March 10, 2015

Happy 4th Birthday, Audrena!

Today is Audrena's 4th birthday. It never ceases to amaze me how far we have come in the past 3 years. On Audrena's 1st birthday, we still did not know for certain that she was profoundly deaf. We were really just beginning her hearing journey. In the past 3 years, she has endured several surgeries, countless hours of programming appointments, Aural Habilitation (speech/listening therapy) appointments, physical therapy, doctor visits, and most recently full day preschool. As parents, we have supported her through all of the same plus 19 1/2 hours of IEP meetings. (Yes, I am keeping track. Is there a medal at the end?)

And while we have come this far, there are still so many more years of this marathon ahead of us. Audrena has made leaps and bounds of progress this school year, but her articulation is still bad. It's pretty difficult for new people to understand her, so we continue to work on it. For example, she is now much better with the beginning and ending sounds that she used to leave off, and we finally have a /k/! The /g/ is still not there. We can see that she knows it is supposed to made in the back, and that it is different than the /d/. She just has not figured it out yet. But the progress is not fast enough for me some days. I will fully admit that it's hard for me because I wish the hearing loss was the only obstacle. Plus, Reyana and Kelton talked so early and so clearly that it's just what I am used to. I know we'll get there, though, because we have some really dedicated people on Audrena's team.

Aside from articulation, there has been progress with language, but there are still areas we need to work on like retelling stories, answering questions, including articles like "a" and "the," and not mixing up works like "I want marshmallow pink," instead of "I want the pink marshmallow." Again, we will get there. It's a marathon, not a sprint, right?

If I remind myself of the broad picture, the miracles are crystal clear. We went from not knowing that Audrena was deaf at her 1st birthday to having a pretty normal 4 year old who can communicate, even if it's not yet perfect. Her teachers tell us what we already knew...that Audrena is a smart little girl that will go places. Ok, I am boasting. We love all of our kids, and they are ALL going places in life. But she IS a smart little girl. She is an adorable, happy, healthy, spunky, stubborn little redhead. Some days that headstrong little girl makes me crazy, but at the end of the day I wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't trade our baby, or the hearing loss, for anything in the world. This journey has been hard and has tested us time and again, but it has been fantastic in ways we never could have imagined. We have learned so much about ourselves, our children, and our family as a whole. It has brought us closer and showed us to appreciate the small things.

We have big dreams for Audrena. Wouldn't it be fantastic if she grew up to become a cochlear implant surgeon? Or the first woman president? No matter what she chooses to do in life, we are confident that she will do it with that unmatched red-headed determination and with that trademark one-sided double dimple of a smile to win everyone over. Look out world! Here she comes!

And about this birthday? This year she partied with Chuck E. Cheese and told me which color flower she wanted to eat off of her birthday cake (the birthday child chooses the first piece). This birthday she can actually sing Happy Birthday to herself with a better sense of tune than I have! This birthday we gave her a bike because we know that, even with an imperfect vestibular system, she will learn to ride in order to keep up with Reyana and Kelton because that's the way she rolls.

Happy 4th Birthday, Audrena! You are a truly amazing gift from God.

Grandma and Grandpa gave Audrena this dress for her birthday. She told me she was wearing her pink and orange dress (check out the pink and orange balloons on it) and that she can twirl in it. :)

No comments:

Post a Comment