A Little Bit Hard of Not Hearing Loss

Posted by Traci at 7:39 AM

The title of this post is confusing because the situation with Trey’s hearing is a little confusing. Mostly in my head. We adopted Trey and Rosalee thinking both were profoundly deaf. Our plan was to sign exclusively with both of them, get them into our school’s deaf program and that would be that. The third day we had Trey in China we were riding on a bus and he was making some noises, nothing major. Our guide leaned over and said “he just said car”. Oh wow…he can hear…alot. That’s different…

For those not familiar with deaf people that probably seems like a strange reaction. And the Traci of twenty years ago would agree. But over the past two decades I’ve had the rare joy of being immersed in a culture not my own. And it’s been awesome. It’s true that deafness is the loss of one of the senses, but it can also be the gain of something else. Most notably visual language (which is so cool), but also community, equality, history.

When a deaf person is among other deaf people they are not the last one at the table to get the joke. They’re the one telling the joke. They’re not the one being served, they are the ones serving, leading, teaching, president-ing. Conversation is easy and relationships are deep. And ASL is the glue that holds it all together.

But now Trey will not be signing exclusively. Our ENT thinks with a hearing aid he will hear 100%.

Eli and Rosie (Eli’s special name for her, I get in trouble if I use it) are best buds right now. She’s the first person he looks for when he comes home and she follows him around, as my mom said, like a little puppy. I pray Trey can fold into that as he gets older, and that all three kids will remain thick as thieves. By the grace of God, all three are signing like crazy right now, despite my complete lack of discipline in signing all the time.

Will Trey sign less because he can hear? Will he withdraw from the deaf because he can hear? Will Eli be closer to him than Rosalee? Will Rosalee feel different because she’s the only truly deaf person in our family? These are not rhetorical questions for me. I hope and pray the answers are all no.

Five times in my life I’ve felt the presence of God nearly consume me. One of those times was when I saw Trey’s picture and knew he was ours. Things are not the way I envisioned them. But they are the way God planned it. And in the end that’s all that matters.

When we took Trey to the ENT the lady asked me if he had a little hearing loss. I said I guess you can put it that way. We think he has a little hearing. Today we go for further testing and to get Trey a hearing aid. This is new territory for us and I’m so very grateful that our family is friends with a wonderful audiologist. Please pray for us as we start this different path.