Face The Music

One Month Old

"M-I-A," I finger-spelled to my beautiful baby girl in her Boppy lounger. "M-I-A. I love you."

If I could sing, dance, and act, I could definitely be the number-one parent of a deaf baby. While Chrys helped me out with the laundry and some of her feeds, I was doing my online ASL courses, learning as many signs as I could.

Mia blinked at me a few times while sucking on her paci. She looked so super cute in her yellow summer sundress. I put a matching bow on her head, which covered a portion of her thick, black hair.

"Are you sure you don't need me to come with you?" Chrys asked as I picked Mia up.

"Nah. I'm good."

"Okay. What should I do while you're gone?" she asked.

"I just need you to empty out the diaper genie but other than that you can hang out and do your homework or something," I said.

"Great. Thanks. I have her stroller all unfolded and ready to go at the door."

"Cool. Thanks Chrys. I'll see you when we get back."

"Good luck! Can't wait to hear how it goes," Chrys said.

I laid Mia down in the bassinet of her Uppababy Vista stroller. Only the best of the best strollers for my little princess. I opened the door and waited outside in the summer air for Hudson. I was so proud of him for finally getting his license. He was such a big chicken and scared of driving for the longest time.

Hudson pulled up in his dad's Rolls Royce through the gate. I opened the door and transferred Mia into her carseat, which she did not like. I did my best to keep the paci in her mouth while Hudson folded up her stroller and put it in the trunk.

Once the stroller was loaded up and we were finally settled, we were on our way downtown to Oak Falls General Hospital, where we'd be seeing the area's best pediatric audiologist: Doctor Spears.

We got to the hospital parking lot and were totally lost because there were a million different buildings but we finally found the right place to go. Once we were parked, I got Mia, who was fast asleep as usual, back into her bassinet.

We went across the parking lot, up an elevator, around a few hallways, and back down the elevator because apparently "ground" and "first" were two separate floors. Who does that? Finally we got to the right office, where I had us checked in and we sat down. We didn't have to do any forms since they sent them to my mom online beforehand. I couldn't fill them out, even though I was Mia's mom, since I was a minor still.

I looked around the room at the few kids that were there. They were all different ages, each one with hearing aids in their ears. One mom sat with her toddler daughter on her lap. I could see a black cochlear implant sticking out through her blond hair. For the first time in a month, I felt a little bit of solace. I was finally around people like me, and Mia was finally around other kids like her...even though she was sleeping and had no idea.

"Mia?" a nurse said a few minutes later.

I pushed the stroller. Hudson and I followed the nurse down to one of the exam rooms. Hudson and I sat down while she opened up her laptop.

"So what brings you in today?" she asked.

"Mia failed her hearing test. The hospital told us she was deaf," Hudson said.

"Bilateral profound deafness," I said.

I'd been doing lots of world's-greatest-mom research. I didn't want to sound like I was just some dumb teen that had no idea what was going on with her baby.

The nurse asked us some more questions, and then we waited nearly forty-five minutes. I had to feed Mia and hoped I wouldn't need to change her as well. She whined for a bit but settled down once I burped her well.

There was a knock on the door, and a young woman in a white coat walked through the door. She shook both of our hands.

"Hi. I'm Doctor Spears, but please feel free to call me Brittany," she said with a nice smile.

"Shut up. Is your name seriously Brittany Spears?" Hudson said. "Yes girl. Free Brittany."

"Yeah I...don't really talk to my parents anymore. Anyway, how are you guys doing today? I understand you're here due to a failed hearing screening when she was born a month ago?"

"Mm-hm. They ran the test three times and she failed it completely all three times," I said.

"Alrighty. Well the first step in the process is, of course, to repeat all of that testing, do a few additional things, and then we can discuss your options from there," she said. "Mom, you can go ahead and hold her the entire time I'm doing the first test. Hopefully she'll stay asleep the whole time."

"Oh, she definitely will. She sleeps more than anyone," I said.

I picked Mia up and held her in my arms while Dr. Spears hooked all these wires up to her ears and her head. Mia was completely unbothered the entire time she did the first test and didn't wake up at all.

After that was done, she switched those wires out for different ones. We did that test, then another, and then another. The purpose of the testing was to figure out specifically where the hearing loss in her little ears was coming from.

We made it through over an hour of testing. Mia blew up her diaper, so we got to take a break to get her changed. Once she was all set, we went back into the exam room so we could go over the results with Dr. Spears.

Hudson was looking tense. I took his hand.

"I was hoping during the tests she'd have some kind of response or something. She didn't wake up at all," he said.

"I know," I said.

"This is really bad, Deni."

I nodded because I just couldn't say anything else. I knew it was a stretch, but I really did hope that by the time we got here, Mia would have some kind of reaction to all of those advanced tests.

Dr. Spears came back into the room and sat down. She had a thick folder in her hands.

"By the looks on your faces, I'm guessing you both didn't think she did well?" We nodded. "Well, I hate to say it, but unfortunately you are correct. Mia does indeed have bilateral profound deafness. She can't hear anything, but you do have lots of options. We'll go over all of them together."