Less than 24 hours to go.

Audrena slept with us last night. I think Daddy and I both needed to snuggle her. This morning as I held her, I couldn't help but think about what tomorrow might bring. To say that we are nervous and scared is probably an understatement. When I think about handing my baby off to any surgeon, I get sick to my stomach. Still, I know we are making the right decision, and I know that she will be in good hands with Dr. L. We are trying to focus on the positive. In 9 days, our baby girl should be able to hear. That's not very long in the big picture. It still amazes me that they can do the activation that soon, providing that she heals well of course.

We have filled out our Advanced Bionics Neptune order form, except for selecting the cable length, so we will have fewer decisions to make at a time when we would rather focus our attention on Audrena. I am so excited to have the option of a waterproof CI for Audrena, and I'm ready to move on from the hearing aids to something that will actually allow her to hear at hopefully a normal-hearing level.

We have also been assembling a bag of "Learning to Listen" toys. (The link goes to a great pdf from listen-up.org and Ellen A. Rhodes of auditoryverbaltraining.com that explains the concept well, along with printable flash cards.) This would be a special bag of toys that we would only bring out during one-on-one time. They will be things like: airplane, bus, boat, car, bunny, monkey, snake, cow, horse, etc. Each of these helps with sound-object association. For example, airplane goes "aaaaahhhhhh" (varying your voice as you make the sound), bus goes "buhbuhbuh," bunny goes "hop hop hop," and snake goes "ssssss." These are going to be good tools for Audrena's speech and language development. We have tried throughout this process to think ahead, and it won't be long before we can use these items!

In the meantime, please keep Audrena in your thoughts and prayers. And please pray that the surgeon is able to perform the surgery without complications, considering Audrena's abnormalities.