I can hear you now, Mummy

Joanna's story

The day I brought Estelle home from the hospital, I whispered into her tiny ears, "Welcome to your new home.  I love you."  Little did I know she couldn't hear me. 

I would sing her lullabies and tell her stories, just as I had to my two older boys.  But something wasn't right.  She wasn't responding to soft sounds, especially when we played peek-a-boo or hide-in-seek. 

I took her to the doctors and insisted that they test her hearing.  My requests would often 'fall on deaf ears': they kept telling me that she wasn't deaf and that she had a behavioural problem. 

Finally, at 20 months, she was diagnosed with severe hearing loss. The shock was huge.  I cried and cried. Initially, I believed that treatment would fix whatever Estelle had. But this was not the case. 

In many ways, I was relieved that I now knew what the issue was with Estelle's speech development.  This road was a different one: I had a lot of homework to do, I would have to learn new skills and my parenting would have to change. 

On searching for information on raising a child with hearing loss, I was presented with a 'show bag' full of complex and daunting information. Inside were detailed brochures on hearing aids, hearing equipment and early intervention centres, but no parenting booklets and no contact details of other parents with deaf children.  

All I wanted was to speak to another mother who had experience in raising a deaf child.  I craved hearing a mother's voice that would confidently tell me that everything would be okay. 

I called one of the early intervention centres and begged them to put me in touch with a mother of a deaf child of primary school age. Three weeks later, I was given the name and number of a mother in Brighton. 

Speaking to her was exactly what I needed. She gave me hope and made me see that all the dreams she had initially had for her daughter were still achievable, regardless of her hearing loss. It was the stepping stone to regaining my confidence in parenting.  Continued...