When all you hear is silence

I hear nothing...
I can see him...his mouth is open but nothing is coming out of his mouth.
What is going on? All I hear is silence. Silence from what should be the sweet and loud sound of a newborn crying.

One day after his tracheostomy, I can see Joaquin is crying but I hear nothing.

"Jose, how come I can't hear Joaquin cry?"
"Because once he has a trach, we wouldn't be able to hear him. Air no longer travels up to his vocal cords."

Imagine my face. Eyes wide open and teary. Mouth open in a total perplex state. Why wasn't I told this before I agreed on a trach? How will I ever know what my baby needs if I can't hear him? How will I know he is awake if I can't hear him? How will I ever sleep knowing I can't hear him? - A million and one questions raised through my head. Then came the tears. I spent that whole day crying and crying and crying.

Crying for what I thought would be. Crying for what wouldn't be. Crying for how my life had suddenly been changed to something I had not idea about. Nothing I was ready for. Nothing I had prepared myself for. Crying because I would never hear my newborn cry. That sweet and loud cry that is so distinct. That cry that tells the neighbors that the new baby is here. That cry that wakes you up at 2am to tell you "am hungry". With Joaquin, there would be none of that.

Fast forward five months and Joaquin still can't cry. Well, technically he can. I can see it in his facial expression, we just can't hear him. We are okay with it. We have learned to read his facial expressions. To know when he is sleepy because he rubs his ideas. To know when he is hungry because we can see his mouth moving like he wants his bottle. To know when he just wants to cuddle because he put his hand up and has an anguished face. It's weird that we have gotten use to the silence.

Well, almost. I still get teary eye when I hear him. The silence is broken once day when we change his trach. As we remove the old trach to place a new one, for 5 to 10 seconds in between, as he is crying because he just wants to be left alone, I hear the sweet voice and cry of my little one. At first we could hear the newborn cry and now we can hear the big baby cry. It still affects me for those 5 to 10 seconds.

One day, when trach is taken off or soon, when he learns to use a Passy Meir valve, we will get to hear Joaquin's voice and cry. For now, we just learn to live and respond to the silence.

God bless!
With love!