Last night in the nursery, after Jack and Fiona had their baths, Jack did the most amazing thing. It was time to put pajamas on, I wanted to put Fiona’s on first because she had begun to tug at her diapers. She wasn’t wearing her hearing aids. “Fiona, bring me your pajamas” I said. She looked at me and started walking towards the pajamas but didn’t understand what I wanted. I pointed and said it again but it was clear she didn’t understand. Then, Jack picked up Fiona’s pajama’s and handed them to her so she could bring them to me. I couldn’t believe it, and I knew at that moment, more than at any other moment Jack would be there for his sister forever.
Tag: baby with hearing loss
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We had fun today! It’s been the perfect day and the babies are taking an afternoon nap. Today was the last day of summer school. In the fall Fiona will be old enough to go all three days and Jack gets to go with her. It’s really difficult to tell how far behind Fiona is in language development. I’ve never really thought of Fiona as having a learning disability, it seems like it’s just as hard for all babies to learn things at this age. But it looks like, at least for the next several years her hearing loss is a learning disability. She needs extra care when it comes to communication, especially teaching her to say what she wants, needs, and feels. It’s impossible to tell if she is slower than Jack on certain things because of her hearing loss or because she’s just different. We just have to wait and see.
When Fiona was first born she didn’t pass the hearing screening done in the hospital. The nurse told us, but said she thought it was a mistake, that the machine had been acting funny. Over the next four days while we were in the hospital they tested her a few more times, each time getting the same result. I wasn’t upset, I don’t know why. Maybe because we had been trying to have a baby for so long and here we were with two beautiful babies. I didn’t really know what it meant. I’ve never known anyone very well with a hearing loss. I worked with children with other kinds of disabilities, autism and mobility issues, but never deafness or hearing loss. The hardest part in the beginning was the reaction of everyone else. The way people would say, “She seems normal, I can’t believe she can’t hear.” Or “I think she heard that, are you sure she can’t hear?” I would have to explain again and again the facts, I still do. People always ask, “Will it get better?” Like it’s a sickness she will overcome.
I had appointment after appointment the first several months. Three hour long audiology appointments where I had to hold Fiona still on my lap with electrodes attached to her head to measure brain activity. One day we had to go to a genetics doctor. It was in an old San Francisco building at the corner of Geary and Divisadero. Fiona was only seven weeks old, still asleep as we met Dr. Elison. He asks us a bunch of questions, we tell him “no, there is no known deafness in our family tree, and no known infections in utero.” The genetics doctor says we can do a blood test to see if she’s positive for connexin 26/30. This test rules out syndromic deafness. I can’t even see how they could find a vein in her little arm. I decided at that point no more tests. We were done.
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I read this article today: “Better Language Skills at age 3 if minded by relative-study” http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/better-language-skills-at-age-3-if-young-minded-by-relatives-study-1.2275577 It caught my eye because I am very focused on teaching Jack and Fiona Language right now, and I can see how Fiona is behind Jack in saying words. I know it doesn’t mean anything when comparing babies, it’s only I am very conscious of all the communication Jack gets in comparison to Fiona. Last night after Jack and Fiona had their bath, Jack wanted me to read Dr. Seuss ABC. This is a new thing for him, lately he’s been engrossed in books and actually wants me to be involved. This is a big change from the past few months when my morning reading session became unbearable for the babies. They were not about to sit and listen! Fiona’s hearing aids were upstairs, I always take them off after dinner, before bath time. I was too lazy to go get them, plus me walking out of the nursery would have caused a great cry by both babies. I felt so bad the whole time knowing Fiona was only getting half of the experience Jack and I were having. I did teach her one sign, Duck that she understood. Over the weekend we hung out with another family with kids. The babies loved it, but there were several times and circumstances that I had to take out Fiona’s hearing aids. Mainly when it was too loud and they wouldn’t have done her any good. In those cases she isn’t understanding what everyone else is understanding as far as language is concerned, and it’s impossible to teach everyone how to best communicate with Fiona when she doesn’t have her hearing aids on. It will definitely be a much more difficult road for Fiona than jack. I’m glad I have the resources to be able to stay home with Fiona and Jack and take care of them. “The research found that language skills are the only element in which children who are cared for by their own extended families fare better by the age of three.”
The article was about much more than language development, it was actually about the “influence of childcare arrangements from infancy (nine months) up to the age of nine years, on a child’s physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development.” The article talked a lot about the parent’s socio-economic status and how that greatly influences development. I think research like this is very interesting, but it is filled with flaws and misrepresentations. My husband’s family was very poor, they grew up on a farm in Ireland. Neither mom nor Dad had any education outside of life experience. All ten kids grew up to be smart, successful, people. I think that children are resilient and can overcome many of these stereotypes the article talks about. It just might be more challenging. The last sentence in the article was the most interesting and personal, “Children whose mothers had depression when they were infants had more social and emotional problems by age three.” I’ve thought about my mom’s depression a lot while I was trying to have kids and after they were born. I was petrified I’d have my crying bouts in front of Jack and Fiona. Oddly I haven’t had any crying since before I took the Zoloft, and none in the three months I’ve been off the Zoloft. But it was a great worry because my mom was very emotionally unstable when we were kids. I was constantly afraid I’d make her cry. I never want my babies to feel like that at all. I don’t want them to walk on egg shells like I had to do with mom.
This morning there was a moment, a very common moment in the daily life of rearing children when the babies are slightly cranky, there are no plans to go anywhere, just a day at home. A thought comes in my mind, “what am I going to do for the next several hours” as I look at Jack, his little chunky legs and runny nose, as I listen to Fiona screeching for who knows what, I look around at things that need to be done. This is a moment when the alcoholics would take a drink, the drug addicts take something to take the edge off, to numb the situation or to make it seem more interesting. I need to just be here, that’s all, through any discomfort, boredom, frustration, just ride it out. I’m not going to say “think about how lucky you are” or “just be grateful” that’s not the place I need to go. There’s something beautiful about the uneasiness of these moments that should be recorded “as is.” There’s an opportunity to learn and grow through all of the back pain and fatigue and “I wish I could just do nothing today” that is priceless. I know if I can let my body sink deep into the mud and not fight to get out I may see something clearer about myself, about life. I am a stay at home mom. I could send them away to a daycare if I really wanted to, but I don’t want to.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 