Deaf Like Me

I took sweet Pia for her obligatory Auditory Brain-stem Response test yesterday morning.

Before the test, I had an inkling of how it might turn out....I'd been thinking, off and on, since the morning she was born, "I don't know if she hears me."

It was the way she didn't seem to smile at me or coo at me, or respond to my voice coupled with a dull anxiety that "something is not quite right." The same things I felt about Gianna, and opposite of my experience with Dominic.

I wasn't that shocked, then, when the audioligist said, "I'm sorry to tell you....she's not responding." It's funny, what goes through your head in a moment like that.
I thought I only had one more year of driving to Loveland everyday.
How will I tell Brad? He didn't suspect at all...I should have prepared him better.
Dangit. Probably not getting a Suburban...gas mileage is a biotch.
I can't wait to tell Gianna. She is going to be so excited.

It was a day of many emotions. I look at Gianna now and see how happy she is, and how well she is doing, and I don't feel afraid. But then I remember how much work was involved to get here....the appointments and paper work and surgery and researching and worry. Some of that will be different this time, because we've already been in this place. But a lot will be new. I've never had an infant with hearing aids, I've never walked this journey from the beginning; Gianna was 14 months old when she was officially diagnosed with a profound hearing loss.

For the moment we are soaking it all in and dusting off our ASL. I feel very strongly that I want to communicate right now with Pia and I don't want to wait until we get amplification straightened out. When I picked G up from school I gave her the news and her face lit up. "Really?? REALLY??? Deaf like me??!! I will show her how to go to my school, will she get implants like me?"

Gianna was the person I wanted to share the news with the most; I knew the only reaction I would get from her would be unmitigated joy. She doesn't see herself as having a disability. Her Deafness is a fact to her in the same way she would say, "I am a girl. I am in kindergarten." It is not a negative. And it's with that spirit that I'd like to state, "Pia Catherine is a girl. She is 7 weeks old. She is Deaf."

This morning, Gianna was laying on my bed with Pia and Brad walked in to see Gianna with her magnets pulled off, signing happily. Brad asked her if she took her ears off on purpose and Gianna smiled shyly and explained,"Yes....so we can be the same."