Author: Julie H., Foster Mom
My 15-year-old son, Johnny, when he was 18 months old had to have a hearing test done. He had ear infections after ear infections, so the doctors wanted a baseline of his hearing. At that time, it came back that he had a hearing loss. I remember being in the doctor’s office and starting to cry. I’m not sure I have mentioned this before but I’m an interpreter for the deaf and a teacher for the deaf, so kids with hearing loss are what I know and do professionally. But regardless, the news that your child has any kind of “loss” is upsetting.
Fast forward 13 years and Miss D needed her hearing tested. She came to our family calling herself “hard of hearing”. Did the universe really just give me a foster child with hearing loss? What are the odds? This can’t be. Right?? I asked the school to do a hearing screening, and they were getting inconsistent results, so the educational audiologist helped set up an appointment with an audiologist to get a hearing test. Her first audiology test was to see if her ears were physically working. As in, were the eardrums moving. They weren’t. The audiologist said the words “the ear is not functioning as it should”. At that moment, I started tearing up.
I would have full-blown cried, but I had to keep it together for Miss D’s sake. She then had the hearing test done (beeps and hands raising), and it showed a mild loss in lower frequencies. The exact same loss as my son. Again, I had tears.
As we were driving home from that appointment, I realized that it didn’t matter in terms of my biological child or my foster child, I cried. The news hurt equally for both of the kids. My heart and head couldn’t tell a difference. Isn’t that wonderful??!!
