What?!

So we took little M to the audiologist a couple weeks ago. She failed the hospital screening when she was just a day old, so they suggested we wait a month or so and take her in to the Children's hospital. I wasn't too freaked out as hearing loss does run in my family, but we do just fine. Nobody relies on sign language and only my grandmother uses a hearing aid.... though my mom should probably use one, too.

The audiologist performed a few tests and lo and behold little M has hearing loss in both ears. Her hearing loss is in the mild range, but it's close to the moderate range for some tones. Anyway.... this qualifies her for hearing aids. I'm not quite sure if I'm in denial or if I have a right to be skeptical that she really needs hearing aids. I've known that I've had hearing loss my whole life. I never had any trouble in school because of my hearing. I could have the best hearing in the world and still get shitty grades in math. If I didn't hear something it was because I wasn't paying attention.

After the appointment, I briefly flipped out, thinking that this really couldn't be happening to us. But we're ok now. We get to decide if she's going to learn any sign language. I am very doubtful that she would ever need to rely on signing. We'll learn some signs, mostly because dual language learners are usually pretty dang smart.

Yesterday I went to Costco where they do free hearing screenings to see if you'd benefit from a hearing aid. I went mostly because I just wanted some numbers to compare to Madeleine's hearing loss. My left ear scored way further into the moderate range, but my right ear is mostly normal. I guess that's a pretty uncommon type of hearing loss. Plus my left ear has a hard time picking up low tones whereas most people with HL have difficulties with high tones. Looks like I get to go see a specialist and maybe get an MRI to figure out if it's an ossicle deformity. If that's the case, I might be a candidate for surgery. I'm not that interested in hauling ass to the hospital.... but we'll see.

Anyone else out there care to share their story of hearing loss?