I like to look for rainbows....

On April 6, 2001, Hadley Anne Peay was born into our family. Really, you could say she officially made us a family. Before Hadley, it was just Stewart and I, selfishly muddling our ways through life. And then she arrived.

Oh, how the world changes when you have a baby. When the doctor handed Hadley to me, she looked into my eyes and I knew that we knew each other. I was sure she knew my voice (I later found out maybe not my voice but that's another story...) I had the sensation of looking into eyes so familiar that they could even be my own eyes. Her eyes don't look like my eyes. I just knew them as well as I know my own eyes. It was the first time in my life that I had ever had such a feeling. I remember the first night in the hospital. I wasn't able to sleep because I just wanted to look at her.

Two months later, we learned that Hadley was deaf. I mourned the loss of the person I thought I would raise. It was a death of sorts to me as I re-defined what kind of mom I would be. The child I thought I had given birth to no longer existed to me. I cried.

I consider myself a linguist of sorts....a lover of words, language, poetry, a Spanish and Russian teacher, a debate champion. My husband, the law student, dreamt of being a great orator, a statesman, a litigator. What were we to do with a child who could not hear?

We began our journey...first sign language. We learned, we practiced, we signed. Our deaf mentor came twice a week, I enrolled in ASL at BYU (lots of letters there, eh?) and a few months later, we came to a horrible realization. I had enough time to make great progress with my sign language. Stewart did not. What did that mean? Was he to have less of a relationship with his own child because he could not communicate with her as well as I could? And what about cousins? Grandparents? Uncles and aunts? Did they all need to learn a new language in order to know Hadley?

Next stop on the journey...cued speech. Stewart and I attended a workshop and spent a weekend learning cued speech. It's a phonemic representation of spoken language. It is based on our spoken language and a combination of lip reading and hand shapes to represent the sounds. It provides a bridge. It seemed closer to what we were looking for but...

And then, we met the Larsens. They probably do not know how much they have impacted our lives. We hardly know them. They are a family with two deaf daughters (and later, a deaf son) who invited us over to dinner and introduced us to Hannah, at that time 5 years old, and Sara, then 2. Both girls are profoundly deaf and both had cochlear implants. They didn't really speak much, although the girls did speak. I was just shocked to see them both turn when their names were called. That was SO MUCH more than I had ever dreamed my deaf child could do. I felt an awakening at that moment. On the drive home, Stewart and I looked at each other and I could see that there was hope in both of our eyes.

You all know how the rest of the story goes as far as Hadley's hearing is concerned. But today's story for me is more about the beautiful young lady she has become.

Hadley is now eight years old. Today she chose to be baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My sister, Karyn, sang a beautiful song to Hadley called "When I am Baptized", in which rainbows are mentioned as a reminder of Heavenly Father's love for us. It was such a perfect day...it even rained. Not normally perfect but just right for a baptism day! So many friends and family members came to support our little angel. Thank you to all of you.

I have thought many times over the past eight years about how my expectations for Hadley have continually evolved as she has grown and matured. I could not be more proud of her. I really couldn't. I cannot even believe that I ever worried about her the way that I did. She speaks, she sings, she reads, she laughs, she cries, she dances, she is everything I ever wanted in a daughter and she is so much more. I still look into her eyes and feel as though I am seeing my own soul. What greater joy is there in life than to have children who you love, who you admire, who teach you, and who love their Heavenly Father.

Happy belated birthday, Hadley. We are so proud of you.