Micah is 6 1/2 months old now.
He started daycare in February, and has been doing well.
The staff is lovely and very sweet to him.
Granted, he is a very chill and easy baby, they also seem genuinely interested in helping him thrive by learning to sign to him.
I am worried that he is not getting enough language exposure. I sign every chance I get, but I know he needs more.
We have also gone through several more appointments, more testing, and Micah got new hearing aids!
If only we would be more consistent with keeping them on him.. We should put them on him much more, but it isn't easy keeping them on him because he constantly rips them off, and fusses about them and pulls at his ears when they are on. I am still experimenting with different ways to keep them on. This weekend I will be sewing some new hat designs:)
I am still at the cross roads of one of the biggest decisions I will make in life.
COCHLEAR IMPLANTS
I have to admit, I have always leaned toward NOT getting them, but I had a feeling Rico was leaning toward wanting them for Micah.
We have been home with Micah because he has been severely sick with RSV, which gave us lots of time to discuss things like the implant, and finally Rico expressed his true feelings about them.
His thought is that Micah should be given as many opportunities as we can offer.
Including the opportunity to be part of both worlds, hearing and Deaf.
He says that since implantation at a young age is better for his development of spoken language, we should get it at the age the doctor's are recommending.
But that we make sure he understands that it is his choice. If he doesn't want to use them when he is older we will fully support his decisions.
I understand that giving him opportunities is important.
However I have still not gotten passed the feeling that the whole process is an invasion of who my son is, and what he was born to be, which is beautiful and needs no adjustment, fix or change.
I feel like life for him can be full of opportunity just the way he is.
The only factor that makes me consider the implant, is safety, and communication.
I think of my son, wanting to communicate with hearing children, and not
being able to.
I see him falling and not being able to call to me for help if I do not see him.
I think of him injured and hurt and unable to scream for help.
He may use other methods of communication, but because the "mainstream" society, will not know to look for these other signals, what if he is not heard????
As a mother, I want my child to be proud of who he is, in every way. But I want him to feel safe, and I want him to be able to make new friends without getting frustrated, or feeling alone.
So, I am still reaching out to other parents, and that has been super helpful. Some parents are doing what we want to do, be bilingual with speech and ASL, and others dropped ASL completely because the doctors emphasize the importance of using speech as much as possible with an implanted child.
We want to make sure Micah can communicate when sound is off, and we want him to feel comfortable sounding off at home, using ASL anytime he wants.
Still the decisions feels far, but our audiologist says we should start the process as if we were going for the implant, just to learn about it and get things rolling early, which will prepare us should we go for it, and also educate us about it.
I will keep my blog updated:)
