My story continued...
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In June 1998, I was 20 years old. I had been married for a couple of months to a man I'd gone to high school with. He was a very nice, quiet guy who had been a close friend in the beginning of our relationship. We had an infant son, and he was a proud father. The truth is, we were married more because of the child than because of any love between us.
He was in the Army Reserves, and had been gone for a few weeks. I was at home with my son. He was doing very well. He had just begun to smile and he liked to play with his little gym. Things were going very well for him developmentally.
A few days after my husband came home, we had to move because our apartment flooded. This was the first time that I had left my son's side for longer than five minutes or so. He was the type of baby that always wanted to be held, and he preferred it to be me that was holding him. We took turns moving furniture and watching him.
Later that day, I noticed that my son was very fussy, and a little sleepy. I thought he must have gotten a cold from being moved in and out of the air conditioning so much. Just in case, I called Ask A Nurse, and spoke to both a nurse and the on-call pediatrician. They said he sounded like he was just cooing, and that he should be fine. Later that night, he stopped breathing.
I called 911 while my husband performed CPR. We were rushed to Children's Hospital, where we later were told that the baby had areas of his brain that were bleeding and swelling, broken ribs, liver lacerations, and a broken right femur. Then, my husband told me that he was responsible ... and that it was an accident.
I was filled with confusion. At first, I believed him, as he'd never given me a reason to think he'd do anything to hurt an infant. I wanted to trust him, as he was my husband. Yet, something had happened, and he hadn't told me. Something had happened, and my beautiful son was very possibly going to die.
I could go on and on to you about how much my son meant to me, and never find the words to fully explain. I had always wanted to have children. I loved babies. Most of my family is overseas, and I grew up an only child. I'd always looked forward to the day that I would be a mother.
For a month, I lived at the hospital, watching my son who was in intensive care. I rarely ate, slept, or left his side. The nurses would try to get me to go and get some rest, but I was always afraid that if I left, he'd die in my absense. Every day, as the doctors made their morning rounds, I'd ask if they knew yet if he was going to live. I cried to much that I ran out of tears.
Finally, on the day that it was confirmed that he was going to live, the state took him out of my custody. I was completely overwhelmed with pain and shock. They said that I should have prevented what had happened. I hadn't even been there. They said that I should have known that it would happen. As if I was suopposed to be psychic.
They took my son away from me, and then the illegal actions began. By law, a parent is supposed to be granted at least an hour for a visit each week. They continously cancelled the visit. Between the time they took him (3 months old) and his first birthday, I saw him no moer than ten times. I didn't know at the time that I had any rights, and of course, nobody told me.
A lot of other things happened that didn't make any sense. One example would be that they put into the paperwork that when he'd been hurt, I'd been there, and didn't do anything to prevent it.
