In April 2020 we were blessed with a baby boy, Riaan. He was born with bilateral moderate hearing loss and has been wearing hearing aids since he was 2 months old.

It's hard to explain that initial feeling of being told that your new-born has hearing loss - your emotions jump from shock to fear to confusion and a million questions run though your mind at once - how will such a small baby cope with hearing aids? Will his hearing get worse? Should we learn sign language? Will he be OK in school? What's the impact on his speech and language? We found ourselves frantically googling everything in those first few days. 

As part of our frantic googling, we reached out to the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) and they have been great at support, guidance and linking us with parents in similar positions. 

They have always been on hand to respond quickly to the million questions we had and we have benefitted from the live coffee sessions they offer with families in similar positions. It was also so amazing to talk to parents who’s little ones were a little older than ours as it reinforced that Riaan would be absolutely fine and there’s no need to be so fearful of what the future holds for him.   

We are taking on the 10k challenge to help this great charity continue to provide the essential support they do to families, like our own, and would really appreciate any donations that you are able to make.

Thank you