As I walk into the hospital, I say a quick prayer, asking for God’s blessing on this new little child I’ll be bringing home. The social worker walks towards me, fast-paced and red-faced. I notice the small beads of sweat forming around her hairline as she sputters out, “Ok, yeah, so, um, we’re going to get you upstairs and then we’re going to quickly get you into a room. Mom is here, and she’s very upset, and, well, we need to hide you from her.” After the alarm of the moment, my mind wanders, “She is upset? She did this to him, and she’s been off on the street since, while he’s here, alone and suffering. What right does she have to be upset?”
While his little body should’ve still been safe in his mother’s womb, he was lying in a plastic crib, fighting off the poison he’d been fed for 32 weeks. At four weeks old, he was suffering through the painful withdraw that conquers grown men. At four pounds, his little heart was fighting to beat, his little lungs fighting to breathe. He shouldn’t have even been born yet and already this woman had harmed him. She had no right to be upset.
The baby’s prematurity and drug exposure meant I needed two hours worth of CPR and heart/lung monitor training before I could bring him home. The medical supply trainer introduces himself and hands me a packet of information. “Sorry there’s already writing on it. This is the packet I went through when I trained mom last night.” I stop him. “You did this training with mom last night? Mom was here? Are you saying that she thought she was bringing him home until last night?” “Yeah,” he answers, “We did all the training and pre-discharge work last night. They tell me she’s been here with him every day.”
