Hearing, Home visit, and Halloween

We visited Cleveland over MEA week-end. It was a great October week-end there, and Teagan met her great-grandmothers, aunts and uncles, and family friends.

My aunt Deidre and her husband Michael even came up from North Carolina to meet Teagan. We also reconnected with a family friends, including Dara and her daughter, Fiona, who is the same age as Teagan (6 weeks younger). Fiona was the name we had chosen for Teagan, but when we saw her middle name would be "Jia" we did not think "Fiona Jia" worked. :)  I'll intersperse photos of the visit with updates on hearing and speech.

In terms of hearing, we have some good news! After her post-op appointment, Teagan has totally normal hearing in her left ear. We had been told her hearing loss was mild-moderate in that ear when we received her referral in February. Wohoo! Ear tubes made all the difference.


Catherine, Fiona, and Teagan climbing trees and sitting on pumpkins:

Her right ear was too filled with fluid to tell what her hearing is in that ear.  It was untestable. This was the ear with moderate-severe hearing loss according to her files from China. We've treated the ear with drops and will return on Wednesday to see if that has helped and if not, what the next step is.

This green glowing ball was a huge hit:

We started speech therapy last Tuesday. It was an "interesting" experience as I and Jason both had the stomach flu. Because I could sit up and he could not, I took her. Teagan refused to utter one sound in front of the speech therapist. When she left the room, Teagan would start vocalizing.

Catherine and Ryan holding drawing of Ryan as a M.D. (he's in med school).

The therapist recommended weekly visits for speech at this point and then we can ease into twice a month. We are working on "B" "P" and "H" sounds for now and reinforcing what she can do already- mainly "M" sounds like "more" and "mama."

Teagan loves "Twinkle Twinkle" and we sing it about 30 times each day, mostly right when she wakes up and when putting her to bed. She has a sign language book with pictures of kids signing the song. She tries to sign and sign it and will sign "Twinkle Twinkle" book over and over, and "again" when she wants to hear it again.

I told her the other night, after I had been singing it for over 20 minutes, she had to sleep first and we could sing it in the morning again.  She closed her eyes shut really tightly, for about a minute. Then popped them open and signed "again!" LOL! I laughed out loud and she started laughing too.

Now for Halloween:

Catherine was Hermione and Teagan a lion for Halloween.

Catherine fully enjoyed Halloween complete with the "Halloween Trolley" experience in the afternoon. And trick or treating with neighborhood friends later.

Teagan was a little less enthusiastic about the experience, but I think still had a good time.

Kathleen and Teagan

You can see her rolling in our yard here:

Riding in Finn's car.

And walking to Charlie: