“Graham, I love You”

Linny Saunders73 Comments
Whooooa.
What a day!
After nine plus years….
Our Jubilee Promise can hear!
This past week Jubilee had another appointment at the audiologists.  Her hearing loss is moderate to severe in her right ear and severe to profound in her left.  It has taken awhile to figure it all out, but finally it has been determined that if they skip the outer ear and middle ear, we can achieve hearing!  
And so this past week, Jubilee was fit with a temporary hearing device called a BAHA.
The video says it all….
Next step, is a trip to a ear surgeon’s in Denver to see if she is a candidate for permanent BAHA surgery.  {Two surgeries, months apart where a titanium peg is implanted into her skull.  She needs enough bone mass to be eligible for the surgery.  We are prayerful that her microcephaly will not prohibit her from being a candidate.  So tests, tests and more tests and expert weigh-in….but for now – she can hear us!!}
When we got home sporting her BAHA on her headband Graham was not home.
The next morning he said, “What’s Jubilee wearing?”  
I told him.  
Instantly Graham turned around.  
I wondered what he was doing.
The other kids were working and talking…so the room was far from silent.
He was about 20 feet from her and since he had turned around she could not see his mouth.  

Quietly he said, 
“Jubilee, I love you.”  
And from across the room, unbeknownst to her 
that he was about to ‘test’ her, she spoke up, 

“Graham, I love you.”  
Four of the most precious words on the entire earth!
Oh my.
She can truly hear!!
We are overjoyed at what this means….
and rejoice that she is home with us and we live in America 
where we were able to discover her hearing loss
and do something about it!!
Gracious God how we praise YOUR name!!
“God places the lonely in families; 
he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy”
Psalm 68:6a

73 thoughts on ““Graham, I love You””

  1. Oh Happy Day! YAY for miss Jubilee! How I'd love to pick her up and spin her around! But, I'll have to settle for sending her a great BIG Hug thru her Sweet Mama! HE is SO Good! Love to you All! Jo

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  3. Oh Linny! That is fantastic news!!! Our Jackson has bilateral microtia (actually anotia on one side) and has had a Baha since this past November! He cries when we take it off of him a bedtime! He understands about 90% of what we say without signs/gestures for what a 3 1/2 year old can understand having only been home for 1 year! I am amazed at Jubilee's speech! Was it that good before her Baha? According to our audiologist Jackson has a moderate loss and I know it takes time for speech development, but just can't understand why it is not further along! Congratulations! Our entire family watched the video and Jackson smiled and pointed at Jubilee! Many Blessings!! Stacy

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  5. As a speech pathologist, this makes me tear up. ::sniffsniff:: Pure magic!! Thank you for sharing it!! Bless you, Miss Jubilee, as you conquer the world. 🙂

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  8. That's great news! I love reading about how your family works together as a team and shows so much love to each other. This is one of your stories that warm my heart. I hope when we add adopted children to our home that our bio. children love them like this!

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  18. Thanks for giving me a glimpse of the Baha in action. Our Lydia will get one in the next few years. So far her microtia is only causing certain speech delays. I'm hoping we can get the headband soon.

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  29. I'm in tears Linny. What a wonderful, marvelous, amazing thing to see tonight!!! Jubilee is such a sweet peanut, and she looks so happy to be able to hear!!!

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  31. Great big happy tears here. What a blessing! I love that Graham's chosen words to test Jubilee's hearing were words of love. Absolutely precious.

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  38. Loved your post today. Actually, I love all your posts, but today's post was especially near and dear to my heart because we are adopting two seven year old boys from China this summer/fall and we just learned about a week ago that one has severe hearing loss in both ears. We knew he had deformed ears and suspected he may have some degree of hearing loss but that was strangely was never mentioned in his list of special needs. Anyway, I've been researching this very topic all week and have had a crash course in BAHAs via Google. Since his bone conduction hearing appears to be pretty good I'm hopeful he'll be a candidate for BAHAs…and hope to have as positive of results as your dear Jubilee!! I'll have to be sure to remember to video THE moment!! Thank you so much for sharing. It was quite exciting and encouraging to me 🙂

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  40. How glorious!! Just think of the opportunities this will open for her. Our son has cochlear implants. I, too, praise our Mighty Lord for modern medicine and the wonderful miracles it helps to provide.

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  41. Oh how this makes my heart sing!! Praising our mighty God with you all…and crying some mega tears of joy!! Thank you, Jesus!!!

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  46. I am so thrilled to see this!! What a blessing for Jubilee as well as for each one of you. Love that sweet Graham. He is a wonderful brother. Love you guys.

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  47. Have mercy…Brian & I were in tears – pure wonderfulness! 🙂 We've experienced only a small slice of the cleft/ear/teeth process you are going through, so my heart for miss Jubilee has always been full. She's beautiful, Linny, and I can't imagine her anywhere else but in your loving home!

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  48. I'm totally a crying mess here. We just had our first "orientation" appt. with our ENT/Audio team for the conversation of assisting Li'l E with the FM system, the softband BAHA and the permanent BAHA last month. I haven't even posted about it yet cuz it's so much to process and think about and I'm still trying to summarize our path in my own head. Li'l E has severe to profound loss in the right ear due to Microtia/Atresia and normal hearing in the left, so our path is likely different than Jubilee's. And she's a lot younger so we're not going to have any decisions to make for a while yet.

    Thanks for sharing this tho. It's always so moving to watch the face of these kids when the BAHA gets turned on. I'm totally addicted to watching the joy light their eyes 🙂

    Congrats, Jubilee. Now you can HEAR clearly what your heart already knows: YOU. ARE. LOVED. Bloom in it girl – BLOOM!

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  49. Love it, Linny! So excited for Jubilee and your entire family! Rejoicing with your family and praying she qualifies for permanent BAHA surgery! Hugs to you all!

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  54. Beautiful!

    And the verse at the end…. a very timely word for me as I was being thrown in a storm of lies about something from my past…. and the verse just cut through it all and spoke THE TRUTH to me!

    Thank you Jesus .

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  59. My girlfriend adopted a sweet girl with a multitude of medical issues and they realized her hearing loss within a year and this past year (8 years later) they did the surgery for the BAHA and she's awesome and can hear almost perfectly! IT's amazing! SO SO SO excited to hear (and see!) Jubilee and her sweet voice and awesome hearing abilities now! GO GOD!

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  66. Oh, goodness, how awesome is that?!? Linny, I love hearing Jubilee's sweet voice in response to your questions. God, you are so very good!!!

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  73. Linny,

    That breaks my heart in the best way.

    How utterly amazing it must be to hear your brother's voice for the first time… to recognize it even without seeing. And to hear it first with such beautiful words!

    So thankful for your precious treasure and God's provision of her hearing!

    Reply

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