Day 1

How can I forget this day?When I heard what I did'nt want to, when my heart was broken to a million pieces,when I forgot myself, thats when I heard that She could'nt hear.She was two.

She was two? is what you are wondering.Well yeah...There's no on birth screening in India so it came as a big shock and that was the hardest part. The first thought that crossed my mind was how could  my little baby understand what was going on around her.When she cried she never heard my comforting words,when she laughed she never knew how it sounded,when people talked it was just lips dancing to their own tunes,and I never knew that my child had been singing a silent song all along.

Something irked me, when I saw other kids reacting to sound.I was waiting for her to say "Mama"like any mom just dying to hear it.I was longing to hear her babble,and when nothing happened I had to see someone to tell me what was going on.Before going to the audiologist, when she was 18 months, I went to see a speech therapist.
why a speech therapist?
I (people around me)were so ignorant in this subject.The speech therapist I met said "If she is making sounds from her mouth, she can defnitely hear and speak.May be she's a little slow" ,which makes me laugh to that now.This was not in some remote town, for professionals to be unaware and uninformed but it was in Bangalore.This appointment gave me hopes and I pushed ahead for another 6 months to make to the audiologist.

hmmm...finally on Day 1,I took her to an audiologist.She was  hooked up with wires as she lay asleep on my lap. My mind was just calm and confident thinking she is fine,and this appointment was like any other appointment.The audiologist stared at the computer and then looked at me.Immediately I ask him, "Is she okay?" and he says "something's not normal".Still I was thinking it to be some kind of infection or small problem which can be taken care of.That was the only time I was so confident,I had never trusted my instincts that much, ever in my life.Then I went with the audiologist, to know what that "something's not normal" was?and finally my calm  mind became turbulent when he broke the fact that she was severe to profoundly deaf.

My mind stopped working,I could'nt think as I never expected this.Never,may be not even now.I still feel may be something went wrong and he will call me up and say "there was a mistake,she is fine".I still wait for such a miracle to happen.

When all this happened I was in Bangalore and my husband in Boston,MA.Now I was in a state of complete darkness and had to break this news to him.When I went to my mother's place after the appointment,I kept looking at my daughter as if her whole life was ruined by this appointment.I did'nt know anything,how to go from there.Everything became so puzzled, I broke down.But a Mother can never lay broken,she has to pull herself together for her child and....

Thats when the struggle began and is going on without a break....


Next post: Day 2