Our Story

Hi, I'm Lisa. My fiance Jonathan and I were overjoyed upon the arrival of our beautiful baby girl, Zoe Simone- on Sunday, September 23rd 2007. She was perfect in every way- from her tiny little fingers down to her pudgy little toes. We were immediately in love with her, and have been ever since. Our journey began on that day with Zoe's first newborn hearing screening test. The nurse explained that many c-section babies would not pass this test, and that we should not be concerned even if she did not pass it for several weeks following her birth, because her inner ear would retain some of the ambiotic fluid she lived in all those months. So, she failed the first test, and the second before we left the hospital.

We didn't give it a lot of thought- we just scheduled another screening several weeks down the road to give her time to get rid of that fluid in her ears, and happily strapped our new bundle of joy in her pretty pink carseat and took her home. Zoe was a wonderful baby- she slept through the night when she was just a few weeks old, ate well, and seemed to be doing well. She was always in the 90th percentile for her height and weight. She did everything a normal infant would do. We had no idea what was in store for her, for us.

We took her to an audiologist for the first of many times when she was a few weeks old. She once again failed the standard OAE test. The audiologist was not very concerned because of her age, and scheduled another test for January 2008. I was a little concerned at that point, but eased by the passive attitudes of the doctors. At 4 months old, we returned to the Audiologist for a follow up OAE test. To my relief, Zoe passed that test with flying colors. I left the office relieved and blissfully unaware of what the future held for my baby.

Months passed, Zoe grew- and developed chronic ear infections. She seemed to be on antibiotics all the time from the time she was 4 months old until after she turned one. Ear infections are common, and I took this as just part of having a baby. I had also begun to notice that she didn't really talk like other babies her age. Her vocal sounds were limited to cooing and long vowel sounds- not actual words. Other babies her age had 5-10 recognizable words. She had said "da-da" very clearly for several weeks/months- then nothing. She stopped saying that completely. Then she finally picked up "ma-ma" and i was thrilled! However, by her first birthday, this was still the only word in her vocabulary.

Our pediatrican was concerned at the frequency of the infections and Zoe's lack of vocabulary and wanted to have her ears looked at again. Shockingly, this time Zoe failed the hearing test. At this point, I was confused and scared. The audiologist said she thought Zoe was still retaining fluid in her ears, the same thing that caused all of the ear infections. She suggested we see an ENT to explore the option of tubes in her ears to allow the fluid to drain, alleviate the infections and help her to hear clearly. Which, to me, if that was the worst that was going to happen, I was fine with that. Excited, we took her to the ENT for an evaluation. The ENT said she had no fluid behind her ears, and refused to operate on her. My heart sank. Why is she failing her hearing tests, then? I was desperate for answers.

By the time Zoe was 16 months old, we were referred to YET ANOTHER audiologist in Annapolis, hoping she could figure out why Zoe was having mixed results. She performed another OAE test. From there, it was like a freight train- the diagnosis and information came at us hard and fast, and it has not stopped since. Zoe's audiogram showed a moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears. She will have to, at best- wear hearing aids for the rest of her life. They had already fitted her and made mold impressions. I was at work that day, and unable to attend the appointment. My fiance called me with the news- I broke down. I sobbed so hard I made myself sick. I left work for the day and could barely drive home. In the coming days and weeks, I flew through the stages of grief so fast, I thought I might go crazy. Denial, Anger, Depression. Denial, Denial, Depression. I could not get past this life altering news. It was like someone knocked the wind out of me. I still have not passed the anger or depression phase, but have moved more into the acceptance phase each day.