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.