50% Chance It Would be Our Only Halloween

Two days before Halloween, the phone rang and it was Betty Rose. At a time when our house was full of excitement, I was having to deal with this unusual phone call from her. Our last conversation was just a few days ago during the horrible home visit and already since then I had contacted Children's Hospital in search of some help with Julian's eating habits. We had started him on some adult foods and he was having trouble swallowing them. It all started over a small piece of banana one morning.

We had gotten up and started our normal routine. Julian sat in his highchair as I got coffee going and made him hot cereal. Up to this point we had been mixing in baby food with the cereal but on this day, I choose to cut up small pieces of banana for him. I put the fruit down on his tray and he was thrilled at the idea of feeding himself. With his spoon in one hand, he choose to eat the banana with the other hand. The first piece went in his mouth and stayed until he began to gag. At first I was full of fear, thinking he was choking, but then he stuck another piece in his mouth. The process of continuing to eat and gagging with each swallow happened until the small pieces of banana were gone from his tray.

As I answered the call from Betty Rose, my thoughts were replaying that morning with the small piece of banana. I instinctively thought she was calling because I had contacted Children's Hospital. Little did I know her voice would bring many changes to our family and none of them positive.

Her speech was monotone as she opened the conversation. As soon as I gave the normal answer of we are fine she began to tell me there was going to be some shifting in the case. The first bomb she dropped in our conversation was she wanted bio mom to start going to Julian's physical therapy appointments instead of me. She explained that she thought it would be best if the therapy appointments could be done in a place where I could watch behind one way glass. This process would still give me the ability to see how therapies went for Julian but to not have me involved in the actual appointment. As my brain absorbed the information being given to me, I could feel my throat tighten up and my mouth becoming very dry. I was crushed by this news and as soon as I could gather words together I instantly became defensive. In a bitter and high pitched voice I blurted out, "What? Why would you even consider that option?" There was silence on the other end of the phone. I could only envision the look of shock that came over Betty Rose's face. The tone had taken me back as well and I was putting every ounce of energy I had in trying not to cry.

"Well one of the biggest reasons I have decided to make this happen," she began to explain, "and neither of them are going to be easy for you to hear." She continued to tell me of her ambition to see if bio mom would even show up for the appointments. It would be one more appointment for bio mom to be responsible for during the week and it was important to see how adding a doctors appointment to the list of things needed to be done for Julian would affect her." I listened to this reasoning and was only brought to one conclusion, Betty Rose was on a path she had not yet shared with Al and I. She was thinking that Julian was going to be returned to the bios. There was really no other reason to have bio mom come to a physical therapy appointments. After all it had been me working with Julian on a daily basis to first get him to roll over, then crawl. Now Betty Rose was interjecting a whole new picture into our future. At this point there was no reason to stop the tears from falling. I didn't care if Betty Rose was uncomfortable because I was crying on the phone or not. I was being told at that moment that she was working on taking my child from my home.

As soon as she knew I was crying her voice became irritated and the defensiveness had moved from my end of the phone line to hers. She cleared her throat and said, "There are two other things we have to talk about. The first is there is going to be a difficult hearing meeting and we would like for you to attend. This meeting involves everyone in the case, including the bios and all the professionals. We would like to evaluate where we are and what we need to do to get this family reunited." My heart broke in a million pieces when I heard yet again that this family was going to be reunited, and I said, " Is that the third thing we need to talk about. You have decided that it is going to happen...reunification?" She quietly said, " It is not official until after the hearing but for now there is a 50% chance that Julian will go back home. We need to equipped bio mom with the physical therapy skills and how to deal with Julian's appointments and communicate with doctors and we need your help with all of this."

I had no words for Betty Rose, only tears. I couldn't comprehend helping her in this and I especially couldn't imagine giving up Julian. I told her I needed sometime to talk to Al and then she apologized for the news and we ended the call. I was lost in my head and detached from reality. My dreams had been broken and I could no longer see how our first Halloween together as a family was going to be a good memory. We had the perfect costume picked out and a perfect day planned. In a brief two days our little Julian was going to be a monkey for his first Halloween. The costume had been choosen because Daddy always called him his little monkey. We were going to go to the pumpkin patch so he could pick his first pumpkin. Family traditions where going to be started or where they? Would we ever get to hear him say trick or treat? Would this be the last pumpkin or little monkey would ever pick with us? There was a 50% chance it would be our only Halloween as a family and all I could is cry.

Does Anybody Hear Me?

I knew it was time to talk to Betty Rose again about my concerns and more importantly I needed to know where her head was at with Julian's case. October was coming to an end and instead of being excited about our first Halloween together as family, I was full of fear about if there would be another Halloween in our future. I felt like we were no closer to an answer late in October than we were that day I picked Julian up in May. While Betty Rose planned her visit to our home and I planned my own strategy on how to deal with her while she was in front of me.

She showed up and was all smiles at our door, like she hadn't seen us in months; when just a few days before she hadn't even said good bye, probably in fear of hearing what I had to say. Al had answered the door and she was probably hoping it was just him there that day. I had made sure to schedule the visit on a day I knew Al could be there because both Betty Rose and I knew that he was a great buffer for these visits and it probably gave her some relief to know he was there that month.

As she walked through the front door she searched the room for Julian. He and I were in the kitchen together getting his bottle ready for his nap, she seemed to always plan her visits around nap time, no matter how many times I tried to change that. As I heard her voice, every hair stood up on the back of my neck. She was my kryptonite. No matter how much positive self talk I did the hours before she came, the minute I heard or saw her I was instantly defenseless to her commentary. I didn't trust her, and I loathed the way she talked to Julian. As my body got tense, Julian tried to make eye contact, usually this was how he could tell what was going on with me or if he needed to panic.

He was on my hip and had his small hand swirling my hair as we stood in front of the microwave waiting for the timer to let us know his bottle was almost ready. As I watched the numbers on the screen slowly count down, I was listening to her voice in the other room. Finally, Julian put his face in mine as if to say snap out of it! I gave him a fake smile and kissed his forehead, my way of telling him not to worry. As the timer went of Julian squealed because he knew it was time to eat. I shook the bottle and checked the temp and handed him the milk. He laid back in my arms and the two of us headed into the living room to see Betty Rose.

She was making small talk with Al when we walked in and her eyes lit up when she saw Julian. He smiled through his milk, letting just a small bit run down the side of his cheek and then looked back to me. After a few minutes of baby talk to Julian, while I held him, she asked me how things were going. I found that same fake smile I had given Julian just a few minutes before and said through my teeth, Fine...we are all fine. With the smile fading from my face, my mind did all the talking. I talked myself through what fine looked like that day, to us the ones that loved this child. The words never filled the air but they ran laps around my brain, lets see you are in our home, so we are not fine! You being here means we still don't have Julian, again not fine! You are letting the bios get away with hurting our child, we are not fine at all! You don't care how we feel in any of this, we are way past fine! You cannot even make sure he is fed when they have him, how in the world could we be fine? You let the bios skip visits, does that seem fine?

As my mind gave every reason on the planet as to why we were not fine as family, Al made eye contact with me and said, "Uh Babe, why don't you give Betty Rose an update on physical therapy?" He was giving me the cue to talk about Denise's curiosity about Julian's drug exposure. Betty Rose was smiling at me and waiting for my update and I was frozen. I wanted to cry with every word that formed in my head. The fear of losing Julian consumed my being and I wasn't sure if me telling her about Denise was going to harm or help us in this case. I knew she only thought we made stuff up in order to keep Julian and what if she thought this was one of those times? I was trying not to cry but I felt powerless in her presence. I looked down at the small little body in my arms and watched as he drank from the warm bottle. His eyes were sleepy and he seemed so at peace with me holding him, and in that moment I knew I had to do this for him. I blinked back the tears and took a deep breath. Betty Rose had to hear the truth for Julian's sake not for mine.

I began by telling Betty Rose about the progress Julian was making with his movements. I was proud when I told her he was rolling over and sitting up, after all he had done so much work to get to this point. I gave her every positive that was happening in his world and then I started in on the details about my visit with Denise. Her eyes gave no clues as to if she was even listening to me. She stared at me blankly as I continued on. I felt like the words weren't even registering in her mind. When I began explaining that Denise thought his delays might be drug exposure related Betty Rose interrupted me. She rolled her eyes and said,"He was tested when they brought him into the hospital and there were no drugs in his system." Her abrupt interruption only irritated me. I already knew this information she was telling me. Obviously it was in the file but had he been checked for exposure before then? Was this a possibility? Why didn't she ask herself these questions? Or at the very least just answer them for us.

I could feel my posture changing as I sat up a little taller. Al most have felt my tension rising because he said, "Well he was three months old then. Is there any way to test him now and see if he was exposed before the hospital visit?" Betty Rose responded, "I honestly see know reason to even look into this at this point because the physical therapist isn't even sure herself. It sounds like she is jumping to conclusion and has no evidence to back this up. Plus you two shouldn't even been concerned with these details."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Wasn't she the one that was suppose to go find evidence in this case? She was Julian's advocate yet she did not think she should pursue this and how could we not be concerned with this? We called him son, he was ours and any parent should be concerned for their child. That was the final punch that day, I was out of the fight before I even got to the details about missing feedings at visits or why bio dad didn't show up that day. Betty Rose had once again had me face down on the mat. As the final round ended the tears were back and filled my eyes. It didn't matter what Al or I said to Betty Rose she never heard the words. I excused myself and went upstairs to lay Julian in his crib for his nap. I rocked him until he fell asleep in my arms and I once again found myself praying for a miracle. Then I began to wonder if God was hearing my words or was he on Betty Rose's side?

A Sleepy Story

The supervised visits for Julian and bios were now suppose to be twice a week, but between social service and the bios finding a day of the week that worked, the decision was taking longer than I anticipated. The irony to all this scheduling was the visits had already changed three times since the judge ordered they see him more often and the bios had yet to actually see him or even insist on a temporary day to see him. The whole group of people involved in this process could not come up with a day that worked for everyone. However, to me the bigger issue was not once had anyone asked us what worked for Julian schedule or for mine. I continued to juggle the phone calls, emails and continued rescheduling all in hopes that at some point it would become to much for the monsters that had hurt this child and they would soon just stop showing up for any schedule visit. However, they finally figured it out.

The first visit in October was a regularly schedule visit. That Friday morning visits had now turned into two hour long visits, instead of just an hour. Betty Rose came up with the new plan and her hope was bio mom would spend an hour by herself with Julian without bio dad present and then the two would switch and bio dad would then spend the second half of the visit with Julian without mom there to help. With this process Betty Rose thought she would be able to watch them individually and see how each acted toward Julian while the other parent wasn't around. I suppose social services was trying to find out who the perpetrator was and most of us knowing the case were leaning toward dad being the abuser.

Dad had a history of violence and was currently being given treatment for spousal abuse. He had also had an altercation early on in Julian's case where he was beat up on street corner and put into the hospital, but according to his story he had no idea why he was the victim of this violent crime. Showing a pattern of violence worried Betty Rose but not enough to stop visitation all together. Probably, if the truth were told about why Betty Rose did these individual supervised visit, it was because she was waiting for dad to show signs of an being abusive. Her idea was maybe he would break the Mr. Nice Guy act if he was alone with him for an hour and unable to cope without the help of bio mom. Betty Rose knew that as important as the visits were for bio mom to be able to bond with Julian, the idea of being able to watch bio dad was even more important if he was the abusive parent she thought he was.

Knowing this information, as a parent working to get your child back, one would think he would have probably registered these visits as high on the importance list. Yet, for bio dad on this day he decided it wasn't important for him to come to his hour of visitation. Bio mom showed up on time that day because a neighbor had picked her up and brought her to the visit. She knew she had to be at the visit but she was upset when telling the social worker that dad couldn't make it that day. When she was asked why dad didn't come she reported he was to tired and needed his sleep.

I personally heard the sleepy story after the visit was over. As a sleepy baby, was handed back to me with tears running down his face Betty Rose gave me the run down of how the visit went. As I stood there listening to her excuses as to why dad didn't show up, I saw she wasn't even frustrated with the process. She seemed to accepting this excuse and my blood began to boil. She must have known I was about to lose it because she said, now before you get upset just know I am putting this in front of the judge. The judge will know they missed this visit. I rolled my eyes at Betty Rose and mumbled whatever under my breath, turned my back to her and put Julian in his seat. I covered him with his Elmo blanket, wiped his eyes and handed him a bottle that he sucked down like he hadn't eaten in days.

As I closed the door to the car and turned around to ask Betty Rose if Julian ate during his visit, I turned to an empty parking lot. Betty Rose must have run the minute my back turned to her because she was already in the building without saying Good Bye.

Is Julian a Drug Baby?

Julian being mobile turned our world into a whole new adventure. He continued to crawl after anything he wanted to get his little chubby hands on. With each move forward he would grunt and pull his body. He had figured out he could move but he just choose to not use his legs, instead he would prove his strength to the world by dragging his little body behind him. Honestly, it was one of the funniest things to listen to and watch. Although, we spent weeks in physical therapy teaching him that it was okay to be on knees, he never quit accepted the fact that it may be easier to crawl this way.

He would giggle in delight as got up on all fours, he never cried or complained and his face always lit up with pride. Soon after he was put in the crawl position to go full steam ahead he would begin to rock. The downfall of this rocking motion always came when he was taunted by his favorite Elmo toy. Denise, his physical therapist, would set his toy just a few feet from him and tell him to go get it. He saw the prize and we saw the determination. He would rock just a little bit, and each time I held my breath in hopes he would continue forward. After just a few rocks back and fourth Julian would dive into a belly flop on the mat and pull his way to Elmo. While Denise was thrilled that he was finally moving she still had major concerns with his progress. He was now almost 11 months old and barely beginning to crawl. So just as quickly as we had a victory in our home, her concerns gave us more to worry about.

Denise asked me during a visit if I thought Julian had been exposed to drugs while his biological mother was pregnant? My heart raced at the idea of Julian having to deal with yet another issue caused by his biological parents. I said," There was nothing in his file about drug usage. Why do you ask? Is this something I should pursue with Betty Rose?" Denise shook her head back and forth as if confusion had taken over her thought process. She said," Well maybe you could ask her about it. His delay in activity could be many things but if they do a hair follicle test on him now we might be able to rule out drugs. It is more of a gut feeling then anything because I could not put any evidence behind my thoughts here." Her words were both devastating and exciting as I heard them.

I couldn't imagine how a mother could do drugs during a pregnancy. After all I would have done anything just to get pregnant. I also hated the idea of Julian having to overcome yet another issue because his bios were so irresponsible. Hadn't he been through enough because of them. But with each negative I thought about Julian and his biological parents, I also thought, what if this is it. What if he was exposed and that proves they shouldn't get him back.

As the thoughts bounced back and forth from good to bad in my brain, I began to wonder what Betty Rose would do with this information. I struggled with if I should even tell her because I knew Denise wouldn't stand up in court and suggest that drugs could be a factor in all of this. After all she had just said she had no facts to back up her accusations. Yet, if I didn't say something what if mom was doing drugs now while pregnant with Julian's little brother or sister, what was she doing to this new child? Would Betty Rose even believe me? She always insisted I was just out to keep Julian and not out to do what was best for him. The idea weighed heavy on my heart for days. Then after the first supervised visit Julian had with the bios in October, I decided what to do.

October 6th

My Dearest Julian-

It is time to write again baby boy. You change so much every day and I want us both to read these letters in the future and feel my heart and how much I love you with each word I write. You have been struggling through your supervised visitation with your biological parents and it breaks my heart every time you see them. The confusion you must feel as I drop you off to the arms of a stranger and then in turn you are passed on to the people that gave you life. Yet you can't understand why your not with them and why your not with me. If only I could help you through this confusion. I cry with you every time I leave you there. I know your strength little man and I know you can get through this time and soon we will be a family. My favorite part of those visit days is picking you up and having that second between us that our eyes meeting. You begin to glow and your whole body seems to find peace in knowing we are back together. I melt every time you reach for me and give me a smile with that mischievous twinkle in your eye.

We spend our days together playing and giggling. Well most days. You have had some screaming episodes where both of us feel as though we have been through war by the end of the day. Although, I would change those days to happier ones if I could, I wouldn't change being with you. I would go through any war with you if it meant just getting to see that smile every now and then.

Your favorite toy was given to you by a friend of mine, it is a lime green alligator. You won't let it leave your site. It is the perfect size for you to carry everywhere and its rubber so you also spend lots of time chewing it. We simple call him Gator and you squeal in delight every time you see him.

Your most amazing achievement recently is that you started crawling. I find myself watching you in awe and can't get over how far your little body and mind have come in just 5 months. You are growing so quickly and I think I spend 85% of my day just watching you because I am afraid of missing any part of anything you do.

One of your favorite past times is to listening as I read you books. You last about three pages and then you want to eat the book but you love for me to point at pictures and tell you the name of things. Often your little finger follows mine as I talk to you.

You started saying Bubba this week. So you are now up to three words. You say Mama and Dada and Bubba. You know you are Bubba or Bubbie and most times you know we are mama and Dada but usually you just like to call out the words and see who will respond to you.

Our dogs Pugsley and Molly are you best buddies. They always make you giggle and you love to touch them. Even in the middle of one of your screaming fits if Pugsley comes to your aide you will stop crying, giggle for a few seconds, and then continue with your fit. You love to feed them from your high chair and they love hearing your laughter.

Right now your are amazing me daily and doing awesome in healing your little mind, body and spirit. I pray for you each time I rock you to sleep so that you may know Jesus is in your life and that you may feel safe because of your knowledge of him. Although, I am still full of fear daily that this system we are in may fail you, I do find peace in knowing you are safe, happy and loved with us today.

I couldn't be happier or more proud to call you mine. I love you baby boy.
Mama