Starting in the Middle (a good a place as any)

Starting in the Middle
(A Good a Place as Any)

Preface:
Wow. Thirty people have looked at my first blog post. That’s exciting. That’s scary. I’ve never had the courage to put myself out there before, but then again it’s never been so easy to. Well, this is me, my last at bat, and I better swing has hard as I can. I intend to post at least once per week, hopefully more often than that. Thank you for giving me a chance.

We have had to fight to convince DHS that Nicole is not a danger to Megan or Corah. She has never hurt either one of them; she has only ever done what she was told. When she was alone with Corah as a baby, they were living in a special shelter in Norwalk for mothers and babies. Every few weeks she would drive up with the baby to visit me. The last time she did, in February when Corah was almost twelve months old, I felt that something was off, but she didn’t open up to me. She was giving the baby banana-flavored cereal puffs, which she loved, so I said, “Why don’t you just give her a banana?”

Nicole looked at me, head tilted, “She can have a banana?” In that instant I knew that she would not be able to keep up with the baby’s development. It would change too quickly, and just when Niki got good at one stage, the baby would be on to the next. I didn’t say anything to her about my misgivings; we just gave Corah pieces of banana. When they left, I told Niki to ask the baby doctor’s staff to help her with what she could eat or not eat, she didn’t have to wait for her appointment.

When she got back to Norwalk Nicole asked for help from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) because she didn’t feel safe enough to care for Corah. It was exactly what she had been told to do. Any time she had a mental health issue, they told her, “If you ever don’t feel like you can’t take care of Corah, just call us and we will help you.” So she called them and they came and took her baby away from her.

She called me sobbing, grief-stricken. It wasn’t what she expected to happen. It was the first time that the Department’s friendly, earnest we’re-here-to-help-you façade came down. It is something we see a lot. Information is given in a gentle, reassuring manner that makes you feel save trusting them. But trusting is a mistake, you will never get information you don’t specifically ask for. In other words, they only tell you the whole truth if you already know it.

I assured Nicole that I would take Corah and we would stay a family. But it was too late-if she had simply left the baby with me because she wasn’t well it would have been fine-the state had her and we would have to jump through hoops on their command. Of course, that is what we would do. Staff at the Residence where Nicole lived told her that I wouldn’t be allowed to adopt Corah, that I wouldn’t be approved. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was being judged sight unseen based on Nicole. She had a traumatic brain injury for Pete’s sake! That made me angry (something it is not easy to do) and that was their mistake.

Years later when Maine DHS was building a case against Nicole, they put a huge amount of weight on the fact that Corah went into state custody and Nicole gave up her parental rights. It was one of their strongest arguments. I told them over and over that it was voluntary, that Niki was competent and responsible enough to ask for help and that in order for me to adopt Corah, she had to give up her rights. It was another thing she was told she had to do if she wanted things to work out, and she did what she was told. The truth did her no good though. All the Connecticut records said was that DCF took custody and Nicole’s parental rights were terminated. And Maine was successful in using it against her.