u/thebroms

We are hearing parents of a deaf baby. We need to do some more imaging to confirm, but at this time she is a candidate for CIs and based on previous MRIs will probably be eligible. Does anyone have experience here with kiddos bilaterally implanted very young? She is only 6 1/2 months now and will be somewhere around 11-12 months likely when implanted. We want to know how the kiddos are, how was healing, how was language learning and spoken language after, how old are they now and was there ever regret? Please know that ASL is being learned and used with her already, and even with her implantations it will still be taught and prioritized as much as if not more than english. We recognize she is deaf no matter what so ASL is a must for us all to learn, we just want insight into whether giving her these tools as an option is worth it down the road. We would love personal stories to! I dont know how long implantation on young kids has been an option so if you are an adult who was implanted as a baby we would love to hear from you to!

Thank you for any and all insight!

My daughter is deaf and we are trying to learn ASL, as a native english speaker I struggle with ASL grammer and sentence structure. Specifically right now the use of the sign "question" . I want to make sure I understand. So if i were to sign "Do you like the oatmeal?" Would it be signed "you like that oatmeal you" with a questioning face or would you sign "you like that oatmeal question" with a questioning face? Or are both acceptable? Another example would be "are you happy today?" She is a 6 month old, so our sentences with her are very simple yet. But would this be "today you happy you" or "today you happy question" or both? When is question used? I just dont quite understand yet... is it for questions that do not utilize a person so no you? Like "dada where question" ?

I posted in r/pregnancy alot about how my 2nd pregnancy was not going as expected. We had on going growth issues and a small cyst in right ventricle of the brain. It was scary and annoying, being told everything was fine and they werent worried about it all, just wanted to monitor. At 36 weeks we found out she had suddenly dropped from 12th percentile to 3rd with a 1st percentile belly, I was induced at 37 and 3. Her birth was surprisingly fast and easy, I did a foley balloon overnight and after about half an hour of pitocin the contractions began and then within the next hour I was begging for an epidural hunched over a cabinet in the birthing suite, walked to the bed to get the epidural and as I walked over I suddenly felt the urge to push, my water broke while standing and I was swiftly helped onto the bed as her head was there and 2 pushes later she was here. No tears and a healthy 5lbs 14oz, passing her apgar with flying colors and latching like a champ immediately. She was perfect.

Then the newborn hearing tests, she wasnt passing, they assured us it was common. And I wasnt scared, her sister hadnt passed her first test either and with this birth it was so fast that she wasnt really squeezed on the way out to get fluid out of her ears, right?

We had a card to recheck her ears later and told she would be tested for something called CMV but not to worry, it was unlikely. I had never even heard of it. A few days later we got the life changing call, she has CCMV. She would need MRIs, eye exams, hearing tests, and a life time of monitoring for increased likelyhood of decelopmental issues, progressive hearing loss, autism, etc.

I was scared, angry, all the emotions. Why had I never been told about CMV, especially as a 2nd time mom? Why had family constantly thought it was ok to come to events while sick during my pregnancy? Why my daughter? She was so pure, so small, and now she was going to be subject to weekly blood draws due to the potential medication side effects, multitudes of tests, and likely a life time of adversity due to being born with some level of hearing loss and unknown future issues that could arise.

We are 3 months into her life now, we are meeting milestones, despite some mild brain involvement found on her MRI from the infection, and waiting to see specialists for a sedated hearing test to truly assess how deaf she is and if she will be eligible for hearing aids or cochlear implants. We are still angry for her, but it has dulled a bit. We are no longer scared. We love her so much, she is perfect. And she is so lucky that she happened to be born to a mom who thought ASL would be "fun" to take in college instead of spanish to complete my language requirements.

We will be OK. She will be OK. No matter what her future holds we will be there to make sure she has every resource and support she needs to be happy and thrive in her life.

But be warned, if you are an American mom, first kid or not CMV is no joke. Avoid sharing food, drinks, kisses or changing diapers of little kiddos in your pregnancy and mask up if someone decides that being sick around you is more important than protecting you and your babies health. It is not worth the risk, we are lucky she is as OK as she is, but this is not a gamble worth taking. The negatives far out weigh the potential for things being OK, and America does not seem to take this as seriously as other countries do.