The Results Are In

On November 20, we woke at 4:00 AM and headed a couple of hours from our home to have Miss Molly Kate's ABR done.  We had to travel so far because the children's hospital closest to us couldn't get her in for several months.  This momma just couldn't loose several months of hearing while we waited.  A wonderful couple from our church woke early with us, and drove us to the hospital.  The support we have is just so amazing.  We arrived a bit ahead of our scheduled time, and Molly did great with the waiting.  She kept signing to eat, but was easily distracted by the tv, toys, or a walk.  Soon, it was time for her to be taken from me.  This is a sedated procedure, and the hospital wouldn't let me stay with her until they put her to sleep like the University does.  Needless to say, this little lady was pretty upset to separate, and even more upset to wake up and find I still wasn't there.  She calmed down as soon as I got to her.   She took a bottle and fell right back to sleep in my arms after it was over.  She hasn't slept through the night since then as the separation really stressed her out. :( It took almost twice as long as expected to get results from the ABR because this sweet treasure of ours is a puzzle.  According to her results, this baby can't hear any speech sounds.  She has hearing, but it is above the frequencies for normal speech.  This just baffles us as she seems to understand what we say when we are close to her, and even has some expressive language herself.  She can say many words.  Aside from words we understand her saying, she is constantly babbling.  Her therapists and hearing impaired teacher continue to say..we just can't explain this girl.  She can even model words with the correct number of syllables when she hears you say them.  Her loss seems to be complex and not at all ordinary.  She may have a conductive component as well as some sensory neural loss.  What all of this means is a bit beyond me, but we head to the ENT doctor in a week so my understanding is that he will order an MRI so that we can get a clearer picture of her ear's anatomy.  If she is missing a bone near her eardrum, they can actually replace it using another bone from her body.  AMAZING!  We are plugging ahead and placing aids before this though as it won't hurt to get her hearing something even if it isn't the best.  She gets her shiny purple aids with hot pink molds (she picked this) on the 30th and we are so excited to see where they take her.  I know every momma says this about their child, but my Molly seems so bright.  She continues to amaze us with her fine motor ability and problem solving.  On top of that, we love, love, love her!  She is such a precious, happy, joyful little bundle who continues to be such a blessing to have in our family.