Emiel, our first child, was born almost seventeen years ago.
Beautiful little boy, very calm, very sweet, cheerful baby.
But we did think he was quiet. He was a quiet baby. We had no experience with deafness, not with babies in general.
But after a few months we got the idea that things were going a little differently than they should.
So we went to our doctor, and he reassured us, nothing wrong. Our suspicion remained. Infant welfare center, did the test, everything was fine...
We knew Emiel was very smart, he was looking around a lot, so we thought that must not be completely right.
Well, to make a long story short: after a few dated tests and annoying doctors telling us we were overly concerned, we eventually got the test results saying he was deaf.
It might sound strange, but we were actually very relieved.
Because we had been searching for months and we just didn't understand what was going on. Autism? You know, what is this, something's going on, we're not making any contact. Deaf.
Well, alright, deaf. You know, a sort of relief, we know what it is. He can't hear. So what do we do: learn sign language as quickly as possible.