Kindergarten!

Well it sure has been a long 5 years. We have had many many wonderful people help get Morgan to where she is today.
We will never be able to thank everyone for the jobs they have done but maybe seeing where Morgan is today is a thank you from her.
Morgan gets the bus at 6:55am and school goes from 8:10 to 3:15, she arrives back home at 4:28. That sounds like a super long day for a kindergartener but as other parents of CI kids know, this is pretty normal for them. CI parents and kids seem to travel far and wide for their CI
Kiddo from birth. It is not even unusual for families to have to move to different counties or even states! Morgan and her grandmomwould drive at least an hour to get to the Clarke school.
Morgan has found a good home at Pennview Christian School. This is such a good fit. Pennview goes above and beyond for Morgan. Wonderful teachers and staff all willing to learn about cochlear implants and how they work. Morgan is only 5 but these are her ears and she knows everything about them. She can change the batteries, knows how to use the charger and understands the remote.
Next week Morgan will be joining the cherub choir at church. She loves music! This is something a lot of CI kids don't do well with.
Today was our first experience with a school bus. Still hard to believe no seat belts.It was a challenge to get someone to listen to me that I really needed to teach the bus driver a little about Morgan and her implants. Ex: If Morgan was to fall asleep and the magnet slipped off she would not hear the bus driver or anything else for that matter. Job completed my Mom day before school. They will make sure she has 2 implants on when she gets on and off the bus! I feel better about this. Playground aid also informed. It feels like we are teaching the world again. As Morgan is getting older she is very good about teaching too. It is going to be a great year.

Rylee is growing so fast. Our hearing baby is learning to listen as if she were deaf too. We have done this for so many years I guess that is all we know. "listen Rylee, do you hear that" That's just our listening world at the Keely house. Let's see how fast a hearing child will learn sign compared to a deaf one. We always found signing harder with Morgan cause she could only see.

Hopefully another update later this month!

God Answered a million prayers!

Baby Rylee arrived on June 1st at 3:15 PM, She is 7 lbs 11 oz and 19" long.
Baby Rylee can hear! We have no words to describe this miracle, just a ton of tears.
Rejoicing today

Happy Birthday Rylee!

Today we will meet Rylee. The Dr decided to induce me due to blood pressure issues. We are anxious to meet her. Yesterday we took Birthday girl Morgan to the doctor for some spots on her belly. Well I am so upset. Morgan won't be able to come meet Rylee cause the dr had to do a culture for staph infection. I was so excited for Morgan to come to the hospital to see me and Rylee. I planned the perfect present for Rylee to give Morgan. This isn't going as I planned so far. I am praying the rest goes smoothly. We won't know right away if Rylee is deaf. It will be at least 24hrs after she is here. Praying!

Anxious!

We can hardly wait to meet Rylee Jean. Jean was picked because that was my grandmother's middle name. She would be so proud of Morgan if she was here. I am down to weekly dr appointments. Last week I was fifty percent effaced and one cm dilated. So exciting to be this close to welcoming a brand new gift from God! My mom thought full moon would maybe put me in labor but that didn't happen. The last couple weeks seem to go on forever. We would like to go to the beach this weekend if my status didn't change and the dr says ok. The problem is that we have arranged to have Rylee's cord blood taken for the hearing issues in our family. This is only set up at the home delivering hospital. We do not want to mess this up!

Countdown is on

April 1st already. It has been a long winter. As a matter of fact they are expecting a snowfall and its April Fools Day. Morgan's ears birthday is coming up in April. Our new ear will be celebrating it's first birthday. Another perk of a CI kiddo. 3 birthdays a year! Morgan has done an astonishing job with her new ear. Someone would never know she is totally deaf! She is planning on going to Pennview again next year but just in case the money part doesn't work out we are also preparing the public school in our area for her arrival. They have had only one CI kid in the past and he was very old when he was implanted. That being said, she is actually their first CI kid implanted at one year old. I don't think they know what to think. They are still from the old days where they think she needs "speech theapy" meaning pronouncing sounds. They don't understand the listening part. At Pennview Morgan doesn't need an FM system or soundfield. They have done an amazing job with her and providing an environment that is superb! Thank God we found each other. Hopefully she will be attending Pennview again next year. Morgan's baby sister is almost here. Rylee is her name. She is over 15 inches long at this poing and a whopping 3 lbs. We are still hoping she can hear. She seems to like the song Turkey in the Straw but we will have to wait and see. Hope and Faith are what we have going for us! The other night Mommom was saying her prayers with Morgan. Mommom of course asks God to let Rylee be a healthy hearing baby. Morgan's turn is next and she proceeds to ask God to not listen to Mommoms prayers and make Rylee a baby that can hear but only with implants! Mommom said, Morgan you are not allowed to override Mommoms prayers! This will be an interesting journey no matter what the outcome.

Here is a 3 D picture of Rylee.