“Beckett hadn’t heard for the first 13 months of his life and BAM. He was suddenly hearing. I cried on the way home, if I’m being honest. I received nasty, angry messages. I was ‘playing God’ by wanting to give him the gift of sound. Wanting our son to be able to hear us tell him ‘I love you’ was NOT a selfish thing.”
‘Your son is deaf.’ We were praying it was a huge mistake. They wheeled him out. I lost it.’: Mom shocked by newborn’s severe hearing loss, ‘we had no family history’
‘Danielle. You’re, like, really pregnant!’ I had JUST miscarried. How could I get pregnant TWICE?!’: Woman conceives 2 children naturally after infertility, donates remaining embryos to help another family birth twins
“I came down with a bad cold. I was nauseous and chalked it up to medication, but something inside me said to take the test. ‘PREGNANT.’ I wasn’t convinced. There was barely enough time for my body to naturally miscarry. It didn’t make sense. An ultrasound hours later confirmed the news. ‘You’re 8 weeks!’ We were so happy, but also angry. We had spent thousands of dollars on fertility treatment only to conceive naturally, TWICE.”
‘You will never become anything,’ my doctor said. I was going stone-cold deaf. ‘What now?’: Woman loses hearing to infection, vows ‘deafness will not define me’
“As a young girl, there were signs. I literally danced to my own beat, mispronounced words. I spent years humiliated, called to stand up in front of classmates and speak the language I couldn’t hear. On one test in particular, I completely bombed the oral exam, tears streaming down. ‘I thought you didn’t want to be labeled as different,’ my teacher said. That was the final straw.”
‘Is your husband deaf, too?’ No, but he’s the most patient man I’ve ever met.’: Cancer survivor marries ‘hearing husband,’ claims ‘harships’ make her ‘glad to be born deaf’
“Yes, I’m deaf and my husband can hear. He reminds me when I leave the water running because I can’t hear it, or when my car is making a funny noise. He makes all my appointments over the phone. The amount of times I’ve said, ‘Huh? I have no idea what you’re saying,’ are endless. But I seriously couldn’t do life without him by my side acting as my ears and being my person. He makes me glad to be born deaf.”
‘Minutes after learning my daughter was deaf, an older woman complained I wasn’t ‘shushing’ her loud enough. I smiled through tears.’: Mom gushes deaf daughter is ‘amazingly fearless,’ says she’ll do ‘amazing things in this world’
“We were so excited to finally have our baby home that it was a last minute thought she’d failed her newborn hearing test. The nurse assured us it was pretty common. I honestly didn’t even think of it again. Over the next few weeks, we watched her when the dog barked, we’d vacuum right next to her as she slept. Friends would watch football, loudly. NO response. Nothing seemed to disturb her. We knew something was terribly wrong.”
‘I woke up from the anesthesia. ‘Is it closed?’ My family nodded. I couldn’t get pregnant. I feared passing it on to my kids. I knew my life would change, but didn’t understand how much.’
“I questioned whether I’d ever have boyfriends, if someone would ever love me enough to marry me. I was weird looking. I was different. I kept telling myself I didn’t need kids. Then, I met a man and my life did a 180. I wanted a family and kids so badly.”
What this mom of kids with special needs wishes people wouldn’t say to her
“I SEE YOU. Not just the special part. THE WHOLE PART.”
