FAMILY STORY: MEET BRIELLE TOAL

Brielle is our little miracle baby, an ex-25 week preemie who we are so fortunate to have in our lives! She is now going on three and a half years old, and is full of life and curiosity!  She is now going on three and a half years old, and is full of life and curiosity! She has three doting older sisters (ages nine, almost eight and five) who are very protective of her and love her immensely! Brielle has a long medical history and is still medically fragile, although she is doing much better lately. Due to her prematurity and subsequent treatments, she is profoundly deaf bilaterally, and had severe ROP (retinopathy of prematurity) resulting in near-blindness (very low vision in left eye only). She wears bilateral cochlear implants and has learned to distinguish many spoken words, though expressively she uses sign language and gestures to communicate.

To include Brielle in our activities, we let her get down on the ground and have some freedom exploring- the grass, sand, water, bark, concrete, dirt with her hands and body. She gets very dirty and we don’t mind if she rips holes in her pants, as long as she’s happy, exploring and learning new things!

 To read more and see pictures of Brielle, click here:  A Bit About Brielle