“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’
‘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.”
‘All babies born premature are floppy, aren’t they? We never noticed looking at our beautiful baby boy.’: After first child is ‘born sleeping,’ mom has son with Down syndrome, he’s the ‘life of the party’
“We were at a party. A little boy came up to me. ‘Why isn’t Riley talking to me? I’m asking him questions and he won’t answer me.’ Our son has Down syndrome. After learning Riley will be going to mainstream school, one parent asked, ‘How will he be able to get along with other children?’ It was like BANG. He is his own character, the same as every child.”
‘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.”
‘Then came the call. ‘Come to NYC and get your daughter. She’ll land in 3 days!’ We immediately jumped on the plane, but then a hiccup.’
“Just 2 days later we got a text in our agency group. ‘Who was the family that was interested in a deaf child?’ Well that was us, and now we are going to adopt 2 girls?! No, we couldn’t do that. So we had a HUGE decision to make.”
‘One of my Deaf students farted loudly in class, and other students turned to look at them. ‘Why are they looking at me?’ ‘Because they heard you fart.’ ‘Whhhhat do you mean?!’
“*Totally horrified* Wait, they can hear all farts?!?! TELL THEM TO STOP LISTENING TO MY FARTS! THAT IS NOT NICE!”
‘He was both deaf and blind. That’s when this lovely young woman came into the picture’: 15-year-old helps stranger aboard flight to make sure ‘his needs were met’
“It was a beautiful reminder, in this time of too much awfulness, that there are still good, good people who are willing to look out for each other.”
Bride’s touching tribute for deaf husband at their wedding will leave you in tears
“Even though Scott is deaf, I have never felt more heard in my life.”
