Archives for December 4, 2025

This year, we had another wonderful event in California for our microtia community! Our community member, Elizabeth Desloge, has headed this event up for the past 10 years for our community along with her incredible team that has helped her put this special day on each NMAAD: Allison Ashley-Mennis, Christine Bayan, & Rachel Fitzgerald! ❤️Our special day was also made possible by Cochlear Americas, Oticon Medical and our Ear Community Organization, including a shout out to the Los Alamitos Fire Department and Police Department

for making the day fun and educational when it comes to heroes and safety! Thank you so much to Elizabeth, Christine, Rachel and Allison and the kids and family members involved for always wanting to bring our California community together in Orange County on our special community day!

We always enjoy hearing about children spreading awareness and education in the school classroom doing presentations about their missing ears, new ears, hearing loss and about the ear and we had lots of shout outs from many medical professionals, community organizations and our sponsors from all over the globe! We even received a post honoring or our awareness day and support of Ally’s Act from Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan’s office! A special thank you to Errin Cecil-Smith from Congresswoman Houlahan’s office for taking the time to learn more about our awareness day, our community and about Ally and Ally’s Act with me over the phone. Errin immediately wanted to share about our rare cause and Ally’s Act and Ally and offered to make a beautiful post on behalf of Congresswoman Houlahan and her office. We LOVE the graphics! Our organization also hosted a memorable Zoom dedicated to Moms on our 10th awareness day, which was very emotional and heartwarming for all of us to come together and compare notes on our journeys! These three incredible mom advocates, Lindsey McDevitt, Megan Mitchell and Laura Sinnott, who have children different ages spanning from 1 year of age to 47 years of age, proudly shared what their experiences have been like to learning how to navigate the journey with microtia and atresia and how to be there for other moms and families – priceless!

It was a wonderful week long celebration for everyone embracing our rare cause on our special community day that continues being celebrated all month long! My favorite photos and tags we receive are of the children presenting in their classrooms, excited to share and educate about microtia and atresia and also about getting new ears and all about hearing loss! I love how so many are finding self acceptance and love during our special day. They are all so inspiring and brave!

I would like to share two stories of our community members that make Microtia and Atresia Awareness Day the meaningful day it is. This year, our first story is of Bevie educating her class on microtia and her bone anchored hearing device for her aural atresia. Bevie has not only advocated on Capitol Hill for Ally’s Act alongside her mom, Jennifer, but Bevie’s birthday happens to be on November 9th! Bevie celebrated her birthday at school and educated her class on her sweet little ear and her bone anchored hearing device! Jennifer said Bevie was SO EXCITED and she even wore her glasses that fit over her head that she received at our picnic we had in Virginia this summer through our organization’s Pax’s Ear Fund. She calls her birthday “little ear day”! It’s stories like this and children like Bevie, that are behind our special community awareness day each year. Jennifer said Bevie was absolutely beaming and her class was so excited to learn more about microtia and atresia and her bone anchored hearing device! Age 5 – wow!

Here is our second beautiful story for this year. I would like to share about my new friend, Janine Rivera, and about her finding our community and happiness within! Janine found our Ear Community Organization in April of this year. She is 61 years old and was born with microtia and atresia of her left ear. Janine originally wrote in inquiring about getting a prosthetic ear, but had no idea the pleasant surprise she stumbled upon when discovering our Ear Community Organization! Janine explained that she had multiple reconstructive ear surgeries between the ages of 5 to 12 years to have an outer ear reconstructed, but due to an insect bite on her ear, an infection caused her ear to have to be removed. When Janine found out that our Ear Community Organization was hosting a picnic in Atlanta, Georgia, she couldn’t believe it because she had never met anyone else with microtia and atresia before! When Janine attended our Atlanta picnic, she not only was overcome by emotion, but she found herself in a community that felt like family! Janine spent the day carrying babies around who also had microtia and atresia! She learned about her options, including about hearing devices and prosthetic ears! To Janine’s surprise, she thought her left ear didn’t work until she tried on the ADHEAR by MED-EL and realized she could hear!