blind insight

Reassurance.

My recent post detailing my fears about parenting with vision loss brought a great many readers out of lurkdom. I received many e-mails and comments from people with blindness who are happily and successfully parenting, from people better connected to disability resources than I am, from women dealing with similar vision loss issues who are not yet, but hope to be, moms, and from sighted parents offering tips and encouragement.

Thank you all so, so much. By the time I finished reading everything you sent me or linked me to, I was having trouble remembering why I was so freaked about this issue.

That reading, and considerable further obsessing musing on the subject of "parenting blindly" (as one correspondent so aptly put it), led me to a few conclusions. First, parenting is scary, and every parent has his or her own set of demons to confront and obstacles to overcome. Second, I've been adapting to the realities of my vision loss for decades, now, and have managed to make all sorts of different situations work just fine for me. There's no reason to think the same won't be true of parenthood, or that trial-and-error, creativity, and flexibility won't lead us to a successful system. And third, I'm not in this alone. I have a wonderful, supportive partner who not only has perfect hearing and vision, but also manages to stay much, much calmer than I do in all situations not involving Wisconsin sports teams. I also have my amazing parents just across town, ready, willing, and able to provide all sorts of much-needed assistance. In short, I'm feeling optimistic, and lucky.

I also anticipate that there will be some scary moments along the way, not just of the usual new-parent variety, but specifically associated with my vision and/or my hearing. I'm trying to make peace with them in advance, so that they don't undermine my confidence in my own parenting abilities at the most vulnerable (that is, uncertain and sleep-deprived) moments. I'll try to chronicle them here, for personal posterity and in case they might give comfort to some other visually impaired mom or dad down the road.

For now, Crusher continues to thrive. I'm still experiencing the Bizarro Pregnancy, in which my second trimester has brought continual nausea and fatigue, after an easy-peasy first tri. However, I'm still having a fairly easy time of it, and my doctor has diagnosed mild anemia that may be the source of the unpleasantness. We saw the critter again on Friday, jiving around and taking great big gulps of amniotic fluid.

Here are a couple of admittedly hard-to-see photos. I think the kid has my chin, but can't tell yet whether it has my (long, thin, crossed) toes.

My own *@%# fault.

I got to Kansas City on a Friday Sunday, for an appellate argument on Monday morning. The circuit staff, as usual, was totally on top of my accommodation needs, and had the FM amplification system all rigged up for me. We tested it, it worked, end of story.

Except that when the judges came out of the robing room and called my case, first on the docket, I realized that I had no amplification. I asked the presiding judge for a moment to figure out the problem, and he moved the microphones closer to the judges. At first, I thought this solved the problem. In fact, I could hear the judges, though not nearly as well as amplified-usual. Not wanting to delay the proceedings further, I began my argument.

What followed was not even close to my best performance, and may well have been my worst. Straining to hear always makes me tense and awkward, and my answers seemed rambly and unfocused to me, not sharp and directly responsive, which Is what I strive for. The judges were very kind about repeating themselves when I requested, and seemed to be smiling at me throughout the argument. Still, I sat down feeling awful about my presentation, and wishing I could call a mulligan.

As soon as my opponent began arguing, I realized the problem - somehow, I'd dislodged the headset ever-so-slightly from the receiver. I clicked them together tightly, and voila! I could hear. Kicking myself inside for the error, I at least was able to hear all of my opposing counsel's points, and to enjoy the mincemeat the judges of made of them. And during my brief rebuttal, I was able to give direct and focused answers to the judges' final few questions.

I learned two lessons from this stressful experience: One, always double-check the equipment; and two, I'm hearing dramatically better un-amplified than I ever could have imagined. Pre-cochlear implant, I would never have been able to hear even a fraction of what I did on Monday without FM or infrared amplification. The very fact that I wasn't sure, for much of the argument, whether the system was working, but not quite right, or wasn't on at all, was a testament to the CI's success.

On that note, I'm thrilled to report that at yesterday's 9-month appointment, I scored 100% on the sentence recognition tests both in quiet and with background noise. My biggest gain over the last few months has been in louder background-noise situations - in my last round of testing, I got 49% of the sentences right when the speaker's voice was only 5 decibels louder than the background noise, and yesterday, I got 76% correct. That's a significant improvement, and a spectacular result, according to my audiologist.

Selling out.

As I hope you've noticed, I've tweaked things a bit around here. I'm no web designer, so I can't offer you snazzy mastheads or fancy formatting, but it seemed high time to mix things up just a little.

In addition to adding the new format and photo, I realized that many of the links I'd provided here are to blogs I don't read anymore, or that no longer exist. I eliminated my typelists, figuring that those of you who are heavy blog-followers already have your favorites in a consolidator subscription, and the rest of you are related to me.

The most significant change, from my perspective, is that I've joined up with Google's AdSense to provide advertising space over in the upper right-hand corner of blind insight. Any time someone clicks through from this blog to those ads, I get a little money (it seems to range from about 50 cents to a buck a click, although not all the click-throughs generate revenue for me). I'm not counting on the blog to fund Crusher's college education, but I'm hoping to at least cover my annual typepad fees this way.

You can now download the Mozilla Firefox web browser, with the Google toolbar, from the right side of my blog. I've also given you a Google search window to use. And if you want to try AdSense on your own website, there's a link over there on the right for that, too.

I hope you'll take a look at these new features, and let me know if the ads appear to have any relevance to the content of my posts. And if you have strong feelings about any of the changes I've made, the comments are open for business.

Crusher is a teetotaller.

Cautioned by the growing body of medical research on the effects of alcohol on fetal development, and the continuing uncertainty about how much alcohol it takes to produce negative effects, I abstained entirely from the Demon Rum during my first trimester. But at 13 weeks, we were enjoying a wonderful Chinese New Year celebration with friends, and I decided to usher in the second tri with a half-glass of wine.

It tasted delicious, as did the hot-pot. But later that night, I experienced my very first puke of the pregnancy.

I chalked it up to excessive protein consumption, since my gestational diet has consisted mostly of carbs, cheese, and avocadoes. The following week, after many hours of riding in the backseat of a small car en route to Northern Wisconsin, I puked again, though rather less intensely.

Last night, when Sasha and I met up after work, I was very much looking forward to a little vino. I asked the bartender for something smooth and not-too-full-bodied, and he complied with a delicious red, the provenance of which I didn't quite catch. The wine was soothing and delicious, and it felt wonderful to sit and chat and sip. When we moved on to dinner, I made a point of not overeating, and kept the protein consumption to a minimum.

To no avail. I barely made it home in time to vomit violently and copiously.

I'm not a big drinker even when I'm not growing a person, so it may be that my already low alcohol tolerance has dwindled to zero over the past fifteen weeks. But I'm thinking that Crusher is sending a message - lay off the sauce, mommy.