7 Months-- Getting to Hearing

Ryan girl, you are 7-months as of March 1st.  You are the cutest bald baby.  Although, I must say, your hair has started to come in-- it's a very light brown.  Definitely not a blondie.
You are probably close to 16lbs, and a couple weeks ago at the doctor, she told us that you were 10% for height and 30% for weight.  Again, those cheeks are not getting any smaller.  You are sitting up on your own, but still manage to fall over some times.  You are definitely babbling away, and next Friday, March 15th cannot come soon enough-- you will have your surgery to receive cochlear implants.

We chose this for you-- cochlear implants.  We know that God made you the way he made you-- deaf.   However, mom and dad are choosing a life right now for you so that you can hear, and you will learn spoken language.  You will not learn sign language-- well, maybe some baby sign language-- 'more'; 'milk'; 'please'-- but not much beyond.  You will learn to speak, just like your little baby friends; and most likely, you will catch right up to them in your speech development.  You are still young enough that mom and dad do not notice that you have a hearing problem, beyond the obvious of not responding to sound.

If you choose to do so when you are older, you can choose to learn sign language.  You can choose to be a part of the deaf culture where many people rely on sign language as their first language of communication.  If that is the life you choose, you are certainly able to do so; but right now, we are the parents and we choose for you to live like we live-- hearing and speaking.

I write this because there are a lot of parents out there who are at a crossroads.  They are not sure what is right for their child, and want their child to be able to make a decision.  It's of our opinion that babies, who are at a critical time in their life of learning language, will be at a significant disadvantage if they do not learn to hear and speak as infants and toddlers, similar to their peers.  If this is not learned at a young age, it is much harder to catch up and by the time they can 'make their own decision' it may be very hard to learn spoken language.  I'm 100% sure it can be done, however, it won't be without serious rigor and discipline.

I just hope that this will help other parents out there in making a choice for their child.  The parents have to choose right now, not the baby.

Off the soap box...


A couple of funny moments from a few weeks ago...

She is learning how hold her bottle herself.  She is at the cutest moment-- trying so hard in this video below.

In this video-- which is one we should just go ahead and post on YouTube, Ryan is dozing off.  It's pretty comical.