The Baby Moves Back In
Apparently, I’ve really disappointed a few folks by not posting last week or this Tuesday, one especially being my mom. “Give the people what they want,” she said and I laughed. She knows this story as well as I do but I value her support in reading it here. My house is a hot mess of Christmas missions ornaments, leftover Thanksgiving and ¾ worth of Christmas decorations. This week we added some cookie cake, a bunch of balloons and a new last name to our MJ and we couldn’t be more thrilled, but we’re in the trenches over her people! Regular posts resuming next week, I promise.
Back to the story.
She called me within two hours of being at the shelter. I went and picked her and baby up and took them to get formula at the local Walgreens. For the record, you can’t get WIC formula at Walgreens, who knew? The next day, she called me (from the phone that had WIFI). She was panicking and I was out of town. Michael wasn’t feeling well and she didn’t have a ride to get him to a doctor on a weekend. Eventually, someone at the shelter took her to urgent care, and as I suspected, he just had a little cold. I told her I’d pick her up Wednesday to go to the case plan meeting but let her know she could call me if she needed anything.
It was quiet without them. Back to “normal”. The sheets were washed, the crib taken down. The only remnants of their stay were the bins I was storing for her until she had more space, which were moved to the garage. We went back to our routine, with the bottles off the counter and three people around the dinner table. D and I talked about them often. Rylee honestly was a little relieved Jade was gone. Her social boundaries weren’t always great and Rylee needs space sometimes.
The phone rang on Tuesday. It was the day before we had a case plan meeting and the ladies from the shelter were less than thrilled that I had moved Jade in, although they were still gracious in their call. So far, Jade wasn’t making any progress and she wasn’t keeping her commitments to the shelter. She took Michael for a walk in a snow suit when it was 90 outside and he came back really dehydrated and beat red. Remember when I told you he went on a naked walk here? That’s the gap in judgement she showed frequently. She couldn’t decipher appropriate clothing for a baby. Negligence, not abuse. A job coach was coming to meet with her but she desperately needed a job yesterday.
I picked her up the next day for case plan and D and Rylee watched Michael. It was the first time D has ever been alone with a baby, but I trusted Rylee. That was funny, you can laugh. I never left Ry alone with anyone except grandparents and a few close friends at that age. I would’ve been terrified if I were Jade, but she just dropped the seat inside and got back in the car. I gave D the instructions and we headed off to our meeting.
I met Michael’s birth father at this meeting. Our first one where we had to agree to do all the things. And I mean ALL the things. He was adopted and his adoptive father did most of the speaking for him. He was a nice man, quiet but responsible. They weren’t going to work the case plan, aka, Michael’s care wasn’t something they could be involved in. Michael’s dad looked to be about twelve years old. He was 19 but he was alarmingly small and didn’t say a word other than a mumbled “yes” when he was asked a question. His father explained that he lived at home, didn’t have a job and couldn’t physically or emotionally support Michael. This didn’t mean he was terminating his rights but it did mean he wouldn’t have the opportunity to have custody of him without a visit from job and family services, should he ever want to have it.
I usually see things through rose colored glasses. It’s not always a good thing, but most days it helps me make the most of life. I left the meeting feeling great. There was a plan in place, Jade had shelter, we had established the dad was making the best choice for Michael and we were once again, moving forward.
The phone rang Monday morning right after I dropped Rylee off at school. It was JFS, but I was in the drive through line at Starbucks, so I sent it to voicemail. Kasey needed me to call her back, so around 9am I did. It was D’s first day at his new job and I had a conference call at 10.
“Hey, Jade is going to be removed from the women’s shelter today. She left a bottle of Tylenol out and a two-year old drank the entire thing (child was fine thankfully). She also put Michael in time out unsecured on a counter. She’s violating their rules and it’s a liability for them. She signed a waiver when she got there about the medication remaining locked and it’s automatic removal.”
My heart sank. I knew she was coming back to live with us, but I was disappointed she had barely made it a week at the shelter.
“I’ll go pick her up, give me a bit,” I said to Kasey.
“No Katie, we are going there to remove Michael today. We were wondering if you’d be willing to take custody?”
I was standing in the kitchen pacing when she said it. I can remember it vividly.
“I’ll call you back in an hour or less”, I told her.
I called D.
“Hey Babe, how’s work going? “
He didn’t have time to talk. He literally started his job two hours before this.
“I’m going to make salmon for dinner, I think. Kasey called and wants to know if we can take temporary custody of Michael. Jade’s getting kicked out of the shelter”.
I told you I spring things on him in the most inopportune moments.
“WHAT?”
“Yeah, I have to call her back within the hour, so what do you think?” I asked.
We chatted a bit more and he agreed that the best choice was us over foster care. We knew in our hearts there was potential for this but I don’t think we had grasped the reality of it.
By noon, Kasey, Michelle and Michael were at my door. He came with enough formula for a bottle and a car seat with a blanket. That was it. I’d never even made a formula bottle before. We had diapers and a few outfits left here from what Jade couldn’t take to the shelter. They gave me a piece of paper stamped by the judge issuing me temporary custody, my first of many court documents to come. I could talk to Jade but she wasn’t allowed to see the baby and she couldn’t come to my house.
“How did she take it?” I asked Kasey.
“She just handed him to us and said you could come get the stroller if you wanted,” she replied.
I wished I hadn’t asked. That was the last time she’d ever see her son. She didn’t kiss him goodbye, or shed a single tear. She just handed him over into the arms of two government employees and went back inside. This is the part of the story that wrecks me the most. Jade, so neglected herself, had no idea and maybe still doesn’t, the magnitude of that moment. I am nauseous at the thought of saying goodbye to my kids, even just for a few days. I watched my friend lay across a casket of her toddler, grieving in a way only a mother can. Friends have shared stories of infant loss, delivering a baby who never took a breath earth side. When I was little, a friend of mine jumped out of a moving vehicle after an argument with his mom. Grief. Pure and raw and a pain that a mother shouldn’t know. Outward displays of the unimaginable. I can’t relate to Jade here. Motherhood may bond us, but the divide here is one I can’t bridge. This is the difference in understanding love and having been neglected as she herself had been. The way a mother “should” feel wasn’t her reaction, and I simply couldn’t process it.
The shelter was going to give Jade another chance. I am so grateful they did, because I was wrestling with terrible guilt, caring for her baby, knowing she was about to be homeless and I couldn’t offer her shelter. She had exactly seven days to secure a job and had to spend every waking minute working toward getting the job. The first goal she had met in the case was five days later, when a temp agency found her a placement. I felt relieved.
I looked at Michael laying on a blanket on the wood floor. We really needed a soft rug. I took a deep breath and then I cried a lot of hot tears. I loaded him in the car. We drove downtown and I grabbed the card from Jade to buy the formula. An exchange between two women. Two girls who’d be forever connected through the adoption triad. A birth mom and an adoptive mom, but in that moment, just two girls who had no idea how drastically their lives had just changed.