Embracing My Son's Deafness

A Mother's Journey

There’s a story that I’ve been keeping in my heart since learning that my son was deaf. I’ve been wanting to share it but never found the right words to express myself, until now.

This story is about my early motherhood journey of embracing my son's deafness. I share about our initial struggles, grief and efforts to help him by exploring different options, including cochlear implants, speech therapy and American Sign Language (ASL). It’s the story behind our decision to leave Montreal and move our family to Belleville, Ontario.

I had the chance to share my story at

Courtney Hobbs

’ Mothertelling event in May 2024. I hope you'll find inspiration in our story. You can watch it below:

Link to transcription. If you benefit from captions, click on the “CC” button in the video player.

At first, was hard for me to accept that my son was Deaf at 18 months old, during the pandemic. It was a shock. I was also met with a lot of overwhelming decisions that the medical professionals asked me to take. Through my journey, I learned so many valuable personal lessons:

• My son is not someone to be “fixed”. My role as his mother is to love him in his wholeness and to be able to communicate with him meaningfully so he can see and feel that.

• Trusting my inner knowing to guide me on my path. I don’t have to always follow what everyone else is doing.

• This unique path of mothering can be used for my own growth. I found a way to turn my grief into purpose to be an advocate for my son.

When I started to list them out, so much started to flow out of me. I realize this could be whole series of posts for me to dive into deeper. So I’ll reserve them for now and will start posting them here on Substack.

Storytellers at the Mothertelling Event

My Mothertelling experience

Before meeting Courtney, I was super nervous about sharing this vulnerable side of me openly. I’ve never saw myself as a great public speaker.

She lovingly coached me and the other storytellers over several weeks leading up to the event. We had weekly check-ins and virtual rehearsals to help us feel super ready. I'm so grateful to Courtney for helping me craft and refine my story, and for giving me the courage to share it on stage, in front of a live audience!

Through this journey, I got to connect with other heart-centered storytellers who had their own life story to share. The event was beautiful, full of flowers, great food, vendors, prizes and swag bags. I even bought perfume from one of the vendors that smelled so much like the one my dear aunt used to wear, before passing away. It was if it was a sign, that she was there in the room with me. So many tears, laughs and loving encouragement were shared around the room, a loving community.

Her Mothertelling platform is such a beautiful way to preserve and honour our motherhood stories, that are often unheard. You can find her brilliance on Instagram: @Iamcourtneyhobbs

Special thanks to the team at Asign for graciously offering ASL Interpretation for this video recording. You can check out their sign language interpretation services here: asign.ca

If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments of this post. I’d be happy to answer them. 💛