May. 27, 2007 - 7:47 AM

     Twelve years ago we were blessed with the birth of a beautiful baby girl. She was perfect! Six months later was learned that she was profoundly deaf. What did that mean? We knew nothing about deafness and what that entailed. Luckily we lived in a city that had a deaf school so we were quickly embraced by the Deaf community. We tried to educate ourselves about deafness and quickly learned that there were so many different choices it was exhausting. One big choice was method of communication. ASL, PSE, SEE, Cued, Oral.............Then there was the whole issue about "D" verses "d" in what kind of deaf you were. deaf with a lower case d meant that you we physically deaf, trying to fix something that is broken and your heart is with the hearing world. Deaf with a capital D meant that your hearing loss was not something to be fixed, yet embraced by an active Deaf Culture, pround to be Deaf! Well we quickly embraced "D"eaf and that became our way of life for seven years. Everything we did was Deaf. We had articles published in newspapers advocating Deaf Culture. We fought the government to keep Deaf Schools open, it was a way of life. Deaf people do not see their hearing loss as a handicap or disibility in any way (at least overtly). We did not presue cochlear implants beacuse the Deaf Community shunned them and looked down on people who used them. CI's stood for everythign we are opposed to.

     Well, then we we blessed by the birth of a sweet little boy (baby #6) who we discovered in the hospital, was profoundly deaf as well. Our hearts were still "D"eaf. Yet the Lord worked on us and brought us to the relization that we needed to research all options for this child as we did with our first deaf child. So cochlear implants slowly became a real option for this child and at 17 months he was implanted.

      Without getting into a 10 page story of trials and tribulatioins our family has endured with deafness I will get back to the point. My second deaf child is being reaised hearing throught the gift of modern technology. My first deaf child is twelve now and still functioning as deaf. DEAFNESS IS A HANDICAP! We let people convience us differnetly years ago but now life daily proves otherwise. I believe the isolation is creates to be one of the most disibilitating handicaps possible. My daughter is not deformed or in a wheel chair so she looks like she fits right in, so much so that people will start talking to her without realizing the difference. Of course they think she is just a rude kid when she does not respond.

      This post was created out of a recent frustrating situation. Our state homeschool conference assured us that an interpreter would be present for my daughter. Of course things did not work out smoothly and the interpreter was not secured for the weekend. A volunteer helped for a few sessions and other than  that my daughter was once again relying on others  in isolation. It was very upsetting for me, as the parent of a disabled child I feel like I have failed at providing for her. Continuously that wknd I was told "I am sorry" for the lack of providing an interpreter. The attitude and emotion associated with the phrase was like I was being told "I am sorry you can't get a reservation in this restaurant."  So we choose to go down the road to another place to eat. It does not work like that, my daughter has no other options, when people say "I am sorry" what they are really saying is "your daughter cannot be a part of the  homeschool conference this year, sorry you came all this way but you may as well go home."

     Just to twist the knife, we could not even get closed captions on the TV in the hotel we were staying in! We had two hotel employees try for an hour with no avail. Deafness is a handicap!

Blessings in Frustration,

Andrea