Hayley was deafened due to meningitis, which was caused by an undiagnosed birth defect. I realised about ten days into the meningitis that Hayley wasn’t responding to sound. We had a consult with Hayley’s surgeon, and Hayley was implanted five days later.

We were amazed at Hayley’s progress. Hayley was deafened at a very critical time in her speech and language development; she only had about 15 words before the onset of the meningitis.

It is only 2 . weeks after her first fitting and we cannot begin to tell you how thrilled we are with the progress she has made in this short amount of time. She responds to questions, and appears to hear and understand much of what I said.

To be able to have my daughter start to call me “Mommy” two months after she became deaf and two weeks after she had her initial stimulation was the single greatest gift ever.

I think that as a parent, you have to give your child all opportunities available, whether they have special needs or are developing normally in all areas. We felt as parents that we owed it to Hayley to give her the ability to hear.

And I think that Hayley, if you can drag her away from singing and dancing to her Wiggles videos with her twin sister April long enough to ask her, would tell you exactly the same thing.