Confirmed Suspicions

Being Deaf, coming from a Deaf family, I always thought that one of my children would be Deaf. Marrying a hearing man with no deafness in his family (that we know of) means the chances of having a Deaf child diminishes, but the possibility is still there.

Of the four children I have, I always felt that Evelyn would have some hearing loss, but really, any one of them have a chance of it.  As Evelyn grew older, she's soon 11 next month, I saw signs of hearing loss in her-- not responding when I call for her, having to repeat what I say (though that could be me mispronouncing something), getting one of her siblings to get her attention for me...  small little things like that.  We would ask her if she was ignoring us or really didn't hear us, but we knew the answer to that already. 

Finally, we made an appointment for her to have a hearing test.  If she did indeed have a hearing loss, better to get hearing aids for her sooner rather than later. Today was the big day and a very nervous and unsure Evelyn went into the sound booth to get her ears tested.  I have had my ears tested so many times that just the sight of her in there with the headphones on, I swear I could hear the beeps and tones in my own ears!

 

A half-hour of testing later, and it is confirmed, she does indeed have hearing loss.  The audiologist wants to have a re-test in a month or so, but she's pretty sure that the results of this test are right on.  She has a 60 db loss, which is pretty high, but the good thing is she already has her communication skills developed.  She speaks well and already knows sign language, so I'm not really concerned about communication issues. Being Deaf myself and from a large family of Deaf people, Evelyn is already at an advantage with me as her Mama.  We know just what to do and it shouldn't slow her down one bit.

 

We had a good Mother/Daughter day after the hearing test and spent the day talking about her hearing loss and what will happen in the future.  She has a pretty good handle on things and I have utmost confidence in her and her future endeavors. It's nice to know for sure now what we've always suspected and now we can move forward and work towards making life a little easier for her and helping her to adjust to her hearing loss. She is still Evelyn, still our baby, and we will always love her!

 

We love you baby girl!