In 2007, my wonderful son Harrison was born. As a second-time mum, I was well prepared and thought I had it all pegged. However, it soon became very clear something wasn’t quite going to plan in the delivery suite. Harrison was born with a right-sided microtia (without one of his ears being formed) and at six months had a scan under anaesthetic that showed his hearing was also down on his single ear.

Like 90% of parents of deaf children, I had no previous experience of deafness. Like most parents, I had hundreds of questions swirling around in my head. How would we communicate? Would he go to our local school or would he need to go to a deaf school? Would his speech develop? When you have no point of reference, everything feels out of control.