Alejandra Amaro-Garcia

My name is Alejandra and I’m a WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor. I live in Lincoln with my husband and 3 children. My oldest Chloe is 13, Santiago our middle is 6, and Emma is 3. Santi wears bilateral cochlear implants. He was detected with severe-profound hearing loss as a newborn. As testing went on for his candidacy to get a CI it was brought to our attention Santi might not benefit from a CI. Santi has inner ear malformation with an incomplete cochlea and narrowing auditory nerves. The biggest concern was if the nerve reached the brain. We decided to proceed with the left side first. At 1 year old Santi got his first CI. After leaving our activation day with no response my husband and I had accepted we wouldn’t see any reactions to sound at home. Of course, even to this day Santi likes to prove me wrong. Everyone including our providers were shocked to see how much he was responding to sounds. At age 2 Santi went bilateral. Santi has worked hard and continues to do so to improve his verbal communication skills. Since his verbal skills aren’t in his age range, we do use some ASL. I feel extremely lucky with our journey to have met many wonderful people. I want to be able to bring comfort and support like others gave to me. My other goal is being able to help the Hispanic community know what resources are available to them and show them how amazing the Deaf/HOH community is.