newborn screening

As most of you know, our baby Liam was born on the 22nd of April 2009. The most painful and hardest experience I have ever been through but I must say....I would do it again! Liam is our only child so we had NO idea what to expect. On the 23rd of April we were still in the hospital and a young girl came into our room with some equipment. I will never forget her. She was young, bright eyed and very quiet. I wondered what she was doing in our room but then again so may people had been coming and going that I didn't think any thing of it. She leaned over to Liam who was asleep on my tummy and asked if she could do a hearing test. It is now mandatory in the state of Colorado to screen newborns. She did the test and had a puzzled look on her face and asked if she could do it again. I said yes, and thought nothing of it. She then conducted the test again. Still, that puzzled and almost worried look came over her face. I never shared this with my husband Charles but something didn't seem right.

I thought to myself, it is nothing. I mean really. I don't know one deaf person! My pregnancy was flawless and there is no history of hearing loss on either side of our family. It just didn't cross my mind that something really could be wrong.

The young girl said Liam did not pass his newborn screening test and that we needed to follow up in about two weeks with the audiologist to schedule a follow up appointment. I asked her if this was something I should be concerned about and she said that newborns fail all the time because fluid gets in the ears. My labor was very difficult and the nurses actually had told me that Liam had a lot of fluid in his lungs so my first thought was that it was indeed just that.

Two and a half weeks went by before our appointment. Did Charles or I ever notice something was wrong? I had a feeling I couldn't put my finger on and later Charles said he had a feeling Liam was deaf. He said there were a few times when the dogs would bark and Liam wouldn't even startle. Why didn't he say something??? Of course if he did I would have been in denial and couldn't have enjoyed those first two weeks of my newborn.