It wasn’t long before various sports were added to the children’s out-of-school activities. Sophie joined Tom at tennis lessons. For her, learning to follow the rules was another therapy lesson – a whole new vocabulary – and learning to work as part of a group was crucial in her development. Swimming lessons early on Saturday mornings also became part of our routine. Tom had an emotional maturity beyond his years. He seemed to understand his sister and the difficulty she was going through with her deafness. It was wonderful to see how much they loved each other. They rarely fought over anything.
Sophie’s progress was being well documented at the Bionic Ear Institute. She became part of the research into children with a single implant in those early days and was doing incredibly well for a child who had not been implanted until she was four.
We met the inventor of the cochlear implant, Professor Graeme Clark, and his wife, Margaret, at some events. Margaret was gentle, clever and devoted to her husband. They were straightforward, friendly people, always happy to engage. Graeme was very interested in Sophie’s progress. I remember him asking me about her doing ballet and whether the music induced an emotional response. ‘No, I don’t think so, but perhaps she gets more from the physical feeling of dancing,’ I told him. He seemed fascinated. I felt so beholden to him. He was our shining light. Our life would have been very different without his groundbreaking invention.
We continued to take Sophie to the Eye and Ear Hospital for therapy with Shani once a week. Surprisingly, Sophie spoke without that flat tone that many deaf people have, which comes from not hearing properly. She sounded a bit like me, developing a nice intonation. I think it was because I sang the phrases to her. Now, she could clearly say things like ‘’Ello’, ‘’Ow are you?’, ‘May I pease ’ave a drink?’ And she could answer familiar questions, like ‘How are you, Sophie?’
Now that she was starting to hear and comprehend, Sophie was more confident to engage with people. I was overjoyed to see this. When she wanted someone’s attention she would gently touch them on the shoulder, just as people did so often to her. Then she would tilt her head into their field of vision (also as she was used to people doing for her) and say, ‘Coose me . . .’, and then tell them something. She did it with such gentleness and charm. She was developing much more quickly with the implant than she had with her hearing aids, and her dark moods were becoming even less frequent.
All through that year we lived at this crazy pace, and by late in my pregnancy I was finding all the running around, my teaching and the endless talking with Sophie quite exhausting. Dom was at work most days, and Li was busy with stockbroking and the new ballet season. Mum and Dad came to help, my saviours as they had been many times before. They took over just about everything. We had found out the baby’s gender some months back and now I was able to get some rest and think about our new daughter. Li and I were beyond excited to meet her.
Mum and I would sometimes walk to Albert Park village for lunch, and Dad would often collect Tom from kinder and the two of them would walk together to the local pub so Dad could have a beer while his grandson had a fizzy lemonade and a packet of chips. In the evenings it was a relief to relax and let them do all the talking for a change. Around this time, my sister Jo had moved to Boston, where her husband, Bruce, was a Harvard University professor. Most of my siblings were working on producing grandchildren, and to Mum and Dad’s great joy, they just kept on coming. Our little girl would be next. And Matt and Annie were also expecting their third.
Li had suffered knee pain on and off for years. Around this time, he felt he had put up with it long enough and decided to have the surgery a specialist had recommended. The specialist had told him that he may have another two to three years of dancing, but only if he was very disciplined about his rehab. Li’s discipline and tenacity were never in doubt. We decided that the best time for the surgery was before the company’s Christmas break, when Li would miss a minimal amount of work. But the operation would clash with the baby’s birth, and there was nothing we could do to avoid it.
Luckily, Bridie Rose arrived two weeks late, on 12 November 1997. She looked like a beautiful Asian princess, with porcelain skin and a huge tuft of jet-black hair sticking straight upwards. She was so petite and stunning, we fell in love with her immediately. We were delighted that she could hear. We called her Li’s little present, as he was insistent on having a third child. A true gift!
Life thereafter was manic. How we managed while Li was juggling two jobs and continuing to do rehab after his surgery was completely insane. What were we thinking? Our days now were quite different. Li was working harder than ever. He was surviving on minimal sleep, often waking at the first sound of Bridie’s cries at night. I would tell him to go to another bedroom and leave the crying baby with me so he could get a decent night’s sleep. The catchphrase in our home was ‘Exhaustion won’t kill you’ – but to be honest, the exhaustion nearly killed us both.
I decided that I definitely needed help and remembered how Coralie had always encouraged me to have help in those early years so I could focus on the children. The cleaner was a godsend. She certainly knew more about housekeeping than I did!
I always looked forward to Louise’s sessions with Sophie. They gave me insight into Sophie’s progress. While she was working with Sophie at the table, the other children played and I got the dinner ready, keeping one ear on the lesson at the same time. The family chaos didn’t deter Louise from pushing Sophie to listen and describe what she heard, and help her learn to predict. ‘Is somebody at the door? Who could it be?’ Louise would ask. I learned so much from observing these sessions.
There were times that Sophie gave us a good laugh when she would simply copy people talking, mostly by copying me.
‘Okay, kids, hurrr up, we nee t’go dow tennis. Shoes on ev’one!’ It was hilarious; we’d laugh and hurry up to encourage her.
Around this time, she also said, ‘Shit!’ I was thrilled. I knew I hadn’t taught her that one so she had overheard and picked it up. ‘Fantastic!’ Li said when I told him.
‘We must be the only parents in the world to celebrate the first swear word out of their child’s mouth,’ I chuckled.
How we got by with all this mayhem, I have no idea. It was no wonder Dom moved out to his own place quick smart after Bridie was born!
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Bridie was so physically active, given my own background, but once she began to move around, I had to be watching her at all times. She crawled incredibly fast and was soon pulling herself up on the furniture and scrambling. Whenever she saw me pick up my handbag, she would bolt in a lightning-fast crawl for the front door, determined not to miss out.
Sophie was very protective of Bridie, like a little mother. Tom continued to pick up on anything Sophie missed, misheard or didn’t comprehend. He explained gently and allowed things to flow on. He was extremely empathetic and attuned to social situations and how people were feeling, especially me. ‘Thanks, Tom, for being so kind,’ I’d tell him. And he’d always say, ‘That’s okay, Mum.’
By now, Sophie was nine years old. It had been five years since her implant. But the annual tests revealed she still only had the receptive language of a three-year-old and the auditory age of a five-year-old. Receptive words are not the same as concepts such as ‘How’ and ‘Why’.