Nightmares

A few weeks before J2 was born the nightmares started again. Right after losing C and J1 I had nightmares of them crying, hungry and scared. They were in the bassinets that babies are in at hospitals, and they're both little babies. (They are actually 13 months apart in age, and were 1 and 2 the last time I saw them, but I guess the nightmares don't care about all of that.) The bassinets are in a glass room. There is no door and nothing to break the glass with. I go around and around this glass box of a room trying to get to them. Trying to let them know I'm here. Wanting to feed them and I can't. I wake up sweating and crying.

Before J2 is born those nightmares start again, and J2 is in there with them. Also a new nightmare, where DFCS is in the room with me as I have my c-section. They take J2 away as soon as he's born, and I never see him. I just hear his cry getting further away. These nightmares continued until J2 was about 6 months old. Then they just disappeared, and I allowed myself to be happy being a mother.

For the first time in years, I hung pictures of C and J1 on the walls. And even before J2 was old enough to understand, I taught him who they were and told him stories of his brothers. I told him that they would have loved him so much. That he could see them one day.

At 4 years old, J2 could tell you that he had 2 brothers that he would meet when he was 9 and 10, and he was counting down. We had no way of knowing that they would become a part of our lives 4 years sooner than that, but we were thrilled when it happened.

A New Beginning

Six years after losing my sons, I had seperated from my husband. I had found a new guy that I thought was great. I was going to start over. Have a life that didn't involve everyone knowing about C and J1. But it didn't work that way. As soon as I thought we may have a future together, I told him about my sons. My sons are the reason I am who I am. I figured if the guy couldn't accept that part of me then it wouldn't work. He was fine with it, but it didn't work anyway. I left him a few months after moving in with him. I figured out that I didn't feel like I deserved to be happy. We had a lot of arguments over nothing. I had to make our life miserable, because I was miserable. I wanted a life with my sons, not a man. Anyway, one day during the arguments, he threatened to hit me. I left him the next morning after dropping him off at work. I don't know if he would have ever done it or not, but I wasn't sticking around to find out.

I moved in with a friend of mine. She went out that evening, and I was bored to death, so I decided to go to Wal-Mart and buy me a book. I was into true crime at the time. I picked up a book called No Daddy Don't. As I read the name of the book, it struck me that I was late.... So I decided to get a pregnancy test while I was at it. The test was positive.

I honestly don't know what I felt at first. I felt everything. I was happy, I was scared, I wanted a baby, I didn't want a baby.... What about if DFCS finds out??? That's when all the happy thoughts left.... I couldn't lose this baby, too.

I decided to call my estranged mother in law. She had always been there for me. I came to see her and cried on her shoulder. I asked her advice. She told me not to worry, that it would all work out in the end.

A week later I got a call from my husband. He had broken up with his girlfriend, and wanted me back. He had a vasectomy after his youngest daughter was born. C and J1 were his step sons legally, but in his heart, they were his babies too. He wanted us to take this chance. To raise a child that was ours. He wanted this baby, too. I came home 4 months pregnant. He was there through it all. He named our son J2.

We had a fresh start, a new beginning...

Losing the fight

I woke up from my attempted suicide 3 days later, in the hospital. Waiting on a transfer to a psychiatric hospital, I was told that DFCS had both of my children. Big surprise. I spent a week in the mental hospital, and was put on the second anti-depressant. And then I was sent home.

I had a new case plan. I was going to a psychiatrist 4 times a week, and taking the 2 different anti-depressants. Within a couple of months, I didn't care about anything. I had no feelings. I was numb. I attempted suicide in August. In February, I asked myself, "What am I fighting for? I'm not going to win. And don't care anyway." I asked my case worker how long it would take to sign TPR. She had the papers there, ready for me. They knew I wouldn't win either....

I signed the papers, saw my children one more time, and gave up. I quit taking my meds, I gave up on my marriage and my 3 step children. I honestly didn't care any more. I am very surprised I didn't attempt suicide again. I had nothing to live for. I didn't care to live. I was going through the motions.

Within weeks of coming off the meds, I cared. My world was destroyed, and I cared so very, very much. My poor babies didn't have me. They didn't have their Mama to hold them when they cried. To play games with them, to talk to them, to love them. I had nothing...

For years, I couldn't get out of bed on Mother's Day. I couldn't sing the song "You are my Sunshine" to my neices and nephews. That song belonged to my children. My babies, that would never hear me sing it again. I spent every year on their birthday baking them a cake and having a party for them. We would all sit around and talk about the memories we had. The very few memories. We were cheated. We should have had so many memories of the boys that meant so much to us. We should have had them there to help us eat the cake. To blow out the candles. Instead I blew out the candles, and my wish was the same every year... "Please God, let my babies remember me, and let them want to know me when they're grown. Let them know I love them."

My continued fight.

My son had been in a foster home for 2 months, when I found out that I was pregnant again. I was able to see him for 1 hour a week. Supervised visits in the DFCS office. I had to tell my caseworker that I was pregnant. She immediately started talking to me about putting the new baby in a foster home, while I worked on getting my first son back. Or putting him up for adoption. Those were the two choices she gave me. I refused either. Then she suggested getting my tubes tied. Because at 18, she already knew that was all I needed.

I had a rough pregnancy with my second son, but it didn't stop me from completing everything that DFCS had asked me to do. I also had to go to a panel review. My oldest son was 9 months old, and I was 5 months pregnant. They thought I was doing great. But they just had a few more things they wanted me to do. They put it all on paper, on the new case plan, and we all signed it. I didn't know at the time, that by signing the case plan there, I was admitting I needed to do these things. Which included more parenting classes, although I had already completed 2 different ones. These were better, they said. If I had refused to sign it, they would have had to take it in front of the judge, and I would have at least had a chance of not having to do this stuff again. But like I said, I didn't know that at the time.

I gave birth to my second son when my first son was 13 months old. I was terrified that DFCS would take him from me at the hospital. They didn't and I got to bring my baby home. He was born in December, and then in February, my fiance got full custody of his 3 kids. They were 8, 7 and 5 at the time. So now I have 4 kids full time, and still DFCS thinks I am not worthy to have my oldest son home with me.

Finally I hired a lawyer. I don't know how he did it, but the next thing I knew he called me into the office and told me that DFCS had 72 hours to figure out how to remove the other children from my care, or give my son back. The next day, my caseworker called me to the DFCS office to get my son. And to talk to his foster mom about his schedule, and anything else I would need to know. I couldn't believe that it was that easy!!! My baby was coming home.

I had him for only 3 months. My caseworker would come to the house while my new husband was at work. She would tell me repeatedly that I would slip up. And the first time I did, they would take both of my children and I would never see either one again. I held up to that for 3 months. I couldn't handle losing my children. I would rather die. I gave her her wish. I took a whole bottle of sleeping pills, lay down with my babies, and went to sleep.... Happy.

That's as far as I can get in my story tonight. The tears are blinding me, and my hands are shaking. I will pick up again when I can continue...

The beginning of my fight....

 This is my first post as a blogger. So I will begin in the beginning. I'm sure other things will come in the middle of my story. But I knew a long time ago that I would have to write my story one day. To get it off my chest... To tell other mothers what can happen... To make the world aware of the injustice going on...

My sweet baby boy was 3 months old in the beginning of 1996. He had already been admitted to 3 different hospitals, and had one surgery. I was a young mother, scared to death....

I woke up to a lady standing over me, with some papers. I sat up, thinking this was another nurse. After 13 days in the hospital with my poor baby, I had met plenty. She introduced herself as a lawyer for DFCS. She served me with a subpoena to be in court the next morning... I was being charged with medical neglect.

I had family and friends testify for me in court. I had family willing to take my son into their care if he was removed. I had a neighbor that I had only known a couple of months in court telling them how well I took care of my son. I had a son that was in patient in a hospital an hour away.... I was found guilty of medical neglect.

I lost my son for the first time. This is a son that I will lose repeatedly.... Under different circumstances each time. But this was my first fight with DFCS. And I figured out real quick what they were capable of. I know plenty of children. I have had 3 since then. I don't know of any of them being in a hospital so many times in the first 3 months of their life... If DFCS can prove medical neglect when my son is a patient in the best pediatric hospital in the state, they can do ANYTHING!!!