Laura’s pregnancy diary: Learning to sign with my baby

Laura Hignett is deaf and pregnant. For the next few months, Laura will be sharing her diary entries and her experiences with us as she prepares for the birth of her first child . This week, Laura talks about sign language. 

13 Weeks to go

This past week I have been thinking it would be helpful to learn some sign language to teach my baby when it makes its appearance in the big wide world!

Despite being profoundly deaf, I can’t actually sign. I rely on lip reading. I never had the need to sign because all my friends and family are hearing and I never really wanted to learn to sign when I was younger.

I wish I did now; but I was so bothered about being part of the hearing world and didn’t want to miss out. Now I am not embarrassed of my deafness and feel it would be a great new skill to learn.

Becoming a parent teaches you new skills, and I feel that learning sign and teaching my baby to sign when it needs or wants me for something would be a great way to communicate while its very young.

Also, I want my baby to understand deafness and realise that there are different ways to communicate.

Hopefully I will become a pro at the old sign lingo. Just need to find some people to practice with now!

Laura x

Laura is profoundly deaf, has worked as a press officer for the government and is freelance journalist. She is sharing with us her experiences of becoming a deaf parent for the first time and is campaigning for better accessibility for deaf people.