Well when I spoke about plenty of appointments for Oliver to attend, I guess we didn't expect there to be so many.
We attended further appointments to test Oliver's hearing. In the best way they could when he was still very much a new baby. I was comforted by their professional manner and the fact they wanted to make us feel at ease about the whole situation. They were not accustomed to dealing with a newborn deaf child as Oliver was the first baby that was picked up on the new born screening in Northampton. They started the newborn screening in September 2005. When the baby is born they aim to test the babies hearing within a few weeks. It has it's advantages obviously one being you pick up their deafness immediately and aim to help that child as fast as possible so they can hear in a way that would be normal to them. Whether it be hearing aids, Cochlear Implants or whatever is available. It also helps to improve their outcome through speech as quick as possible enabling them to talk faster than what they would have normally done if diagnosed later in their life. The disadvantages which seemed to affect me and possibly Mark were that many hearing parents go through a grieving process upon finding out their child is deaf, which I think we both did. Wondering how your child will ever communicate with you, wondering if they will ever hear anything you say, wondering if they will ever say your name, wondering how you and your child will ever cope with this unexpected turn of life, and innumerable other questions, We had all these questions and more. We wanted to enjoy our baby without having to worry about what appointments we had to get to, will he have hearing aids? or how will we aim to help him to cope with life's challenges with a disability.
Man it all sounds so hard now I write about it in black and white. You know when people ask you how did you manage...the answer is, you have to. Oliver was adorable (of course he still is) he was our life now and I would have done anything for him. I was also very intrigued about what new information we would learn next. That kind of leads me nicely on to his first hearing aids.... Well they were awful. Not too positive I know, if i had a picture of one I would put it up here. In fact I will try to find one. The ear molds themselves were made from heavy plastic. and attached to the plastic mold was a wire about 15Cm's and on the end of that wire was his over the ear part of a normal hearing aid. This made the device quite heavy, so when Oliver was laid down that was when we used it the most because it was too heavy and awkward to use otherwise. You imagine trying to feed a baby that is wriggly anyway and hold and play with a baby with this hearing aid in, Very hard. On the up side I think we dealt with this quite well. I would set aside probably only an hour a day for him to wear them and he would be laying down. This was precious mummy, Oliver time that I got to coo and arr over him. Giving him lots of attention and making lots of funny noises. I was told this would a) help our bond b) help him capture sounds and watch my mouth patterns and c) help him recognize my facial expressions as he wouldn't be hearing everything I said to him. At this point in his development he was not hearing a whole lot really. He may have heard low pitch sounds more than high pitch.
It all seems so long ago. The end of the wire hearing aids didn't last long though. At 3 months I remember going into hospital for one of our routine appointments and pleading with them to give Oliver over the ear hearing aids. The main reason they never did this when he was younger was because if the molds don't fit properly they tend to whistle and with a new baby they lay down quite a lot so the aids would be knocked out occasionally. Oliver being Oliver he is quite a physical active little chap and was then as well. He wasn't laying down as much at 3 months so they agreed to give him the over the ear hearing aids. We were really happy about it. They looked neater. He could wear them sitting up and they were digital ones so he could hear more sounds. Life was looking up until There came new challenges with the over the ear hearing aids....