There is a range of things that might happen. There is certainly the classic YouTube moment, where that kid gets turned on for the first time, and they smile, and they turn to their name. But that's not always what happens. And actually, I think that's pretty rare in my experience. 

It was incredible. He wasn't facing me, so I didn't get to see his initial reaction, but going back to seeing the videos that my mom took, it was what I expected. 

It is a big day in the child and in the family's journey on this cochlear implantation. 

When they turned them on, for a split second, it was stunned, and then it was crying. 

You know, he's hearing everything. And now, he's going to hear himself cry a little bit. What is that? I know. What was that? 

[KNOCKING] 

I hate to say that I like to see kids cry. 

Right. 

But this is good. He is hearing it. And he gave us some pretty good reactions to when we made a noise. He completely responded, which I think is awesome. 

Yeah. 

A lot of times, what happens is when the child is first turned on, they cry because they're scared because they're not used to hearing. It oftentimes it's a little bit startling. And for Blaze, that was definitely the case. But he calmed down pretty quickly after wearing them for only a few minutes. 

We want all the smiles and cooing. We did get that, but not right away. 

Every time I talked, Blaze would turn and look to see who was talking. And it was really neat. It was an emotional time because he's now aware, and just 24 hours in. 

Cochlear implants have to be quote unquote "mapped" or set for the recipient. So Blaze's cochlear-implant processor is going to be programmed differently than another child's cochlear-implant processor. And they're all different, and it's all individualized. So in the mapping appointments, we determine the level of stimulation that Blaze's auditory nerves need to process that sound and be stimulated by the implant. 

So the next step is therapy. So we'll have therapy every week. 

Blaze is really interesting because he has a twin brother who has normal hearing. And so to compare the two to each other, you might see a little bit of a difference right now. Our goal with his cochlear implants and with speech therapy is to have him catch up to his brother pretty much as soon as possible. And I think with a lot of hard work by Blaze's parents, and grandparents, and other caregivers, that with his cochlear implants and with that hard work, we can have him catch up, and to have, essentially, the speech and language skills of his normal-hearing twin brother and his normal-hearing peers. 

[MUSIC PLAYING]