Off to Grandmother's house we go

This Memorial day weekend we went to San Angelo to visit Kemper's side of the family. It was our first out of town visit since Baby K was born. I practically packed up his entire nursery,and then we were on our way. The trip was a four hour drive, so I fed him right before we left and he slept the entire way!(we were not so lucky on the way home)
It was a nice relaxing weekend, we didn't do much but just enjoy each others company and pass Baby K around. Mommy and Daddy were able to get some much needed rest because Kemper's Mother and her husband Bill had night shift duty and took care of Baby K. They changed him and rocked him to sleep each night and just brought him to me when it was time to feed. It was wonderful because my child doesn't care much for sleeping at night!
While we were in San Angelo Baby K had another ABR done. Ironically his Grandmother works at a rehabilitation center that deals with hearing impaired children and they run these quite frequently and she was able to get us in. Unfortunately the results were the same, severe to profound hearing loss. Amazingly I didn't even cry, but after a month of crying I think I was all cried out. I knew the results would be the same but there was still a hope in me that they would be better. At least we were able to get some closure since the test was run by someone we knew and trusted.
In all it was a wonderful relaxing weekend. I am very fortunate to have married into such a wonderful family which always makes our visits fun.

Great Grandmother Mary Joy

PaPa Bill

MeMe Janie

Baby K Having his ABR done

The Blog World has Saved me!

My sanity that is! As soon as I found out about my baby's hearing loss I immediately went to the Internet to find all I could about it. There was so much information I didn't know where to start. Fortunately I came across blogs with Mothers sharing their journeys of raising a hearing impaired child. I to then began to write on my blog and I received many emails and replies from mothers offering support and sharing their journeys. There are some amazing mothers out there and I hope to be just like them some day. I posted some of the blogs I follow, so take a look at their inspiring lives raising hearing impaired children, and I thank them for sharing.

Here is an inspiring poem that was sent to me

"Welcome to Holland"
By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

I still think Baby K can make it to Italy too and have the best of both Worlds!

Happy Birthday!!

Today our little boy turned 1 month. I can't believe how the time has flown by. Kemper had his one month check up at the pediatrician today and he is now 9lbs 1oz and 21 inches long. He is starting to fill out, his legs and cheeks are getting what I like to call "juicy". Although he has been having a little trouble with his feedings, becoming really fussy and spitting up a lot so the Dr. thinks he may have a little reflux so he prescribed him some Zantac, so hopefully that will help. We do not have anything planned for his hearing until June 5th when we take him to another ENT/ Audiologist to have him evaluated again and talk about getting him some hearing aids.It has only been one month and we have already learned so much from this little boy and I have a feeling from now on he is going to be our teacher.

My heart is broken

After a great debate with myself I have decided to make this post. On Monday we took Baby Kemper to have a follow up hearing test since he failed his hearing screens at the hospital. He had an ABR ( Auditory brain stem response) which is a neurological test, where they introduce a noise to see if his brain has any reaction so they can test his hearing levels. They had me take him in a soundproof booth and they attached electrodes to his fore head and ears all while he was sleeping peacefully. I sat next to him and held his little hands and head so that he would not move in order to get an accurate reading. His father and my mother sat across from us waiting patiently. The test did not take long, about thirty minutes. When it was finished the audiologist confirmed my worst fears and told us there was "no response" Our darling little boy has a severe to possibly a profound hearing loss. My heart felt like it was ripped out of my chest. All I could think was WHY? WHY? WHY?!! I still want to know why, but that is something we may never know. Right now we are struggling trying to understand the situation. We are looking to God for help and support yet we are so angry with him at the same time. I know in the end we will all get through this but right now the hurt has taken over and we feel like we are in a fog watching the world continue as we stand still. I know there are alot of new technological advancements in medicine and options for little Kemper, so there is a little glimmer of hope. We will raise Kemper without treating him differently we just hope the world will do the same. Please pray for our little boy.

My child

I guess after seven years of working night shift I should not be surprised that my child is a night owl. He loves to wake up at midnight, stay fussy until around 4am, sleep for 2 hours, and then ready to party by six. When I have visitors over during the day he sleeps so calm and peaceful making me look like a liar. Little stinker!

Bringing Home Baby

Definitely way harder than I imagined. I had no idea that a person could survive only sleeping a max of three hours at a time.(I don't think we even got that!) I was very sore from the labor and delivery process. I kinda had to be "put back together" if you know what I mean, so getting around was very difficult. My milk took forever to come in and Kemper was having latching on problems and becoming Jaundice, so we have had to see a lactation specialist a couple of times. My hormones were in crazy gear and I was very tearful, but my wonderful husband has helped me through it all and continues to do so. Also when we were in the hospital we received some unexpected disappointing news, Baby Kemper has failed all his hearing screens. These "screens" are a pass fail test done to all the children in Texas because hearing loss is the number one birth defect, so now the state of Texas has required the test be done on all newborns. Granted this test does not prove or say that Kemper is deaf or has some sort of hearing problem ,but we must do further testing and see ENT and Audiologists to to rule it out. We have been told not to worry that it could be that little Kemper still has fluid in his ears and may take awhile to dry out. So now all we can to is pray and wait and remember that no matter what happens he is the most PERFECT WONDERFUL baby boy to us!

Our Family has grown by TWO FEET!!

Kemper James was born April 7, 7lbs 3oz 20 inches. It was a pretty fast first born delivery from what I have heard. I went into the Labor and delivery at 4:30pm and he was born at 11:39pm, so seven hours not too bad! Although I had been having contractions 10-30 minutes apart the two days prior and had a feeling he would be here on the 7th. In fact I called the Dr. and asked if she could see me because I was afraid that I was dilating all this time and that if my water broke I would not have time to make it to the hospital. My mom went with me to my appointment at 3pm (Kemper was at work) and the Dr. said that had not dilated anymore than the last time she had checked, but advised me that he will probably make his appearance soon and not to stray to far from the hospital. The only thing is we live about 25 minutes away and the traffic on a weekday 4-6pm is horrible, so mom and I decided that we would go to the mall and walk around and wait for the traffic to die down. As soon as we pulled out of the parking lot and got on the road I started having contractions that were two minutes apart. I knew these were the real ones because I was gripping the handles on the car door for dear life! We went back to the hospital and my mom helped me through my contractions for an hour until Kemper could get there, Damn Tollway! I finally got an epidural Hallelujah!! after two hours of the most intense pain. ( I must admit very similar to kidney stone pain). Forty five minutes after the epidural when I was finally getting comfortable I went from 3cm dilated to 10 cm dilated and the Dr. said it was time to push. We were so shocked because usually epidurals slow down your dilation. Kemper's mother was driving all the way from San Angelo and I really wanted her to be there, and thankfully she made it just in time to see her grandson born. It was an amazing experience and I can't believe it has come and gone. I had the best coaches My husband, my mother, mother-in-law and my two sisters, yes all of them! I had to have them all, I even told the nurses that the Dr. said it was OK (little white lie) but my Dr. ended up be OK with it and they got to stay.