Happy 1st birthday my princess.

Wow, I can't believe that today, my little princess is 1. It seems like such a long time ago that we calmly drove to the hospital and had a wonderful waterbirth and first met our beautiful Matilda. We had two days of newborn baby bliss before being thrown into the world of hearing loss. I could never imagine what we have been through over the last 12 months, but it has definitely been worth it.

At 12 months, my little girl has been hearing for just under 5 months. Receptive language appears to be fantastic. She understands countless words and phrases, including up, down, outside, swing, park, ducks, Daddy, Mummy, the boys, car, walk, baby, eat, drink, food, Anzac slice, milk and so many more. Expressively, we're getting there. We've heard (on at least a few occasions)

- 'ahh' (aeroplane)

- 'ee-ee' (monkey)

- 'eeow' (cat)

- 'eeee' (food/hungry)

- 'mm' and 'or' (more)

- 'ee-ah' (swing)

- 'eee' (slide)

- 'oo' (train)

- 'bbrr brr beep (car)

- 'wah' (baby crying)

- 'heyo' (hello)

Her favourite sound at the moment is 'ee-ah'. We are still really lacking in consonant sounds, but I'm trying to be patient.

Most of all, Matilda is a happy, cheeky, funny little girl who loves people, but particularly her little family.

We love you little girl.

Getting the food in...

In anticipation of Matilda's weigh-in tomorrow, we've been trying to tempt her with lots of food. While I was out, someone decided to let her loose on a bowl of yoghurt and this was the result (and yes, she's in the bathroom - my husband was cutting the boys' hair).

We try to give her fruit every day, but she won't have a bar of it. See what happened to the poor banana.

Therapists

I'm trying to work out whether I'm just being impatient with Matilda's progress, or whether I should be investigating other options for her. We see a lovely AVT who is very dedicated and I know she cares about Matilda. BUT, I feel like I need more guidance as to what else I could do to guide Matilda's language development. She says alot of 'mmm' and squealy noises, but still not a lot of consonants. So, I've put in an application to receive therapy from an interstate service (as we currently attend the only AVT service in our state). This service would be delivered via video-conference, which is a pain in itself, but I figure that it is worth trying.

I'm not sure how it will work (seeing two different therapists) particularly when they won't be able to liaise with eachother, but I guess we'll give it a try. The only other option is moving states, which we've considered, but the place that we'd go to has no ENT services so we'd have to fly to a specialist in a different state. Crazy huh? Think I might consider doing my AVT training...

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year :)

Its been a crazy few weeks, but we've got through. The kids all had a great Christmas and got way too many toys. I've made a new year's resolution not to buy anymore :).

Matilda is being stubborn with her words at the moment. There are sounds that I know she can make, but she chooses not to. She is understanding so much though, so I'm hoping that consistency in speech will come soon.

10 months ...

Yesterday marked 10 months since we got Matilda's official diagnosis - severe to profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. 10 months seems like a short space of time, but to me it seems a lifetime ago. I remember sitting in the room with the audiologist. Originally the junior audi was there, but she kept saying that maybe the equipment wasn't working properly. I think she realised what was happening, so she got the other audi to come in, who confirmed that everything was working, and said the word 'profound'. I didn't know much about hearing loss at the time, but I knew that was bad. I looked at the tiny little girl in my arms and I just cried ... alot. The audi was great - got me tissues, reassured me that Matilda would be OK, but I could tell that she was upset too (later I found out that she'd just found out she was pregnant). I left the hospital that day wearing sunglasses (so that nobody could see that I had been crying). I ran into a work colleague and tried to make out that everything was fantastic.

Since that day, things have been a whirlwind. HEAPS of appointments, too much time in a soundbooth, CTs, MRIs, surgery, etc. But now, my girl can HEAR! Not only that, but she hears really well. She responds when I call her name most of the time - much more than her normally hearing brothers do. When I whisper her name she turns and gives me a big grin. She has started dancing. Whenever there is music on, Matilda will be bopping. Last night David was playing Christmas Carols on the piano. Matilda sat there bopping to the music and loving it! When David stopped playing, she turned to him, looked at the piano keys and did a little dance as if to say "come on Dad, I'm ready to dance". As soon as David started playing again, she continued her dance.

I could never have imagined 10 months ago, that by Christmas my little girl would be hearing at almost the same level as any other kid. That she would be rapidly catching up to her hearing peers in her language development. That she'd race to the kitchen to see who turned the tap on or what was cooking in the microwave. That she would hear the kookaburras outside and try to find them. I am still anxious about her future, but feel so blessed that in 10 short months, my little girl has come so far.

2cm makes the difference :)

I took Matilda for her fortnightly weigh-in and measure today. I've been so determined to get food into her that it has almost become an obsession. Anyway, she measured in at 65cm - that's a gain of 2.5cm in 2 weeks which is fantastic. It also gets her to a great milestone - the 1st percentile :). Our paed said that when they're under the 1st percentile they really worry, but hopefully this is the start of some great growth. Her weight hadn't changed (6.2kg) but it often lags behind. We're thinking that the CMV has just battered her around so much that it has taken this long to start seeing any improvements.

On the speech side, Matilda is now saying "ah-ah-ah" for plane (very cute to hear her say it with the same intonation that I use), "ee" for monkey and "ee-ow" for cat. Still waiting for the babbling, but I'm trying to be patient ...

More please :)

Things have been a little crazy here lately but its all been pretty good. Matilda's blood tests all came back OK, so I guess that's good, although we don't know why she isn't growing. We have a few more to do, and then we'll see where we head.

I had been getting a little frustrated/anxious/impatient after reading other people's blogs and seeing that their kids were saying more things than Matilda at the same time. I've been trying to recite "in His time" over and over, but I've still been frustrated. Anyway, at dinner last night I was taking a while to feed Matilda and then she started saying "orrr". At first I though it was a coincidence, but I took a moment before filling the spoon again, and she said it again. We just have to work on the 'm' sound and we'll have another word. I am very excited.

On the other hand, not so excited that Matilda's two older brothers decided that today would be a good day to be sick. E had an asthma attack last night and then both of them woke up with croup. I am SO tired that I rung the wrong number to say that N would be away from school!