Hearing Aides

So, to continue on my catching upness. (No, upness isn't a word) Claire went in to her school, Central Institute for the Deaf, on March 16 and received some loaner hearing aides. They set the aides to a fairly low setting just to test things out.

First day of hearing aides

Claire had previously been tested at her school several weeks before and the staff concluded that on that day Claire only had minor to moderate hearing loss. Which was different to the previous diagnosis of moderate to severe hearing loss. Now, this news may or may not mean anything, but it is a glimmer of hope that Claire won't have to work so hard to be able to speak clearly. The reason why is that she is diagnosed as having Auditory Neuropathy. This broadly means that the nerves that connect her ears to her brain don't fire correctly. Sometimes they can fire extremely well, other times not at all, and anything in between. So, with all the knowledge of her condition, the second diagnoses may have been on a good hearing day.

During the first few days that she had her hearing aides, Claire was a huge crab. I wasn't sure if it was due to teething, or if it was the hearing aides. I talked with Claire's Speech Therapist, also a Claire, and she said to limit the hearing aides to a few hours a day. She also arranged to pick the hearing aides up that Sunday on her way home from her church, so that they could set them to an ever lower setting. Adult Claire thought that maybe with being able to hear so well, when Claire was unable to for so long, it was overwhelming for her brain.

The rest of that first week was pretty rough. I got some sort of extremely horrible flu for a day and a half, and Claire got sick shortly after for about three days. Yeah, that didn't help her crabbiness either. I got sick on a Wednesday night and was up throughout the whole night, sicking it up. Oh man, to my recollection, I've only been that sick once before and that was when I spent the night at Utah State with my friends from high school during conference weekend. I spent the night sleeping on the ground in the dorm hallway. Fortunately for me this time Sean, my sweets, stayed home from work on Thursday to take care of us. This was despite the fact that he went in the hole for time off.

Back to hearing aides. Adult Claire brought the hearing aides back to us the next day when she came over for weekly Speech Therapy. Since then, chubby cheeks Claire has been fairly content. To us the hearing aides seem to be working and help with picking up sounds that she may not have heard before. The thing is though, that deep down, Sean and I wish/feel like Claire doesn't have a hearing problem. It's just so hard to tell either way if an infant can hear. I'll be saying her name and she doesn't look up, and I wonder if it's because she's ignoring me. We still feel like things are up in the air with nailing down how well she is hearing. I'm thinking about calling up a different Audiologist to get a third, but extensive opinion.

Random pics.

Claire earning her keep.
Claire wanted to be held and I needed to dust. So, I combined the two.
Claire kept grabbing at the duster so I just let her have it. She did a great job dusting. With a little guidance.

My brother and sister-in-law, Court and Kari, gave this little piano a while back and Claire loves to play on it now.
Very surprising because the first time I turned it on when she was about two months old, she cried.

Fin.

Champaign

I'm trying to play catch up with blogging, and I should have posted this weeks ago. Oh well.

Three weeks ago all three of us were able to visit our old city Champaign, Il. Sean's was asked by his firm to represent them at the U of I Architectural career fair. We were there from late Wednesday night to mid-day Friday.

We stayed at the I hotel, which is a new addition to the campus. It is a pretty fancy/modern hotel. We were fairly happy with the accommodations. The staff at the front desk when we checked in wasn't too helpful. I felt like they should have at least opened the door for Sean when he was trying for a little bit to push the luggage cart out the door. Some of the decor was dizzying, like the carpet in the hallways. Looking down the hallways made me imagine a little "redrumming" boy on a trike.

Ahhhhh!

We all slept very well throughout our stay. Claire's pack 'n play just barely fit in the bathroom, so her strict baby sleep schedule was left intact. I personally believe I'm a Nazi of sorts with her "sleep schedule." But, she is very consistent with sleep and goes down very easily. We haven't really had to try and let her cry it out.

We felt kind of guilty for our midnight bathroom breaks.

Claire chilling out on the bed with her bird toy.

Thursday was a very busy day for Sean. He didn't get to sit for about six hours and missed lunch, because they were so busy. I was able to go to a baby shower for a friend in the old ward and I got to see a lot of great friends. I really enjoyed that visit, and I wish we could have been there a little longer to see some more friends.



Friday was a lot less hectic for Sean, and there was a good theory as to why. It was "unofficial" day in Champaign. Every year on the first Friday in March, there is a horrible tradition among students at the U of I to celebrate St. Patrick's day twice. Unofficial is the worst of the two. Students dress up in green and get plastered all day long. There are usually a lot of injuries and accidents that happen as a result. Despite that, it carries on year after year. We just happened to be lucky enough to be in town that weekend. So from all this we surmised, quite easily, that everyone came on Thursday, and skipped out Friday. Nice.

Aside from that, our trip was pretty good, and Claire slept the 3 and a half hours drive both ways. Oh yeah!

Tricked out yo!

The more I add to my blog the more I want to add. I added a new background, music playlist, and an age counter for Claire. I feel like eventually my blog is going to be so busy, that frail ones might seize up at first glimpse.

I can't believe 6 1/2 months has passed

Man! Time really passes by in a funny way. It seems like forever ago that Claire was born. Yet at the same time I feel as though time is passing by so quickly with the monotony of daily life.

Lately, Claire has been through some sort of growth spurt and is doing new things.

A week after she turned six months she started eating food, and has been binging on milk since. I wonder if the baby oatmeal is making her thirsty. She is also eating food. She'll eat baby oatmeal and carrots. I tried peas and she gagged twice. I should have stopped at the first gag, I suppose.





She's some kind of eating savant.



She has also started to sit on her own. Well, at least with minimal support. If I plop her on the bed sitting and leave the room for just a moment, I'll come back in and she'll usually be stuck head down on her shoulder.

She has also decided to mess up her sleeping schedule. I think she's feeling like she doesn't need as much sleep.

We've been hermit crabs for the past while, but last week we had a bout of warm weather. Claire and I (mostly I) decided to go to the park near us. It was pretty muddy, but still enjoyable. I got Claire out of her stroller and showed her the ducks that were grazing near the pond. She started marching. (translation: she liked seeing them)


Sean and I have been addicted to a wii game we bought last week called "World of Goo." I'm not into video games very often, but this one has a tight grip on my ability to do other things. I feel an urgency to keep playing. When I first started playing it my feelings were, "meh." Now I feel like a junkie. I have no sense of moderation for playing it when Claire is down for naps.

Sean has been working overtime lately and it sucks for all of us. I'd say mostly for him, probably.

We will be moving soon enough into a rental home of a family in our ward. It is going to be very nice to live in a house and not deal with cigarette smoke permeating our clothes. It's also pretty great, because Sean's bus is getting cut on March 29. Most buses going out here are getting cut, but new rental house's bus line isn't fortunately.

Christmas 2008

I love that she held out her book so well.

Skipping forward in time from the last post. Claire's first Christmas was a lot of fun. She was at least somewhat interested in her gifts. I had to pat myself on the back for that.

Also, for her Christmas present we got her an exersaucer. She absolutely loves it.
The only problem with it is she is cursed by her mom, with short stubby legs.

We found a way around that.

We did it!

We are officially part of the blogging craze. I don't know what to make of it. Part of me feels happy that others, especially out of state, can catch up with us. Another part of me feels like rolling my eyes, because I never thought I would be doing this. Also, I'm not quite sure how to start this all out. So here goes.

Sean and I moved on 6/08 for his new job at an architecture firm. I didn't find a new job, because I was due with Claire in a few months and didn't see the point.

Claire came 6 weeks early and had several health complications including: Jaundice, Blood infection, 2 spinal taps, and 2 surgeries. The first surgery was preformed in order to save Claire's life by removing about 3 inches of her large intestine that had died, the second to put reconnect her intestines. The first surgery was very scary to deal with.

Eight days after Claire was born she was still in the hospital she was born in. The morning nurse noted that she was sluggish for her 8:30 feeding, by 11:30 she was completely unresponsive. I had my phone on vibrate that morning and didn't know that I had missed 2 calls from her doctor until 1:30. We immediately went to the hospital. Sean was able to give Claire a blessing that she would eventually recover from all of this, and be a healthy girl. Little did we know what eventually meant.

It was so hard to see Claire like that. She was completely limp, and unresponsive. It really made us nervous when the nurse pricked Claire's foot. Claire, lying there with her eyes still closed, did nothing.

This is a picture one of the nurses took before Claire was moved.
It brings back pretty bad memories.

Claire was then sent in an ambulance to Cardinal Glennon Children's hospital NICU. Sean and I spent the rest of the day there heartbroken. We left for home around 9:30 pm exhausted, but Claire was somewhat stable. By 10:30 pm we got an urgent call from her doctor letting us know that she needed surgery immediately. After a long night of sleeping for a few hours in a room with bunk beds, we were told that Claire's surgery went well.

Claire spent 3 extremely, extremely long weeks in the NICU. We visited her every day and rejoiced when we were able to finally bring our girl home. It was scary for a while knowing that we were responsible for this human life that had already come so close to death. We have loved having her in our family. She is such a wonderful and sweet baby.