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LISA CRAWFORD: Family weekend retreat
is an amazing experience.
Currently, I'm coordinating that particular event,
and I've been doing that for over five years.
But when we found out my daughter was deaf--
and she was actually under just about seven months old--
we attended an event very similar
to it in Michigan, at the time, and I learned from that
how important it was.
We went back for seven years in a row, I think,
and we learned something new every single year.
And it wasn't just beneficial for us, as parents.
It was beneficial for my child who's deaf,
being able to meet other children who were also deaf
and she could communicate easily with, and also for my hearing
daughter who got to meet a lot of other kids who had siblings
who are deaf or hard of hearing.
So it's support for the entire family,
and it really opens your eyes to what your child might be like
as they get older.
So every year, as my child got older,
there was questions I had, things
that I was curious about, so I was able to go and talk
to other parents of older kids, and meet
different professionals.
And so it was a really wonderful experience,
and that's what we try to create for families.
It's an opportunity to network, learn from each other,
and support each other.
When we first found out my daughter was deaf,
it was kind of interesting, because the audiologist--
I know now-- probably didn't have
a lot of experience working with children.
Maybe they served adults?
So they really didn't provide us with much information,
and we just walked out of the office with this diagnosis.
I went home, and I remember calling a friend,
and they had a friend who knew someone
who had a deaf daughter.
And actually, she was one of the first people that I talked to,
was another parent, and it was amazing to connect
with that person.
It really meant a lot.
She told me that, you might need to move,
and sure enough, we ended up moving just
across the county line.
But from her, I found out that there
was a lot of different programs out there,
and I really needed to start talking to a lot of people,
and also that you don't know what to expect.
You really have to let your child lead you.
And it took me a long time to understand that,
because I couldn't imagine how my seven-month-old was
going to show me what I needed to do for her, but sure enough,
that's really what happened.
I think the advice that I would have
liked to have heard from another parent, or anybody, is just
to trust that process.
I sometimes was so overwhelmed, or you over-think it,
and you try to do too much, but really, you just
need to trust yourself as a parent.
You're going to know your child the best,
and you're going to do what's right for them,
and you'll figure it out.