I remember that feeling when I first saw the positive pregnancy test in May 2022—you know when everything stops, and you are flooded with emotions—the excitement, the nerves, the love and magic. I quickly started imagining what our new baby would look like: their first words, their first day of school, their first date, their wedding day. I was so lucky to be having a baby!
Arthur was our first child, and we were over the moon, knowing we would soon be parents.
Fast forward to the birth of our gorgeous little man. I couldn’t have imagined a better labour than the one we had. Bringing him into the world, I was again flooded with happiness, knowing I had delivered a healthy baby boy! It felt like life couldn’t get any better. But then we were introduced to the SWISH test (the newborn hearing screening test done at the hospital after a baby is born).
Arthur had his first hearing screen at just 4 hours old. It was a straight-up “Fail”. The screener reassured us that this was fairly common for the first screen and that she would be back the next day to re-screen Arthur. The lovely lady told us there was “nothing to worry about”, and as new parents at the ripe old age of 22 holding our 4-hour-old brand new baby boy, we didn’t worry—not one bit.
Arthur had four more SWISH tests before we were referred to the Deafness Centre at Westmead Children’s Hospital. They had told us things like, “He’s probably still got fluid in his ears from being in your belly” and “We’ve just updated our machine this morning, so that’s why it’s coming up as a fail.”
And we were continually told “Not to worry.” So we never did.
On 20th March 2023 at 9 am, the audiologist took us into a soundproof room in Westmead Children’s Hospital where I fed Arthur to sleep and swaddled him up nice and cosy so they could begin the 3-hour long hearing testing. They ended the test after just 45 minutes. They handed Arthur back to me and told us to follow them back upstairs to their office. With this, I said to my husband, “They have only been going 45 minutes; they must have realised he is perfectly fine and didn’t want to waste any more of our time.” Looking back now, we were very naive to think this.
Our lovely audiologist took us into her office, waited for us to sit down, and broke the news. Arthur had indeed ‘failed’ and was diagnosed with Moderate Sensorineural Hearing loss bilaterally. And with this hearing loss, he will need to wear hearing aids for the rest of his life.
My world stopped.
All those wonderful things I’d imagined for my baby – his first words, his first day of school, his wedding day. All of these things now made me feel sick and empty. I started to grieve these things when my baby was only six weeks old. I didn’t understand why we deserved this to happen to us. I didn’t even know children could be deaf! I thought my son would never be able to speak and would never be able to be a “normal” kid.
Fast-forward to May 2024. At 15 months old, I can’t believe the little boy Arthur is becoming. He can sign some basic signs. He can say, “Mumma”—and it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard! He is smashing his milestones and early intervention sessions and living life to the fullest. He is a free-spirited, stubborn, cheeky, happy little guy.
Connecting with other parents who are on this same journey through Facebook groups and other social media has helped so much; it’s comforting to know we aren’t going through this alone.
I wish I could have seen into the future back in that office at just 6 weeks old, that this diagnosis would not stop him from being amazing! And that, really, it’s just an extra superpower—his supersonic ears, as we call them, make him, HIM.
We are so lucky and blessed to be the parents of a DHH child.
Olivia – Arthur’s mum – July 2024