn't sure how it would work out. It worked out perfectly. My Dad, brother-in-law, sister and 7 other guys from our church helped load and unload everything. My neighbor watched K.B. while this was happening, so it really made a HUGE difference in how things went. Since everything was pretty much packed, the men were able to load everything into the U-haul and my dad's truck, then some guys went home, but the rest went over to the storage (1 mile away), and unloaded everything into a 10x20 apartment. This was not easy, as it was for a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment. I will forever be grateful for all the work they did. It all fit! I then took the few things K.B. and I needed for the next few months (clothes and some books) and we moved to my parent's house.

In July, Bryan accepted a job at the Brazilian Embassay as a translator, which also has insurance, which we did not have to pay a premium for, so we are going with his insurance. We are both very fortunate in what we've been able to find out here, and in time for us to get going with our jobs.

Bryan flew back to Utah the first week of August, was there for two days, and then we headed on our road trip from Utah to Virginia with Bryan, K.B., pregnant me and our cat. Along the way we got to see Martin's Cove, Mount Rushmore, the Ingalls' homestead (Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie), Nauvoo, Kirtland, my brother Michael and his wife in Pittsburgh, and arrived in Virginia. This took from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon. When we got to VA on Friday, we went straight to my new doctor's office to try and get things taken care of so I could get in immediately, went over and signed the lease to our apartment, then crashed at Chance and Jenny's place (again, very grateful for such good friends). Saturday, we moved into our place, but it didn't take much because we only had basically our clothes and a few necessities.

We have since borrowed camping chairs (one of which I broke :(), two air mattresses, blankets, and towels. We have cheap dollar store dishes, paper plates and plastic utensils. We definitely miss our furniture, but are grateful to have even the above things to last us until we have our own things.

Bryan started at his new job last week on Monday, 2 1/2 days after got into VA. I started orientation for my new job this past Monday, and K.B. has started daycare at a place that I have been very pleased with so far. He loves it, and they just have so many fun things for him to do that he's exhausted when he goes to bed, which is what I want :)

Our stuff just got moved from storage into a trailer today, and we will hopefully have our stuff by the end of next week. I am very very excited about that.

Bryan starts school on Monday, and my contract starts on Monday as well for my job, so I'll really be working next week.

The baby's due date is September 23rd, and we have scheduled the C-section (for health reasons) for September 16th. Basically, I'll have only worked for three weeks before taking about the same amount of time off to have our baby boy and recover. I feel awful, but it's not something that could be changed :)

As you can see, our life has been crazy. Since getting here, we've started jobs, K.B. started "school", we've been through an earthquake, we're possibly going through a hurricane, I've gotten pulled over (no ticket though, it was an honest mistake and the police officer was very kind), our GPS has broken and we got a new one, I've had a heck of a time finding things that we need that aren't where I thought they would be in stores, etc. Life has been stressful, but quite an adventure and hopefully things get better/easier from here on out :)

I miss my families that I worked with in Utah like crazy, and think of them often. I look forward to working with families again, and adding to our own family.


Yes, this was a long post, but I did warn you a lot happened, and that really is a summary of everything that's gone on this past year :)

CI update a year later

So...I haven't updated anything about CIs since November. Been a little crazy, mostly work kept me busy along with my son.

My year anniversary of the surgery was in July, and it was the year anniversary of when I got my implants activated yesterday. A LOT has improved since then, and more work still needs to be done.

A year a go, All i could hear was squeaking. Imagine that. So weird to me that this had even happened, everything is a blur from that month, so I'm glad I recorded it all.

At my last testing, I was able to do word discrimination with 95% with my implants with no background noise, 93% with some background noise, and 87% with lots of background noise. The scores were even better with sentences. So I know I have made a lot of improvements. I had my last mapping six months ago, and it's time for another one, but I'm going to wait until I have this baby before that happens, because I just need some time to get used to Virginia, my job, and having another son.

I can now understand my husband from the other room sometimes, and can get most of it when I'm not utterly tired. I am also able to understand my son a lot more now. While part of it is due to his development of speech, a lot of also has to do with ability to hear if he's saying a specific sound or not. I can definitely handle conversations better, and I found myself actually being able to follow conversations in a very noisy cafeteria during my orientation for work this week, that was fun to see.

I can use the bluetooth in the car for the phone quite well since I can turn it up a lot, and it allows me to use both ears. When I'm using the speaker on my cell phone, it's not as successful but I can get by. I still struggle to actually use the cell phone without the speaker, but it is something I need to work on, and admittedly haven't given any practice time to it. That is my own fault.

I also have had the chance to go swimming in the pool a few times with my son. I cannot tell you how bizarre it is to actually be able to hear people, and the water when swimming! This implants are water resistant to an extent, and I have had no problems so far being able to splash around with my son. I have NOT completely submerged them in water, as I just don't want to take that risk. I do like having the freedom of being able to hear in the pool though.

I hate cicadas. I still have to learn to tune things out, and the cicadas chirping here ALL. DAY. LONG. really annoy me. HOPEFULLY I can learn to tune them out soon.

So in summary, would I do this surgery over again? You bet I would. It is so worth it. Would I change anything? Yeah, I would change how much time I devote to my own personal therapy and practice, I definitely need to do more of that.

Time flies - A picture journal of what we've been up to

So, obviously I've been busy or else I'd be spending my time updating this...it is my first priority obviously....:)
I'll come to a CI post soon, instead, you're just gonna have to look at my cheesy kid. :)

Dinosaur for Halloween:

From October 2010

Classic Cheese face:

From October 2010

First time actually PLAYING in the snow:

From October 2010

Just an awesome shot :)

From October 2010

Our little turtle at the zoo

From October 2010

Again, the cheese face:

From October 2010

His most favorite thing at the zoo:

From October 2010

Playing in the moving boxes (yeah, we moved, two weeks ago)

From October 2010

Probably the only picture where you actually see his real eye color. Everyone argues over what color they are :)

From October 2010

So in summary: We went to the zoo a bunch, Wheeler Farm (those pics are on our phones) a bunch, Discovery gateway (pics are also on the phones) a bunch, moved, had Halloween, and I've been working. A lot.

I blame work

Work is keeping me busy, you'd think it'd be making me actually work or something :)

I can't do a whole lot of details, because I didn't write down thoughts when new things happened, which means I can't remember them anymore. So here are the basics:

Before my new mapping this past Wednesday:
I had no chance in heck figuring out what people were saying if I couldn't read their lips.
Everyone still sounded like they had colds.
I was starting to identify songs mostly by the beat of the songs (from a limited set of 170 songs on my ipod that I was familiar with).
I definitely could not discriminate mm and oo (food)

Mapping on Wednesday:
I hate having to try and count the soft beeps. It's so freaking hard, and I doubt myself A LOT. It's the part that tires me out more than anything else.
I got two new programs to focus on, and they are pretty similar, but I'm to go back and forth in between them to see which one I like better so we can do some more fine tuning on the 24th, at which point we will also do a sound booth testing to test the functional part of my hearing.
I have a preference for program 2 so far, but I've asked Bryan to pay attention to see if one is better than the other. Thus far, he's only really seen me on program 1, as my remote died and I had to charge it, and I hate messing with the buttons on the implants themselves.
Voices are MUCH better. No one sounds like they have colds anymore. I could discriminate male and female before, however, I can now discriminate a male from a male (I can tell they are two different people).
No one sounds like they have colds anymore. Awesome.
It is SO much easier to listen to kids now, there is no longer a screeching sound going on.
My last therapy session, I had to figuring out what the therapist was saying with the topic of dinner. I missed a couple of words (chimichanga is the one I'm remembering that I missed), however I did catch Lemon Pie Sundae (completely random), so that's good.
I find myself understanding people when I'm not looking at them from time to time, I still need visuals though to help with the majority of the time.
Things are still "loud". The clock bugs me now, it's no longer cool haha. However, the loud sounds are getting easier to "tolerate".
I haven't done much of my own therapy at home, I've been exhausted after work almost everyday, and just want to collapse (it's not the families exhausting me, it's the catching up to e-mails and paperwork that's exhausting me). And when I get home, I just need time to wind down, eat dinner with my family, spend time with my son, get him ready and into bed, and then...well I'm so tired I want to go to bed by that point.
I have been notching sounds are clearer though, that's a huge pro for me.
Oh yeah, today we used the blue tooth connection in our car to call my mom. She wasn't home, so my dad answered. I've always had trouble understanding him. I was able to understand everything he said with the exception of "Texas", so that was a nice thing :) No way I would've understood that two weeks ago when I first got the implants activated. Makes me realize more and more just how important some changes in a map can be.

I'll try to be more consistent, but like I said in the header of my blog, I make no promises :)

More training

So, here are the basic notes of what I'm finding through my training with the CD they gave me.

Pure tone test - Training 1: 100% 3 tones, 2 same, 1 different, choose the different.
Male vs. Female Training 1: 100% 3 samples, 2 same, 1 different, choose the different. (simply male v. female)
Vowel Discrminiation Training 2 step 1: 85% two words, minimal pairs, differ only in the vowel. The following are the common vowels I would confuse: eh v. uh, oo (book) v. er, ah v. uh, rat v. rot
Consonant discrimination Training 2 step 1: 96% Two words, minimal pairs, differ only in one consonant. k v. p was wrong every time I tried it.
Words: Animal: 100%
Everyday sentences: level 1: 100%
Music Appreciation: 82% Instruments: one sound, four choices, Trumpet sounds AWFUL, piano almost sometimes feels like it's cancelled out, and it's an absence of noise and absence is only in the right ear. violin and trumpet confused once, Clarinet does not sound like a clarinet, but a flute sounds like a clarinet to me, cello and piano and french horn confused
Music Appreciation: Melody: 81.3%
Amazing Grace, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Beethoven Fifth, Rock a bye baby
Confused: Amazing grace and beethoven Fifth, didn't do preview, but after hearing them after I got it wrong, I should NOT have gotten it wrong. Happy Birthday and Baa Baa Black Sheep: Happy birthday so does not sound like what I thought it would sound like. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Pop Goes the Weasel, again, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star did not sound like what I was expecting it to sound like.

End of August already?

I cannot believe tomorrow is September. The time has *flown* this past month and a half since my surgery.
I officially started back at work yesterday full time, despite the fact that I was working through my vacation :) And it has been somewhat tiring, but encouraging at the same time. I've had interpreters reserved this week for work, but I'm finding more and more that I do not need them for the most part, and am functioning much like I was before I had the surgery and was wearing hearing aids. So that's good news in terms of more work/paperwork/reservation/people in a home.
I'ms tarting to actually recognize the songs even faster when they come on in the car, as long as they are from the list on my ipod (approximately 160 songs), so I consider that a good sign. I'm also finding that I'ms tarting to tell the difference between vowels and can recognize a couple of them sometimes. I'm also recognizing words, common words, that are used in my home. Still takes some work though.
The biggest thing I've been noticing since I've been at work this week. The adults sound like they have colds still, but children are just an entirely different sound pitch/level. They sound much higher, and louder, than adults.

Outside of that, nothing else has really changed. I'm now on volume 7 on program 2, so within the next two or three days, I'll be on program 3. I am now about to go practice listening using my rehabilitation CD, and hope I don't fall asleep doing it from exhaustion! :)