Mom Hoped Baby Would Be Able to See Deaf Brother, Then She Noticed Eye

When Emily Varnum was asked by her midwife during labor whether she was worried her son would be born deaf like his older brother, her answer was “no.”

Varnum, from Queensland, Australia, told midwife that her only wish for her newborn son was that he would have good "eye health," because he would need his eyes to communicate with his sibling through sign language.

She can still remember the midwife reassuring her that the "universe couldn't be so cruel" as to give her a deaf child and then a child with vision issues. It's stuck in her mind because of what happened next.

When Varnum became a mom to her first son, Valentino, two years ago, she quickly learned he was different. "Valentino was born profoundly deaf," Varnum told Newsweek. "He was born without auditory nerves, so he has no pathway for sound to travel from his ears to his brain. This means he is not eligible for cochlear implants."

Though the family considered hearing aids for Valentino, he ultimately decided as he got older that he didn't want to wear them. Eager to support their son and help him develop communication skills, Varnum and her husband began learning sign language.

Then she discovered she was pregnant again, with another boy. During her pregnancy with Valentino, Varnum had him tested for genetic mutations. The tests indicated there was a 50/50 chance he would inherit a genetic condition from his father.

That wasn't what caused Valentino's hearing loss, but it did result in some minor health issues. During her second pregnancy, Varnum decided against undergoing the same genetic testing.

At first, all the scans for her son, who would be named Raiona, appeared normal. "He looked completely fine on all scans throughout pregnancy, and we had assumed he may not have inherited the gene," Varnum said.

Then came the day Raiona arrived. It was the same day Varnum had that conversation with her midwife-and the day she noticed something unusual about one of Raiona's eyes shortly after he was born.

"We noticed his left eye wasn't opening, but we assumed it was a blocked tear duct like our first son had at birth," Varnum said. "In the chaos of birth, we overlooked it until they took him to be assessed and came back telling us, ‘It doesn't look like he has much of an eye on the left side.'"

Varnum said the news came as a "shock" to both of them. She began researching and quickly learned that her husband's genetic condition-the one Raiona appeared to have inherited-was linked to microphthalmia.

Microphthalmia is a rare congenital eye condition in which one or both eyes are abnormally small and may not develop fully, sometimes leading to reduced vision or blindness. It occurs during early pregnancy when the eye fails to grow properly and can be caused by genetic mutations, chromosomal abnormalities, environmental factors, or sometimes unknown reasons. The condition is uncommon, affecting roughly 1 in every 5,000 to 10,000 births, though prevalence can vary by population and underlying cause.

Though Raiona's diagnosis came as a shock, as with Valentino's before it, Varnum and her husband have learned to embrace the unique challenges of parenting deaf and partially sighted children.

"Both of these things my children have been blessed with haven't slowed them down at all," Varnum said. "Valentino is so vibrant and outgoing-people constantly stop us in the street or in shops to tell me he has a light in him and that he is special, even without knowing his story. Raiona will be the same. We won't let them grow up thinking there is anything wrong with them, because there isn't-they are complete and perfect this way."

Valentino is benefiting from regular visits from teachers skilled in educating deaf children and helping them learn sign language. He attends playgroups for children with hearing loss, and Varnum has every confidence they will provide him with "the best start to his life as a deaf individual."

"If anything is to be taken from our story, it would be that people can be born different, but that shouldn't shape the way we see them or the way they see themselves," she said. "They are someone's baby, and they are loved."

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Rebecca Flood and Anthony Murray.

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This story was originally published June 28, 2026 at 2:00 AM.