The book starts with Louise and Thomas a couple who has one child, a son, Bruce. When Bruce is three, he gets German measles or rubella. After finding this out, Louise discovers that, she is pregnant with their second child. When Louise took Bruce to the doctor to get all of the information on the measles, the doctor was worried about Louise’s pregnancy, even thought she was not very far along. The doctor said that being around someone with these measles could possibly cause congenital defects for the baby. Of course, upon hearing this, Thomas and Louise went through a very worrisome and anxious nine months until the baby was born.
Lynn was born in April of 1965. She is a joy to the parents because she seems to be a perfectly healthy and normal child, despite the anxious pregnancy that the couple had went through. Relieved, the parents were happy to have such a beautiful happy baby. However, at six months the parents fear had come back. There was a fourth of July parade where many families gathered. Lynn had fallen asleep before the fireworks started. The parents had anticipated Lynn to wake up and deal with the fussy baby because of all of the noise and commotion. However, she slept right through the fireworks and the noises of them and the cheers from the crowd. This is when Thomas and Louise knew that their baby was deaf.
Thomas and Louise started to take Lynn to their doctor Dr. Bales. Even though the parents expressed their concerns, Dr. Bales said that Lynn was too young to do any testing on and that she seemed perfectly normal and could not even find anything wrong with her ears. The parents were still concerned so Dr. Bales suggested that they see a specialist, however this was after many anxious and scary appointments where the parents could not find out what was wrong with their daughter. What made this even more frightening for Thomas and Louise was that while they were trying to teach Lynn to speak and form words she forms everything