A Nervous Eve....

I've been working hard to ignore it, but it keeps coming up and tapping me on the shoulder.  It leaves me shaking in my boots but hopeful at the same time.

Tomorrow is Toby's hearing assessment.  I'm trying not to worry, but when your doctor runs several rudimentary tests to see if your baby is hearing and he doesn't respond it quite frankly doesn't look good.  His ears appear healthy and have no sign of fluid behind the ear drum, but our little man still isn't talking or babbling in the fashion an atypical child does.  Heck, he's not even babbling like any of his siblings were at this age!  

Toby, aged 17 months
August 29, 2014

Our beautiful little man has had us fooled.  He communicated without words.  He has the most expressive fact and chocolate brown eyes you could just drown in.  He hasn't needed words to date, and we probably wouldn't have thought anything was amiss for a while yet if someone hadn't mentioned how well their little one at the same age talks and it dawned on me that we still haven't had a "mumma" or a "dada" or even a "bubba" from Mr T.  

I know having a child who has a hearing impairment is very manageable in todays world. In fact I have a niece and 2 nephews with hearing impairments and they are very well adjusted teenagers and young adults now.  BUT and this is what worries me the most...  but, they developed speech.  Toby hasn't.  Their hearing loss wasn't picked up until they were quite a bit older.  I'm worried that the prediction from the Dr of a profound deafness might be true.

We have driven ourselves (well myself) batty watching Tobes for any signs he is responding to sound.  I think my hands are all clapped out and my fingers fatigued from snapping.  I search his eyes for any awareness that may flicker in their depths, or for a twitch on his face which may indicate he heard something... anything....  

today he turned around when I called his name.  I'm hoping beyond hope he heard me.  A silly part of my subconscious says i should cancel tomorrows test because he heard me, but the sensible part of me quickly slaps that lunatic down...  

So this time tomorrow we will know if our little man can hear us, how much and we will have a better idea on what the future holds for us.

I'm a mix of emotions.  

I don't want to admit there is something wrong...

But deep down, my gut is telling me we are on the eve of some huge changes for our family.