At a loss

One Wednesday last summer, Justin was late for mutual and ran out the door in a hurry. A few minutes later my phone rang and he called to say he'd forgotten a paper he needed. "I'm just down the street" he said. "I'll turn around but could you run out and hand it to me in the driveway?" 

I was in the middle of changing David's diaper so I asked Audrey to grab the paper and stand out on the porch to watch for her Dad. She ran out and stood expectantly watching the road for our car.

A few minutes later I was done with David and called to Audrey, "Audrey, is Dad here yet?" She didn't turn around. 

My heart sank.

I called again, louder, to my daughter just a few feet away from me through the screen door. I watched the back of her little head with her ponytail and again, she didn't even move. And I thought, "She can't hear me. They're right, she can't hear me."

A few weeks before that Justin took Audrey to a routine appointment with an audiologist. We'd been concerned with her speech a little bit and she'd failed two hearing tests at school. Our family doctor had talked to us about fluid in her eardrums, something that's fairly normal in kids her age. I was working in my office when Justin texted me: "they're talking hearing aids." 

What? 

No.

Audrey didn't need hearing aids. She doesn't have a hearing problem. She's fine! She functions normally, talks with us all the time, does great in school. They had to be wrong.

Justin came home with Audrey that day and we talked quietly in the kitchen while she played with David. He had the graph, the diagnosis: mild to moderate hearing loss. Only 50% of normal hearing in the human vocal range. But I just couldn't believe it. We'd never seen any signs, she'd never had any problems.

I went to the next appointment and sat in a sound proof room and watched my sweet girl listen for beeps through ear phones and push a corresponding button. My mother heart slowly and steadily broke as I watched her push the button very infrequently. The diagnosis after the test was the same. 50% hearing loss. Strong recommendation of hearing aids. And I went home and called my Mom and cried.

The last 9 months or so have been full of meetings with doctors and audiologists, Audrey's teacher and speech therapist and hearing aid specialists. They've explained that the hearing loss is genetic and has been there since birth, they've mapped out what Audrey's life with hearing loss will look like, they've made a plan to make sure she's not at a disadvantage in school. 

And yesterday she got her hearing aids. They're small, pink and slide discreetly behind her ears. They blend in with her pretty hair. 

I don't want this for her. Life is hard enough for a girl growing up without a disadvantage like this. I want things to be as easy as possible for her. I love her so much. 

But yesterday I watched her eyes get big as they switched on and calibrated her hearing aids. "It's so loud!" she said. "I can hear everything!" We talked about the fluorescent lights buzzing that she'd never noticed before, how my voice sounded the same but louder, she noticed David making noise on the floor of the office. It was a fun moment. And just as her eyes got big at all the new sounds, so did her smile. 

And I thought, "We're going to be okay."