Sadie was born the morning of August 26th. She was a tiny girl, weighing in at 5 pounds and 15 ounces! Troy and I were overjoyed to finally have our perfect, beautiful baby girl in our arms. We settled in at the hospital for our short stay in a tiny, tiny room. Troy will never stop talking about the size of this room :) Sadie had several visitors over the course of our stay, starting with grandparents, aunts and uncles and ending with very good family friends. She couldn't have been more loved.
The second day of our stay, Sadie had an audiological technician stop by to perform the newborn hearing screening. We were told this was standard procedure and that all children receive this testing. Basically a newborn hearing screen emits sounds into the infant's ears and measures the brain's response to these sounds. Sadie started the test out great. The technician was receiving all of the responses that she needed. However, towards the end of the test, Sadie stopped responding and her score dropped. By the end of the time period, Sadie had failed her test. I distinctly remember the technician telling me not to worry about it, as many children failed the first test. It could be due to fluid in her ears as a result from the birthing process. She told me not to worry, so I didn't. Go figure...the one time I didn't worry was the one time I should have. She said someone would stop by the next day to perform another test. Long story short, exact same results. Sadie failed the test and they had to "refer" us to have another evaluation done in a couple of weeks. Again, the technician told us not to worry yet.
We took Sadie home and started our adventure of parenthood. And boy was it rough! Everyone says that parenting is the hardest thing they have ever experienced, but I had no idea! Sadie was a colicky baby and cried pretty much all hours of the day. I was very blessed to have great family and friends who would take over for a while and let me get some naps in during the day!
About 10 days after Sadie was born we were scheduled to have a final newborn hearing screening. We went to the hospital near our house for yet another test. This test was a little more difficult because Sadie was more alert than she was in the hospital, and you have to stay asleep for this test. My job was to keep rocking her in my arms to keep her asleep, while making sure the probes didn't fall off her head! They went through the evaluation twice before concluding again that Sadie had failed. This time we were going to be referred to a pediatric audiologist for a more in-depth evaluation. Troy and I left the hospital in tears but tried to stay strong for our baby girl. I got a call later that afternoon to schedule our appointment with the audiologist. I will never forget her telling me to "start preparing myself.....start reading online." Reading what I thought? There can't be anything wrong with my daughter.
Two weeks later we went to the pediatric audiologist for more testing. Again, this was difficult because we had to keep Sadie asleep for her testing. It took about 2 hours and I just remember being so frustrated because they couldn't keep the probes on her head. They kept messing with them and it kept waking her up. I just wanted them to hurry up and finish all this testing so that we could find out what we all thought...Sadie's hearing was fine. During the test, Troy and I kept looking at each other trying to understand what the computer was saying. Was Sadie doing well with her test? What was going on? Finally the testing was over and the audiologist sat us down in her office and told us the heartbreaking news. Sadie had moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears and would require hearing aids, and possibly cochlear implants in the future. This was by far the worst day of my life. How could this be happening to us? There was no history of hearing loss in either of our families, so how and why did this happen to Sadie? I broke down crying immediately. Troy broke down shortly afterwards. I never see my husband cry, but today was different. Today our whole lives changed.
I went home with so many questions, I didn't even know where to begin. I started searching everything I could about hearing loss. And I couldn't do any of it without crying. Was my baby ever going to hear my voice? Would she be able to talk? Was I going to have to learn sign language? I felt so alone and absolutely helpless. I had great family and friends who were there telling me everything was going to be okay...that Troy and I were great people and we would get through this and Sadie would be fine. Such nice things everyone said, but it didn't erase the fact that Sadie was hearing impaired. I just kept thinking "easy for you to say, your children are all healthy and fine." Finally, after about a week of feeling sorry for her and for myself, I got a grip and decided the path I was on wasn't going to work. I couldn't be sad all the time, I had to be strong for my Sadie Rose. So I reached out to the audiologist to get as much information as I could. Our audiologist, Erin, couldn't have been more helpful. She gave me tons of websites to review, as well as reassured me that I was not alone and that she was going to help Sadie and our family through this. That is what finally made me breath a little bit easier. I wasn't as alone as I thought I would be.
Over the course of the next few months, we visited the audiologist about every other week. Sadie got fitted for her hearing aids, we met with the state sponsored program that would provide speech therapy, and we got in touch with the parents of another hearing impaired child. It has been great to have so many resources!
So far Sadie has done very well tolerating her hearing aids. Now, if we could just get them to stay on a little better, we would be in great shape.
While this journey isn't one I would choose for myself, I am blessed to be supported by so many wonderful friends and family members. For this, I know that Sadie will be just fine. Keep reading to stay updated on more of Sadie's stories! Enjoy!
