Unexpected Blessings

I'm sure most of you look at Marae's Deaf diagnoses and think to yourself, "Thank God it's not me . Thank God it's not my child." I know because I've done it myself when I've had a friend or family member receive "bad" news. I can think of four cases right off the top of my head. I came to a surprising conclusion last week. I'm sure many of you wont understand how I can say this, but after searching deep in my heart God revealed my true feelings about Marae's hearing loss. I think we go through life thinking anything out of the normal, a loss of something immediately means despair, grief, and ultimately a loss in quality of life. God has been teaching me a lot about that stereotype. Maybe you can examine your own hearts.
(Marae on our family walk)
If God came to me and gave me the option of restoring Marae's natural hearing or living life with her hearing loss, from the bottom of my heart I would chose for her to be deaf. I'm sure some of you parents are cringing, wondering how I could say that and still be a good mom. Don't we want the best and easiest path for our children? God knew what he was doing when he gave Marae her hearing loss. It wasn't something that just happened. He planned it this way. He has known from the beginning of time that my Marae would be born deaf. I have realized that Marae's life WILL be better BECAUSE of her hearing loss NOT in spite of it. I cannot explain how much joy has come to Luke and I these past few months. Our journey has been unexpected, and unexpectedly a perfect blessing.

We have come to see all the ways Marae's hearing loss will aid her in receiving so much this side of heaven. The opportunities she will have, the people who have been placed in her life and genuinely deeply love her. The families and friends, the community we have met have been some of the kindest most generous people I have ever met in my life. They grab your hand and they want to do life with you, walk with you. They encourage you, they bless you with their words. I have grown up in the church and even having done that, these parents and families have shown us kindness we haven't experienced before. I am so proud to be apart of the hearing loss community and I believe Marae will be as well.

We attended the "listen and Talk" early intervention program and preschool picnic a week ago. To give you an idea, there are 100 kids with hearing loss in the L&T early intervention program (ages 0-3) and probably another 50 kids in the preschool, maybe more. That's a lot of families! I walked away from that gathering thanking God for the friendships he is giving us and realizing how blessed Marae will be to have these friendships as she grows. That's when it hit me that I didn't want to trade all these blessing and experiences Marae has or will receive for a life with Normal working ears. She will still hear and the slight inconvenience of having to wear an implant is going to be far outweighed by the opportunities and blessings she will receive because of it. What a great place God has brought us to.

I actually Love having Mare's hearing aids visible when I take her out and about. As I expressed in a previous post, I was afraid how people would treat her. Well, her hearing aids have brought about some great conversations and I love talking to people about them. For instance we were out walking the other day and we came across another family that stopped to chat with us. Marae's hearing aids were falling off...again... and I was adjusting them. The mom asked me about them and I told her Marae was born deaf but her hearing aids helped her to hear some sound. Then we started talking about the implants and she shared with me that her boss's daughter has implants and how amazing they are. How random is that? Stuff like this is almost a daily occurrence for me. I love that people don't say, "oh I'm so sorry for you." Most people are just matter of fact about it. I was also at the zoo last week and ran into kids with implants. I think it's like when you buy a car. You tend to notice people who have the same car, whereas before your purchase you never noticed that make and model before.
(All three kids on our family walk)
Another strange coincidence happened to us at the picnic. Last summer we were visiting Mars Hill's (our church) down town campus. As we were walking up to the building we saw a van unloading 4 small children about 4 and under. After the service this family came and introduced themselves to us and we started talking about how close their kids are in age and told them this is really what we wanted for our own family. 4 right in a row. This past year I have thought of that family a lot. When life seemed crazy I thought of them. When I was pregnant with Marae I thought of how neat it will be to have 3 (hopefully 4) kids running around our house filling it with laughter... and screaming. When 'I needed encouragement or a glimpse of what we working towards, I thought of them. When we discovered Marae's hearing loss, I thought of them and wondered if our 4 children would still be as close in age as we had hoped. Would we be able to do it? Well, come to find out that family is in the L&T program. Their second child was born with bilateral moderate hearing loss. Now our church has over 10 thousand people, so those are some odds there. I love how God answers those doubts right away!
Maraes phonek hearing aids. She is wearing them using a "huggie". The huggie helps keep it in place while taking weight off her tiny ears. The huggie is the translucent tube that wraps around her ear and the strap that goes around the hearing aid.)- Love the huggies!


(Marae sleeping with her new hearing aids in)

Marae got her new hearing aids... the really spendy ones. What a gift they have been. They stay on her ears better, the feedback is low pitched so when it does feedback it isn't like nails on a chalk board. We have seen a greater response from Marae when she is wearing them. The second day she had them in, I was at my Tuesday women's bible study. Marae fell asleep siting in my lap. Someone said something funny and the room erupted in laughter. The sound startled Marae awake! She also has started turning to my voice. If I'm just out of her vision, 70% of the time when I say her name she turns to see my face. We also started doing little learning to listen sounds in the form of songs and she loves those. I also do transitional songs for diaper changes, bed times, eating times, play times, stroller time, and car time.
(Luke and I at the Sounders game.)

(Luke and Marae at the game.)

Luke and I took Marae along on our date to the Seattle Sounders FC game (MLS Soccer) on Thursday night. I put her in the carrier and we hopped on the metro bus that stops right outside our house. It's a quick straight shot to downtown and only takes about 10 minutes. We grabbed some dinner at Ivar's on the wharf and then walked over to Qwest field. They opened the game with fireworks and Marae jumped... yep she heard them! In fact she was hearing a lot because she quickly let us know that all this "fan" noise was a bit much. The sounders scored two goals in the first 5 minutes and the noise from everyone cheering hurt even my ears. So we took her hearing aids out for the rest of the game and she was immediately happier... well as happy as you can be while teething.

Off to take a nap now!
(One of my favorite things to do with Marae, snuggle for a nap.)

parenting is never dull

I cant believe we are already three months into this journey with Marae. Sometimes it feels it's gone quickly, other times it feels like so much has happened in those short three months. Life with three kids 3 and under is totally CRAZY! This week has been no exception. There are many times Luke and I look across the room at each other, all three kids screaming, and we give each other "the look". This look is not the "look at our beautiful sweet children, we are such lucky parents" look. There IS a look for that, but this look is the "Dear God, what have we done!" or "can I scream too?" cause that is really all you can do in those moments. Seriously our neighbors have to think at times that we are running a mad house full of running elephants and screaming hyenas. One would think Marae's hearing loss would be our struggle right now, but no, it's the terrible 3's. Who ever said 2 was the terrible year, hadn't met a 3 year old. Kay has displayed some of the loudest and most theatrical temper tantrums we have ever seen. Sometimes all we can do is shut her in her room and start laughing as soon as the door is closed. Other times, it's just the icing on the cake and I close the door to cry. What ever the case, parenting is hard and when you have 3, it's hard times 3.

Temper tantrums were not all the excitement we had this week. Noah gave us a real scare Tuesday night. We were at our community group from Church and THANK GOD it was Luke and my turn to watch the kiddos upstairs. We passed out the kids normal snack of goldfish crackers, everyone's favorite. Literally seconds after Noah began to consume his crackers, his upper lip began to swell and his face became red and blotchy. I quickly ushered Luke and Noah out the door and called Swedish medical center to let them know they were on the way and Noah was having an anaphylactic reaction. The idiot that I sometimes can be, I did not have his epi pen with us. Honestly Noah has seemed to out grow his milk and eggs allergy so I just really didnt see the need to keep a needle in my purse that the kids could have access to. I was pretty puzzled as to why fish crackers was giving him this scary reaction. He had eaten them hundreds of times before. And milk NEVER gave him this kind of reaction. After some thought and conversing, we figured out that the bag used for the snack, had contained peanut butter filled pretzels earlier in the day and Luke saw Noah eat one left over in the bag. So Noah was having a reaction to peanuts. We were told to stay away from nuts since he tested allergic to almonds, but we had no clue he was going to be one of those kids. You know, the kids who have to stay a mile away from anything that has remotely come in contact with nuts. The good news is they made it to the hospital quickly and Noah got the drugs he needed to bring the swelling down and return his breathing to normal. He did however get to spend the night in the pediatric ward. This marks 4 nights Luke has spent on an uncomfortable window bed this year. 2 of those being (Noah's lips at the hospital)

with the kids. I remember my mom once said that having kids was like having your heart walk around outside your body. Wow, did she ever know what she was talking about! Noah is home now and I have to say, the boy's little adventure allowed the girls and I some nice time together.
(The girls smiling and playing together on the floor gym)


(Marae all hooked up for her BAER hearing test)

Marae also had her repeat BAER test this week. I thought it was to be an aided test this time, but it was unaided (without her hearing aids). Last time she took the test she had no responses to the equipments max (95 decibels). This time we actually got some responses from 85, 90, and 95 decibels. This is great news because it is just more confirmation that her auditory (8th) nerve is present. She hears lower pitches better than higher pitches and she seems to have "islands of hearing" along the spectrum. Because money is now no object, they ordered her the best pediatric hearing aids on the market and those will be fitted to her on Monday. Just another one of the many blessings arising from this whole thing. We also had her psychosocial evaluation with the cochlear implant clinic. Believe me it sounds far scarier than it actually is. The psychologist just shared with us the history of the deaf movement, what role implants has taken in the deaf culture, and the entire process of the implantation right down to what we pack for her over night hospital stay. It was pretty interesting learning a bit about the deaf community. It is rapidly changing with a new generation of "hearing deaf". I also learned that for whatever reason, babies who receive implants hear better than adults who receive implants. It has to do with how quickly the infant brain is learning and soaking up new things verses an adult who learns at a much slower pace.

Finally our week ended with taking Marae into the Childrens hospital ER for a high fever. Since she is so young they wanted to examine her in case she had an infection. I'm not sure that I have completely recovered from being up all night on Thursday. They did a cath to test her urine, an IV to give her fluids and test her blood, and a mucus test to see if she had a respiratory virus. All were negative and Marae managed to smile in between tests. They sent us home with the idea this was just a virus and she would heal herself. After the fever was done she broke out with the typical roseola rash. That would explain why there were no other symptoms.

We thank you for your continued prayers, and know we covet them. I think Luke and I have come to learn that when you become a parent you truly surrender yourself to the will of God. There is so much we cannot control. We have to role with the punches and pray hard. Every child has their ups and downs, their proud moments and frustrating ones, and though you can never be sure of what tomorrow brings, you CAN be sure that there will NEVER be a dull moment.