New Discoveries

So here are some new discoveries we've made in the last couple days:

Taryn loves to hear. She has an uncomfortably happy look on her face when we are fumbling to get the hearing aids in. But she is just so happy about it. So wide-eyed. And something she never knew before - her baby toys actually make noise when you shake them. Who knew!?

The first day when Greg would be playing with her, she would occasionally burst into screams of terror for no apparent reason. After a few times of this, we realized that whenever Greg speaks to her in a low voice she becomes terrified. So funny. I guess she's not used to that frequency.

Her right hearing aid squeals - so annoying. But she doesn't seem to mind. In fact, I have noticed that she has started to try and match her own squeals with that of the hearing aid. We're getting that fixed today though. It's driving me crazy.

When we were told a couple months ago that she could not hear any speech, I was skeptical. I knew that whenever I talked to her, she would coo and gurgle right back and seemed to hear exactly what I was babling at her. The audiologist said that is normal behavior for any happy baby regardless if they can hear, but that they eventually out grow it. I was still skeptical. But I've noticed that just within the last three weeks she has stopped babbling and cooing. She did still make playful squeals, but she didn't gurgle and coo back at us like she used to. Guess whose cooing again now? Yup, our dear little hearing girlie.

She has become very skittish and it's hard to keep her attention. Her head is constantly bobbling this way and that to follow and find all the different sounds she hears. And believe you me, our house has a lot of sounds. It's loud over here.

I asked our audiologist what the percentage is that Taryn can hear on her own. I have heard of others having 50% or 25% hearing losses, but I had never been told a number like that. The audiologist said she didn't like to use numbers. Percentages relate to how much speech someone can hear. In Taryn's case, she can't hear any speech, so it would be a 100% hearing loss. But then that gives an inaccurate measurement, because she doesn't have a 100% loss, she just can't hear speech. Holy Smokes! I was glad she hadn't given me that percentage at the beginning. A "moderate hearing loss" sounds much more hopeful than a 100% hearing loss.

FYI about her hearing aids - The mold is clear with silver and pink sparkles. The aid itself we will be changing to a baby pink in a couple weeks. (They don't offer flesh-colored for some reason. But we decided a soft pink would look less conspicuous than silver. It's a hard decision to make because it is something she will potentially have for ten years!) The mold will be changed every 3-4 months as she grows and hearing tests will continue to be performed every six months to determine if her loss is degenerative or not.

So the best part of it all?

Watching her captivated face as I sang her lullaby and she heard it for the first time.

Absolutely magical.