First of all I just want to say that I am very thankful for ears.  And, I suppose just like other important body parts, I had just taken normal hearing and ear structure for granted.
When Gia was born, her left ear was deformed.  I figured that if it looked malformed on the outside, that something might be wrong on the inside.  I pestered the NICU staff about when the hearing screening would take place and I was not surprised when she failed.   They told me that it was not uncommon to fail the screening because it was a generalized test and the NICU was a noisy place.  But when she had her first sedated hearing test with the audiologist, her hearing impairment was confirmed.  Since then she’s had several more sedated hearing tests, wears bilateral hearing aids and we see the audiologists monthly.