Following is an extended interview Emma's mother and father.

What were your feelings when you discovered Emma was deaf?

At birth, Emma passed her OAE newborn hearing screen before we were discharged from the hospital. She seemed like any other newborn responding to our voice and sounds around her. She began to say words like, "mamma" and "dada" around her first birthday. But over the following months we noticed deterioration in Emma’s speech.

Emma had been continuously diagnosed with recurrent ear infections since about 4 months of age. At the age of 14 months (June 2003), tubes were placed in her ears to help with the infections. It was thought that the ear infections were causing the sudden drop in hearing.

As a few more months went by, we noticed that Emma was not developing speech. Our pediatrician recommended further evaluation with a local ENT. In November 2003, Emma was referred for an ABR. We will never forget the morning of the ABR. We were shocked to learn that our daughter had a bilateral severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. We immediately questioned the results and accuracy of the ABR. This led to a second objective opinion that arrived at the same exact conclusions. Even then, we had a hard time accepting the results. We searched for anyway possible to prove that the tests may be inaccurate. We spent numerous hours researching medical journals and publications at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School Library. Denial was the toughest part of the grieving process for us. Reality finally set in when we received the results of the MRI that revealed Emma had Enlarged Vestibular Aqueducts. The idea of your child never hearing music, your voice, birds chirping, television, or movies, devastated us.

How did you choose Dr. Bauer?

When we left the audiology clinic where Emma had her ABR, the audiologist had counseled us about our options of hearing aids or cochlear implantation. We also asked her "what next?" She said she would have an ENT, that she personally knew, give us a call. Before we got home, we noticed Dr. Bauer’s name on the caller ID. We were immediately impressed. We immediately returned his call and talked for a good period of time about Emma’s situation.

During that conversation, we discovered that Dr. Bauer did not accept our particular insurance. But, he began explaining the process of going out-of-network and how we could make things happen quickly. After much discussion we decided that it would be easiest to stay in-network and we chose a physician other than Dr. Bauer. But something kept bringing us back to Dr. Bauer. When we could not find answers to our questions, Dr. Bauer was always quick to respond. He continued to return our calls and answer our questions, even though we were going to another physician. We did extensive research on all the latest studies and device information at the UT Southwestern Medical School library and posed these questions (some very technical) to Dr. Bauer. Without delay, Dr. Bauer answered our questions thoroughly. In some cases, Dr. Bauer would answer the question before we could finish asking it! We knew we were all on the same page when it came to clinical intervention.

After a few consultative visits with Dr. Bauer, we realized he was the perfect doctor for the cochlear implant surgery. Although the surgery would cost us more out of pocket going out-of-network, our hearts told us that Dr. Bauer was the physician we could place our complete trust in. He relates to kids on their level while confidently calming the fears of the parents. Dr. Bauer is one of the few physicians that Emma has seen in her lifetime that she is excited and happy to see. He and his staff exude the utmost professionalism, while maintaining a light-hearted and child-comforting clinical approach.

Interview continued here