Hello! My name is Bana Peterson! I am a HoH mother of three. Two Bonus sons and one that I birthed.
I was born hearing, and my parents native language wasn't English as they are from Eritrea. I was born two and a half months early and ended up having to be given lots of medications to help my lungs and body develop. Turns out some of those medications can cause hearing loss. I noticed in high school that I couldn’t hear the teachers when they turned around to write on the board and that led me to try to pay attention to the interpreters that were there for the Deaf and HoH kids. I went to Edmonds Woodway and they had a D/HH program. At the age of 15 I became friends with a lot of the Deaf kids and learned Sign Language by hanging out with them. My Junior and Senior year, I took ASL 3 and 4, only to find out that I had hearing loss then. As time has gone on, I’ve lost more of my hearing and now I use bilateral hearing aids. My oldest Bonus son took ASL for 2 years to be able to communicate with me and my husband has been trying YouTube videos. I am Signing with my youngest who just turned 3 and he’s picking it up amazingly quick! We do "voices off" after 7pm every night so that everyone can get a better understanding of ASL. I look forward to teaching you and your family, want to try voices off with me?