A Whole New World

August, September, and October have all flown past and we're suddenly into November already, so I guess it's finally time to update our blog. ;)

Andrew is now almost 3 months old already and he's very cute! For those of you who live far away and may not have heard our news yet...these last three months have been a huge roller coaster for us. Experiencing a newborn was new for us (since Aaron was almost a year old when we brought him home), but the newborn part seems like just a small piece these days. We've learned over the last three months that God has a special plan for Andrew. When Andrew was just under two months old he was diagnosed with profound hearing loss in both ears. This means he is essentially completely deaf.

Andrew was born this way - Nebraska has newborn hearing screening tests that they perform within the first ~24 hours or so of being born (which he didn't pass). Subsequent re-tests of a newborn typically show that it was just fluid or gunk built up in the ears that clears up on its own and everybody goes on with life as usual, but not in Andrew's case. Nothing got better in his case and after repeated tests we got a better understanding of his hearing. The tests they perform are really pretty interesting, and yes, they really can tell whether or not a newborn can hear things and it's not just clapping by their ears. ;) They perform a couple different tests, but the most interesting is one known as the ABR. They hook up some electrodes to measure brain stem responses and, while the newborn is asleep, the play specific sounds at various volumes through a small speaker inserted into his ear. Since the baby is asleep the brain activity is very quiet, so you can easily tell when there is a brain response to a sound (which is something that happens even while you're asleep). So far they've measured his hearing loss at volumes of 100db, which means he can't hear a jack hammer that's 3ft away from him.

We don't know the medical reason, and may never know, but we do know that God has a plan for this. This news was very hard news for us, of course, and we cried. Often. But even in this we can see how God is easing the burden before we even fully understand what we're facing. We've learned that Nebraska provides great services for the hearing impaired, and our local school district is already bending over backwards to ensure that we have all the help we could possibly ask for. One of the best places in the country for diagnosing and treating hearing loss is the Boys Town National Research Hospital, which is right here in town. They offer a preschool for the deaf among numerous other programs. Our local school district has a great early childhood program and has already partnered with specialists from Boys Town to form a full team(!) of people that come to our house regularly to help train us on how we can communicate with Andrew. But even more important than all of these great resources has been the help of our families and friends. They have all been so incredibly supportive - providing encouragement, food, laundry, babysitting - you name it! I don't know how we would have made it without all of their help (which is still continuing today..)

Communication is one of our biggest fears. What parent wouldn't be scared of not being able to talk to their baby? We had done a little sign language with Aaron just for the fun of it before he was able to talk (using things like Signing Time DVD's), but had never learned sign language seriously. We've since dug into learning signing as much as time allows (which isn't much!). We're starting with learning ASL (American Sign Language) as that will be the easiest way to start communicating with a baby. Our families have also taken up learning sign language already and I think many of them have long-since surpassed us in how many signs they know. :) We're also pursuing something known as Cochlear Implants. This is a special device that gets implanted in your head, and then a special transmittter unit (that looks kind of like a hearing aid but with circles attached to the back of your head) will send signals inside to a receiver which stimulates the nerves. This approximates sound and can allow children to actually achieve pretty reasonable hearing and talking. Here is a blog that we were referred to and found encouraging of someone else here in Nebraska (Lincoln) that got Cochlear implants - it's really pretty amazing stuff! Over the next year we'll be going through a battery of tests to evaluate whether Andrew is a candidate for the implant (it can only fix certain types of hearing loss), but he won't be able to receive the implants until he is almost a year old.

While we wait to learn more about the implants, the required "first steps" are to try out traditional hearing aids anyway. This coming Monday (11/9/09) we are going in to get Andrew's first set of hearing aids. They know this won't fix his hearing - at most it might give him an awareness of "environmental" sounds. Maybe then he'll be able to hear that jack hammer 3ft away. ;)

Anyway, enough about that! Here are some recent pictures of life during the roller coaster! :) Andrew and Aaron are both really cute. Aaron is a great big brother and just loves to take care of his "baby".

We went to Vala's Pumpkin Patch this year as one of our annual fall traditions and had a great time! You should see all of the pictures! Andrew slept the whole day.

And here are some from Halloween. Aaron was a fireman and Andrew was a dragon (we think). :)