Our Story
I’m going to give you a timeline here to the best of my memory. Everything is so hazy from 2004 and on. I am going to protect our identities, and give fake names. This is 10 years worth of story, so it’s going to be rather long, I will try to shorten it up as best I can.
My son, Steven, was born in Feb 2000, I had a couple issues with DHS in Itasca co, they said that he didn’t gain weight fast enough, claimed malnutrition. Nothing ever came of that. Did I mention that he was 9lbs. 3/4 of an oz birth weight?
My husband, then just boyfriend, Allen, lost his youngest daughter, Kyhara, to a suffocation accident in March 2002. Becker Co Sheriff’s Department ruled it ACCIDENTAL.
Allen and I married in Sept 2002, our daughter, Alexzandra, was born in Oct.2002. We had custody of all the kids, Angelique (Allen’s oldest daughter), Alexzandra, and Steven. We lived that way for a month until Angelique was removed from our home “voluntarily” (CPS told Allen, either you give her up or we take her.) for putting a bag over Stevens head and saying “You’re the next to die”. I loved her, but she has issues and was endangering my children’s lives. She needed help and I knew that when she got older Allen and I wouldn’t be able to handle her. This has since proved right. Angelique was severely abused and neglected by her biological mother, as was Kyhara. Allen got custody of both of them almost a year before we met. The CPS worker lied and lied and lied to Allen and I caught most of it and confronted her with the lies, she jabbered her way out of them, while Allen tried to stop me from making things worse for us. We had supervised visits with Angelique at a parenting time center, and when they wanted me to come in, I didn’t have a baby sitter for Steven or Alexzandra, so I had to bring them with. The supervisors noted that I was anti-social and I refused to interact with Angelique. You try bringing a 2 month old baby to a parenting center that has no crib or cradle, no one to take care of the baby and see how much you are able to interact with one child and take care of another so she doesn’t cry constantly. Needless to say, Allen holds a grudge against me for “not trying hard enough” to get Angelique back. She now lives with Allen’s aunt, and Allen is allowed to see her once in a great while, and I am not allowed to see her at all. Angelique was 5 when they took her from us, and she will be 12 in Nov.
In Feb 2004, Steven was in Headstart, and I wasn’t always there to pick him up off the bus after school. So I entrusted my parents and my siblings to do that when I couldn’t. I was tending to my car, which was having problems starting for my mom and by the time I got back to the house, the bus pulled away. I got back into the car and booked it over to Headstart to pick him up, just to be told they were bringing him to the DHS building. I met with a vile woman and she said they were taking him from me right then and there, and she would follow me home to get Alexzandra. I begged and pleaded with her and I cried and cried and cried, I couldn’t believe this was happening to me! I ran out, got into my car and peeled (yes peeled) out of the parking lot. I beat her to my house by 20 minutes and we left at the same time. I cried to my mom and sister, and my mom simply said “I told you so.” I dressed Alexzandra up really nice, and put her shoes on. I didn’t know what to do and my mother was no help in the whole thing, I didn’t know my rights, and I didn’t know that there wasn’t anyone who was going to tell me and help me. The worker came into the house and immediately began picking it apart. Allen and I were separated at the time and my parents and brother just got back from a Jamaican missions trip the day before, so all their baggage was still out, my sister stayed at a friends during that time, so I wouldn’t have to drive her to school everyday. I begged with the vile woman again and with tears in my eyes, I put my beloved 1 year old daughter in her car. (No there was no police or warrant present).
Allen came back to me then, to help the best he could. They kept telling my mom (and still do) that if I left him, I would get the kids back no problem. I knew from minute one that that wasn’t true. We jumped through their hoops and signed what they wanted and every time that we finished jumping through their hoops, they produced another set for us to jump through. We were a low income family before, but we made it by just fine. So we couldn’t afford a lawyer on our own, and I was living with my parents at the time. We got public defenders, that didn’t do what we wanted them to, they would throw a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo at us that sounded good, and they say something different in court. The children were placed in a local foster care, and when the husband got sick, they were placed with my aunt in Minneapolis for several months we didn’t get to see them, as we live in the northern part of Minnesota.
In June of 2004, I found out that I was pregnant with our youngest daughter. I was devastated; I knew this wasn’t going to be good.
In December of 2004, they were placed with my mother, IN THE SAME HOUSE THE CHILDREN WERE REMOVED FROM!!! Allen and I had to move out, and he got a bit of luck and won a brand new truck, we sold it immediately and bought ourselves a really nice trailer house and two vehicles. We weren’t allowed to see the children for a few months, including Christmas.
March of 2005, Rose was born, she was breech, and I had to have a C-section. Allen and I thought things were going to turn around as we hadn’t heard from CPS about Rose. Wrong. Rose was born at 6:05am via Cesarean and CPS showed up at the hospital at 11:00am telling Allen and I that they were going to take her. I think that I might have jumped across the room and strangled her if it weren’t for the fact that I was still under anesthetic and I couldn’t move my legs. That was SATURDAY!!! My doctor came around and I told him that we wanted to stay until Tuesday, so that we could have the jump on CPS. CPS came on Monday and a pediatrician released Rose to leave the hospital. They took her that day, and Allen and I left the hospital AMA. No reason to stay. We immediately went and got public defenders and in court the next Monday, CPS stated they were looking for permanency with my mother and that they didn’t realize that we were going to have attorneys. Our attorneys were the same ones that we had before, and when it came to the admit/deny hearing; they told us that we were going to enter the “deny” plea, and in court they turned it around and said “admit”. I think I nearly passed out, that wasn’t what I wanted. Rose was placed with my mom and we lost.
Allen and I have been childless for four years now, and I hate it, I hate not having my babies here. I want them back and I don’t want to wait!
Some of the reasons for removing Steven and Alexzandra:
Neglect
Filthy house (and they were all placed back in the same house they were taken from)
Allen murdered Kyhara (BCSD stated it was accidental)
Angelique was removed from the home
Animal feces “everywhere”
Animal feces in reach of Alexzandra at the age of 5 months (I would LOVE to know when that happened!!!)
Steven following my sister and her friends to the beach (yes this actually happened and neither me, my mom or Allen knew he was gone. I thought he was with mom in the basement, and I was taking care of Alexzandra upstairs. Mom thought he was with me, and Allen requested that we kept Steven inside due to the fact that he was working on a car and couldn’t watch him. The police brought him back a few minutes later, stating that he sat on the corner yelling for my sister, he wouldn’t cross the street to go to her. Steven was walking at 6 months old; he is EXTREMELY smart and very hyper. He didn’t often think about what he was doing. My mom and I watched him one day as he piled up boxes, chairs, and toys to get a toy that I had taken away from him. The stack looked so rickety that we were sure it was going to fall the minute he started climbing, but it didn’t. It was very, very solid.)
I will post more as I remember, but these are the few that stick out in my mind.
Reasons stated for taking Rose:
Neglect (how could that possibly happen in a hospital???)
Failing to complete the case plan for Steven and Alexzandra.
That was it for Rose, nothing else. But anyway, this has taken me hours to do, mostly because I couldn’t see as I was typing with tears in my eyes and had to stop every once in a while to recompose myself. And according to my computer, this is 3 pages long. I tried to keep it as short as I could, but there’s always so much to tell. I didn’t do anything wrong and neither did Allen, we are innocent and we want our kids and our lives back.
Cristina