The only thing I can't do is hear. I can drive, I have a life with four kids, I work on TV, I do movies, so the deafness question, is it that they want to know because, what? Not sure.

The best feeling in the world is when your child comes up to you and lays their head in your lap, for no other reason but just because. I can't wait to have more.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and in spite of what most people might have expected from a young girl growing up deaf, life for me was like one long episode of The Brady Bunch. Despite whatever barriers were in my way, I imagined myself as Marcia Brady skating down the street saying “hi” to everyone, whether they knew me or not.

Silence is the last thing the world will ever hear from me.

There are so many people, deaf or otherwise abled, who are so talented but overlooked or not given a chance to even get their foot in the door.

I'm a proud person who happens to be deaf. I don't want to change it. I don't want to wake up and suddenly say, 'Oh my God, I can hear.' That's not my dream. It's not my dream. I've been raised deaf. I'm used to the way I am. I don't want to change it. Why would I ever want to change? Because I'm used to this, I'm happy.

It was ability that mattered, not disability, which is a word I'm not crazy about using.