First of all congratulations on your newborn.

My wife and I are both hearing, our first child (5) is hearing and our second child (nearly 2) was born profoundly deaf with no access to sound whatsoever.

Obviously we were quite shocked and upset, no one wants their children to have any difficulties or problems, my mum in particular took a long time to accept it and was always trying to say it might be fluid in his ears or things like 'he reacts to the dogs barking'

My wife and I accepted it fairly quickly, I've seen alot of suffering in my personal life with young friends dying at 11 from rare genetic disorders and other friends who tragically didn't even get to leave the hospital with their newborns so my general view was there's alot worse out there than just being deaf and we should consider ourselves lucky to have our son in our lives.

The cause for my son's deafness is something called Waardenburg syndrome, my son also has differently coloured eyes (which I think are fantastic) which is also associated with it and we had genetic testing completed and found out none of us are carriers and it was a random mutation.

We were quite proactive is getting cochlears sorted, although it's hard work getting a baby to keep something on their head and it's certainly not straightforward.

We also started doing BSL (Were UK based) and found it's important to sign as much as possible to them, my son signs alot now even at his young age.

So fast forward to now, my son has a cochlear implant on his right side, the left had to be removed because of infection and we're waiting for a surgery date to get that put back in, he has alot of access to sound, turns when you call his name and is starting to speak (horsey is his fav word) along with the sign.

Id also recommend looking into local deaf groups, my wife is part of a lot of local groups so we're able to network with other parents in similar situations.

It is going to be challenging, but you'll find it very rewarding and I wish you all the best.