First failed hearing test

Good Afternoon,

I thought I would share the start of Eli's hearing journey. Everyone's journey and feelings are different and there's no right way to feel.

Eli had his new born hearing test in the hospital. He was about 18 hours old. I was alone in the hospital and a lady with a trolley and smiley face approached us asking to do Eli's new born hearing test. I smiled and got Eli comfortable.

She inserted what looked like a small headphone into his right ear and pressed a button on her machine. We both sat in silence waiting for the machine to do it's thing. She pulled it out and tried the left side. Again we sat in silence. At this point I thought it was all fine. She took the earbud out and said maybe they needed the size down because it wasn't showing anything on the machine. The lovely lady tried that and the same thing didn't at any responses. She then changed the batteries on her machine but the same thing. She explained that Eli was a little early (born at 37+2) that it could be that. She would come back later on in the day to try again. She then went to the other new born on our wing. I listened on to see if it was a faulty machine. This little baby passed the test first time in each ear.

I remember texting my husband to explain what had happened and him asking what it means. I didn't know what it meant at that time. It worried me a little but I was still in a newborn bubble and didn't want to think to much into it. No one in our family was deaf. So we thought it must just be a small glitch and all will be fine.

When my husband arrived he had a lot of questions but I didn't know the answers. I remember Luke being adamant that Eli had jumped to a noise but actually his crib had been knocked at the same time.

The lady came round later on and tried one last time at the hospital. Again Eli failed this hearing test. We were told to wait until he was 40 weeks gestation and they would test again, just in case he had fluid in his ears from birth.

Those 3 weeks felt like forever and I spent a lot of time on Google. There wasn't any answers at this point. Howeved, from my Google results most of the stories were of people failing the new born hearing test but passing at the next round. For me I knew in my heart that Eli was deaf. I don't actually know what that meant and how many tests and appointments were to follow. Luke was being more optimistic (or in denial) and thought everything would be ok.

This has been a long post and I only have more to write for the next stage. I think I'll break them down in to sections. The next post will be on our next step.

As always thank you for reading.

Jane