An old friend of mine from college started an online store Happy Heart Kidz offering cute personalized embroidered items such as T-shirts, towels, burp cloths, just to name a few. Hurry and get your order in by the end of June and receive 50% off.
Happy Heart Kidz
An old friend of mine from college started an online store Happy Heart Kidz offering cute personalized embroidered items such as T-shirts, towels, burp cloths, just to name a few. Hurry and get your order in by the end of June and receive 50% off.
The results are in...
We now have a reason for Baby K's hearing loss. Our genetic testing came back and my husband I are carriers of the flawed Connexin 26 gene that is associated with hearing loss. Although it was an answer it was still hard news to take. Any children we have in the future now have a 25% chance of also being deaf. We thought what were the odds that two people would plan a trip to Vegas for the same weekend, sit next to each other on the plane, fall in love, and both be carriers of the same mutated gene? So random! I'm thinking we need to get some lottery tickets!
Luckily Connexin 26 is nonsyndromic so his hearing loss is not associated with other signs and symptoms. As opposed to syndromic deafness which involves hearing loss that occurs with abnormalities in other parts of the body. The ENT told us that this makes Baby K a very likely candidate for cochlear implants.
In all I am just happy to have an answer. I can stop looking up everything I took during my pregnancy and also stop second guessing every little thing that I did or happened while I was pregnant. We can now continue on in Baby K's journey into the hearing world.
P.S. Our audiologist was able to track us down some loaner hearing aids, which will help so much since our insurance does not cover them.
Here is some info about the benefits of genetic testing I found on another blog.
Happy 1st Fathers Day!!
Although it has only been a little over two months, you have been the best Daddy baby K and I could have ever hoped for. You have already been tested on what it takes to be a great parent and passed with flying colors. I know you will raise our little boy to be the best he can be no matter what obstacles stand in his way. Thanks for all that you do...
WE LOVE YOU!!!
WE LOVE YOU!!!
How can you deny this beautiful face?
"He who hath ears, let him hear!" Matthew 11:15
Today Baby K had his appointment with the audiologist to get fitted for his hearing aids. They made molds of his ears and his hearing aids should arrive in a couple of weeks. He's deaf so why does he need hearing aids you ask? Well just for the slight chance that he may get some hearing out of them and to help stimulate his auditory nerves.It is also part of the process we must take in order to become a candidate for the cochlear implants.
I must admit I'm not looking forward to the hearing aid trial. Trying to keep hearing aids on an infant, having to get new molds made every few weeks as he grows, listening to the constant feedback, oh yeah and paying for the darn things. Apparently many insurance companies including mine do not cover hearing aids.I guess they just don't consider them a life or death need. How about quality of life you morons!? Anyway luckily some other moms told me about getting some loaner hearing aids, so then all we have to pay for are the molds and services. Thankfully our audiologist said that she would work on getting the loaners for us, so that will help us a great deal.
We also recently found out that our insurance company will not cover the cost of the cochlear implants either. I thought we might have a battle to get both implants, I never thought that we were going to have to fight to get one! Granted right now we don't even know if Baby K is a candidate for CI's but somehow I knew we would start running into obstacles like this. So soon we will start our battle with the insurance company and searching for other avenues so that our son will be able to hear someday. So for right now prayer will have to be our insurance!
Our Journey begins
Today was Baby K's appointment with the ENT. We have been waiting anxiously for a month since his hearing loss diagnosis for this appointment. I must say I was a little disappointed. Everything we discussed I already knew because I researched it and was told the same info from all the other doctors we had seen. We waited a month for them to tell us that he will need to get fitted for hearing aids (between 3-6months), then if they don't work start looking towards getting him cochlear implants. So now we have to make another appointment to get him to get the hearing aids. We could have saved a trip to the ENT and just gone to get fitted for the hearing aids since all he did was look in his ears for two seconds! From what I have learned about the implants is that the sooner they are implanted the better (In Texas 12 months is about the earliest) but hearing aids, a lot of testing, and insurance clearance needs to be done first. So if he needs hearing aids then let us get started on the process of getting them now, not when he is six months old. If he needs a MRI then we need to start ordering it now. I say get started now because I work in the medical field I know how long things take, and if we have to wait a month in between every appointment he may not be able to get his implants by the time he is 12 months old. I told the ENT how I felt about all of this and he immediately started working on getting us in for the hearing aids and the MRI, he was even able to get Baby K in to get his genetic testing done today. They drew his blood to test for the flawed Connexin 26 gene that is associated with hearing loss. We should have those results in a few weeks. Finally I feel like we are getting somewhere!
Such a brave boy! He even had a smile on his face after being poked for blood on his little arm.
Kissing Cousins
*pause music at bottom*
Nolan loves his new cousin, he thinks he's "cool" (his new word).He loves giving him kisses and petting him. I love seeing them together, it's going to be so much fun watching them grow up together.
Welcome Home Raider!
My Fur baby Raider finally came home after eight weeks at Grandmas. He stayed at my mothers while I got use to being a mommy. Don't feel sorry for him, he was in dog heaven. He got to eat people food, sleep in the bed, play with all the other dogs,and roam around the front yard without a leash. He had the best time. When we got home Raider stood by Baby K's bassinet and as soon as Baby K made a noise he ran to get me. Raider is still a little nervous around him but I think in time he will be as protective of him as he is of me. I'm so gald to have all my boys together!
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