We took Jacob home with the knowledge that he was going to have a hearing test when he was 4 weeks old. I loved rocking and singing to my third son. The part that surprised me is that when he slept very soundly and was hard to startle. At the time I thought this is great a baby who sleeps like a rock from the very beginning. Don’t get me wrong he woke up to eat but then would fall back to sleep relatively quickly. This was wonderful!!!!
A week or so after we came home I received a letter in the mail outlining what we had to do to prepare him for the 1 to 2 hour test.
1. Don’t let the baby eat 3-4 hours before the test.
2. Don’t let the baby sleep after they eat
3. Bring a blanket to wrap the baby in.
Number three was easy but how do you keep a newborn awake? In the car I sat in the back with him and kept rubbing his cheek and then I took off his socks and was tickling his toes. When we got to the audiologist she told us other parents have used refrigerated wipes to keep the baby awake. Why didn’t they tell us that trick earlier?
They brought Howard and me into the sound booth where I could feed him and try and get him to sleep. He needed to be deep sleep for the audiologist to study brain responses (ABR) to sound. I got him to sleep and laid him down flat on the stretcher. Oh no this is going to be a problem. He never slept flat. I had him sleeping in a baby bouncer seat because it was easier to pick him up after the c-section. He didn’t like laying flat and kept waking up. Plus he was a little stuffy from having a cold coming on.
About 20 minutes go by and Howard and I are waiting in the reception area. They couldn’t do the whole test he was too congested. What they found is that he failed on both sides and essential he was deaf at the time. We’d have to come back after the cold was gone but he still needed to be in the window of being an infant under 12 weeks. I guess after 12 weeks the babies are not as reliable to take the test from just sleep depravation and they’d have to sedate them at a hospital to do the same test.
Jacob was 8 weeks old when we went back. They allowed us to take the cloth part of the car seat and they’d try and do the test with him sitting reclined and sleeping. This time they were able complete the whole test. The audiologist came out to get Howard and me while her assistant feed Jacob the rest of his bottle. I should have known something was wrong when she said come into my office we need to talk.
I brought a notepad and pencil and was ready to write everything she said. “Your child has a profound sensory neural unilateral hearing loss. Jacob is deaf on his left side and has normal hearing on his right side. This is a good thing he’ll have normal speech and language” she said. This is where I stopped writing. However, there are many things you need to consider with a child with single sided deafness. It is an invisible disability and not everyone will understand the impact he will have. He will struggle with interacting with his peers. He won’t know the direction sound is coming from so it is a safety issue near a road with cars. He’ll need an FM in the classroom and most importantly he’ll need Early Intervention and an Otolaragologist. My head was swimming with all she said. She did say normal speech and language right? Whatever that means.
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