I was hoping to get some good responses on this post here…so if you get a chance, please leave a comment. I know it is not an easy question, nor does it have an easy answer (or only one right answer), but I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. I will post my answer tomorrow.

We have had a crazy couple of days, complete with broken washing machines (NOT GOOD IN THIS HOUSE), doctor appointments, parent teacher conferences, birthday party, Super Bowl party and now a broken dining room table. Fun, fun, fun.

Everyone is healthy though and so I can’t really complain though (knocking on wood). We did have Belane’s follow up appointment today with the ENT after having her ear tube surgery last month. The tubes looked great and are in well and doing their job, so that part was good. There has been ongoing concern about her hearing (in Ethiopia she was diagnosed with a very significant hearing loss). Although the doctors do not think her hearing is as compromised as we were told by the doctors in Africa, it does seem that she has some hearing loss beyond just fluid in her ears.

Luckily one of her ears is functioning right on the borderline for normal. We are going to take a few months to work on her vocabulary and English, which will make the hearing tests easier and more accurate, and then retest her hearing. If her left ear is not improved or is worse than it was today, then she will be fitted with a hearing aid.

We haven’t been overly worried about her hearing because she has been picking English up well and seems to hear things pretty ok most of the time, but the doctor said that in a classroom situation or other situations with lots of “background noise” she might really struggle, and that it could definitely affect her overall speech, comprehension, etc.

So, we’ll see what happens over the next few months. Obviously if it is needed we will go forward, but I would love for her to not need the hearing aid and not need anything else to make her “different”, for her sake. She is already adopted, black and HIV+…poor kid has enough on her plate in my opinion.

She is doing super well though still. She is still sleeping like a champ… has never once cried going to bed or in the middle of the night. I am making sure she gets oodles of snuggles before bed and when she wakes up, and of course during the day, too. She has been healthy and happy and amazes us with how “settled” she is.

All of the other kids are great…we’re coming up on Benjamin’s “one year home” anniversary which is crazy to me! Lots of emotions go along with that week (which is also the first time we met Belane).

I know lots of you are freezing, but we are unseasonably warm… we have three feet of snow on the ground that has turned into slush. The sun is nice, the ground is ick ick ick.

Stay warm!