Big day tomorrow!!

Tomorrow is another big day for us in the Sheridan house hold. Scott and I are getting one of the best Christmas presents ever. No we are not having a baby or getting a puppy. Way more awesome then that our little boy will be hearing with both ears. Yes we go tomorrow to get his second implant turned on. I am really excited but nervous at the same time. I love watching his face light up when he hears something new or how he watches us when we are talking to him. It is one of those things we take for granted until you have a deaf child. When I was growing up I always wanted to learn sign language. I always thought it would be a good thing to learn and at least know some of it. I never thought I would have a deaf child and then would have to learn it. Of course when I was growing up I didn't even know what a cochlear implant was. We started looking into the cochlear implants when Hayden was still with us. We were still waiting to get more testing done on both of the boys but we were pretty sure we were going to do the Cochlear implant with Hayden. Hayden most likely would not of been able to use his hands to talk to us through sign language. Now i also know that he might not of been able to talk. A lot of kids with cerebral palsy that is as severe as Hayden's would of most likely been are not able to talk. I wanted my baby boy to hear and hopefully communicate with us. When we were told that Preston had severe to profound hearing loss in both ears it was hard. I knew he had some hearing loss but never thought it was that bad. Hayden was most likely totally deaf. Preston has always been a very vocal child and he uses facial expressions alot. So all of the times I thought he could hear he couldn't. We still treat him like a hearing child and now more then ever it is important to do so. We talk to him all the time and everything else. I think everyone that is around us should learn some basic signs. We are teaching Preston to be verbal and hopefully by this time next year he will be talking alot but there will be times that he will want to sign or won't have his implants on. It is important to us that people still try to communicate with Preston like they would anyone else but we also have to learn how to communicate with him his way. One day he might decide he doesn't want to hear and not wear his implants at all. I hope that doesn't happen but we don't know. We did these implants to give our son a better future. He is a very bright child and him not hearing is holding him back in a lot of ways.