A mother who went deaf when her baby was just three months old has undergone surgery in a bid to hear his voice for the first time.

Louise Sherlock, 24, from Oxford, is recovering well after surgeons at the Radcliffe Infirmary performed a two-and-a-half-hour cochlear implant operation yesterday.

She now faces a tense four-week wait to learn if she can at last hear her son Callum talk.

Ms Sherlock's mother, Gail, 45, said: "The doctors said that everything went well."

Ms Sherlock lost most of her hearing after suffering meningitis at nine months old.

Growing up she used two hearing aids, sign language and lip reading, but after her son was born a year ago, it deteriorated until one day she woke up to complete silence.

"I went to the hospital for hearing tests and waited for the loud beeps to come, but they never did and I just cried my eyes out," she said.

"My little boy Callum had just started to make little cooing noises and my mum would put my hand on his chest so I could feel the vibrations.

"But I would give anything just to hear him talk."

Ms Sherlock uses the video player on her mobile phone to record clips of Callum speaking and carries an alarm which vibrates when her son cries.

During the operation an electronic cochlear was implanted in her inner ear, which will be activated by a device worn on the outside. The implant bypasses the damage and directly stimulates the hearing nerve, hopefully allowing her to hear.

The surgery has only been performed on 60,000 people worldwide -- and usually only children in Oxfordshire -- but doctors made an exception because Ms Sherlock cares for Callum on her own.

Ms Sherlock said: "The sounds will come to me gradually in the next four weeks, so it's not too much for me to deal with all at once.

"Although I've been nervous, I'm excited too.

"I have videoed Callum constantly since he was born and now I can't wait to be able to see and hear him at the same time."