Happy 1st Hearing Birthday Briggs!!!

It's very hard for me to grasp that it's already been a whole year since Briggs first heard sound. When we learned of Briggs hearing loss I really didn't have a ton of grieving... don't get me wrong... I did grieve, and I had a lot of tears, but it was pretty short lived and it was because I felt sorry for myself. When the audiologist delivered the news to us I didn't even cry initially. I cried when the audi said she'd give us a few minutes and then Nick asked if I was okay. It's almost like I felt like I had to cry because that was the right thing to do. Then I cried at every appt. leading up to after his activation of his 2nd implant. :) I became so thankful that God actually chose us to be his parents and I knew Nick and I would do everything we could to make Briggs a happy, confident kid. I looked to the future and all I wanted was for Briggs to hear my voice...that is what killed me the most about his hearing loss. It was a VERY stressful time leading up to surgery...is he a candidate, will insurance approve, keeping him healthy until surgery, surgery itself, etc. etc.

Nick and I knew from the beginning that we would learn, teach and use sign language in our house. We will never deny the fact that Briggs is deaf and we want him to be proud of that and never be ashamed or feel that we made him someone he is not by not learning sign and being in denial. We want Briggs to be able to go down slides, jump on trampolines, go swimming and not feel "lost" without his hearing. Knowing sign, he'll still be able to communicate without his ci's and we want him to feel confindent both wearing them and not wearing them. With that being said, we never thought twice about implanting Briggs and giving him the opportunity to hear either. What amazing technology!!!!

I'll never forget the moment when he had his first response to sound. It was the evening of his activation appointment. Our clinic takes a very conservative approach to introducing sound so at his initial activation appt. they set up his 3 programs with the 1st one being the softest sounds possible and then 2 more to follow, and we are AB users so with each program there was also volume control (which is part of every device). He was tested on his 1st program at his appt. and actually it was a little bit of a disappointing visit and not because he showed no response but because it was SO rushed. We covered 2 hours of information in 1 hour (because we were running behind from his visit with his ENT). We as parents anticipated this day since we heard of cochlear implants and watched all the videos on the blogs and You Tube which showed all these kids showing response at that initial turn on, not Briggs. We were told to gradually turn up the volume and if nothing, move to the next program, turn up the volume etc. We were sitting in our living room, Nick, myself, my brother and sister-in-law and we were to the 3rd program on the loudest volume level and I tossed a toy into a bucket and Briggs jumped, his eyes got huge and a he got a very scared look on his face. We weren't sure if he heard it though, so I did it a again and he jumped even more and got a cry look on his face, then it was exciting, so I did it a 3rd time and he jumped and just started bawling. It was an AMAZING experience for us and I'm SO happy we got to experience that moment in our home.
Since then, his hearing took off and now he's talking up a storm, I call for him from another room and he comes running. He's above average of a normal hearing 2 year old. He's a VERY smart little cookie!! We are SO extremely grateful for this miracle and blessing!!!

We baked a cake yesterday to take to daycare today and my parents brought Briggs a "Cars" toy (Mack the semi and Lighting McQueen car to store in the back). He LOVES, LOVES, LOVES it! They will celebrate at daycare and we will celebrate tonight too! What an exciting day!