ACTIVATION!

We had Ellie's activation today!!! It went really well! The audiologist (Darcy) first activated the left ear. First she sent a series of internal clicks through, and then turned it on very softly so that Ellie could hear a little bit. When that ear was done, Darcy activated the right ear--first with the internal clicks, then turned it on completely. Ellie had a series of reactions...she was in such a great mood today, so she was super smiley already, but she smiled really big a couple of times when she heard some noises. It was so cute! :) When she heard some of the "clicking" noises, she got really serious one time and just stared at Darcy like, "What in the world is that????"

Finally, when we were getting ready to leave, we turned both of the implants on at the same time. She bawled! Joe was holding her and she just clung to him and cried so hard! It was so sad/happy for us to see that. That means she's definitely getting some hearing, but at the same time, you hate to see your baby cry like that. :(

The rest of the day we just hung out and experimented with different sounds. Tonight, we went over to Joe's sister's (Annelise) house so that Ellie could play with Logan. I turned Ellie's implants up a little bit and it was so clear that she could hear...she was just giddy and smiling and blinking her eyes. Darcy told us that if Ellie is blinking all the time, the implants need to be turned down. But tonight, after about 30 seconds of a lot of blinking, she seemed to settle in to the higher volume and really appeared to enjoy the sound!

All in all, it has been a GREAT day over here! We're so thankful that Ellie can finally hear us (even if it is very soft right now). We will continue to turn up the volume little by little throughout the week. Next Wednesday we will go back and reprogram her cochlear implants and continue to gradually increase the volume.

***I am uploading a couple of videos to "youtube" right now. As soon as that is done, I will post the link on the blog!