I guess it was around March when we finally got a call, it was for a newborn baby girl. She was African American. The mother had a substance abuse problem and mental health issues. Sure we would take her just let me know when and where to pick her up. Not too long after that I received another call. A placement worker said we couldn't have the baby, she needed to be with her own. Her own what mother? No race. I was speechless and for that to happen to me was just short of a miracle, then she hung up. I made a few calls that went to voice mail then a few hours later a different placement worker called me. Would you like a baby girl, she's African American? I don't know do you have a problem with me taking her, I asked? No, should I, she replied? I explained what was said earlier and this lady was upset. Some people that work here are narrow minded. So I went to the hospital and picked up this beautiful little newborn. Chaos was slowly returning.
A week later we received another call. We know you have a baby but we have a 3 week old, severe abuse, skull fractures, healing unset fracture of the fore arm, seizures. You have experience with this sort of injury, would you be willing to let the baby girl go to another home and take this little boy. Yes I would, so I packed up the sweet baby girl and went to see the my other baby.
Oh what a butter ball he was so cute laying there sucking his finger. A head full of dark curly hair and the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen. His name was Devon and he needed some love. On May 3, 2003 we went to meet the rest of the family. When I got home Steve was in the family room, I took Devon to meet him. Steve started to laugh. He had just watched the movie Fridays and he said Devon looked like this big drug dealer named Deebo. I thought that was mean but he really did, so from then on he was known as Deebo. By this time I knew the routine, isn't that sad to know what doctor an abused baby must see. So it was back to my chaotic life, ot, pt and speech therapy, neurologists, gastroenterologists you name the specialist we saw them. The sperm donor admitted to beating the baby, he was charged and sentenced to prison for 1st degree child abuse where he still is today. But because the womb wasn't home at the time of the abuse (she was working the streets) she was allowed visits. Deebo had a great foster care worker, she knew the womb was on parole for drugs and prostitution, so she ran her and found out she was in violation of her parole. She set up a visit for her to see Deebo but also called the police. They took that fat slob to jail. Oh happy days. That was the end of the visits. But I still had a problem, I could not get a doctor to believe me that Deebo couldn't hear. When he was about 7 months he started rolling up to the t.v. and putting his ear to the speaker. I could bang pans and clap my hands still nothing. So I decided one last time to take him to yet another Ear Nose and Throat specialist. They did some kind of test on him and said I was right. His eardrums did not vibrate. So we scheduled surgery to have tubes put in his ears. When the surgeon came out to talk to me afterwards, he said when he punctured the eardrum to insert the tube fluid from the brain or brain matter oozed out. He said it was common for this to happen when the skull is fractured in that area. He had seen it a few times before when he did his residency. Gross was all I could say but at last he should be able to hear better.
The court proceeding went very fast in this case. They terminated rights at the 2nd hearing and we got to keep our Sweet Deebo. So once again I was on an upward climb. Oh who cares when you do all this laundry anyway whats a little more. But I still wanted that sky light!!
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