Eight months of HOH mommy-hood--- draft that never posted

My baby girl is turning eight months old tomorrow. I can't believe it! Her personality is just starting to shine through. Her grins and giggles that expose her two itty-bitty teeth melt my heart. Along my brief but ongoing journey in motherhood, I've learned so much about myself. Some of what I have learned thus far pertains directly to my hearing loss. Ella has never been a huge crier, fortunately. However, when Ella was about 4 months old the volume and intensity of her cry changed dramatically in a period that seemed overnight. With that came a whole new irritant for my aided ears. Her cry made my hearing aids attempt to compress the sound. See, the higher frequencies are the ones I can't hear unaided. My hearing aids try to amplify these loud enough for me to hear them. However, if the sound present is a high frequency but already pretty loud on it's own, the hearing aid amplifies it but quickly responds and tries to compress it to a level that prevents further damage to my ears. This results in a very loud, distorted noise that I can't accurately describe. It's like static but far more loud and annoying. This phenomenon is not new. Never before, though, has the source of such an irritant been someone I love as much as my baby.