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?