It's a Boy

With our license back we started getting calls again. Short term emergency placements. The revolving door at our home was once again open. At the end of March I read a blurb about a 2 month old baby in our local paper. He was in the hospital with very questionable injuries. Seemed to be a case of severe child abuse. I just couldn't get that awful thought out of my head. What kind of monster hurt a baby, the thought made my stomach flip. Well I did have an opening and I had never had an infant placed with us. So I called our worker. I wanted that baby. So he put me in touch with the protective service worker, her name was Nancy H. Are you sure she asked, these injuries are severe? He will probably have some major deficits. Yeah I was sure, but now I had to convince Steve. So later that day I asked,"Don't you want a baby"? Sure, get in the bedroom so we can practice. Well that wasn't exactly what I had in mind. No, a foster baby? "Um, no I think we have enough", was his reply. So I went on to tell him about this poor baby who was beaten so bad. Please, I wanted this baby. In his word,"He will probably be all garfed up, are you willing to risk that"? Yep was all I said. So he told me to go see him, make sure I could handle it. Well I couldn't get to the hospital fast enough. On the way I stopped to pick my mom up. She was a little more level headed than I was. What if he's severely brain damaged, what if he never walks or talks, are you willing to spend the rest of your life taking care of this baby, because you know he won't be a baby forever? I never thought about it that way, but yes I was, no matter what.
From the moment I saw this broken little guy, I knew I wanted to take him home and never let any one ever hurt him again. He was at that moment the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. His head was bruised and swollen , he had puffy eyes from the skull fractures, bruising around his ears and on his chest. But yet he managed to smile at me, I was in love.