April 10th 2008 was without a doubt the worst day of my life. It started out ok but then turned tragic. I got up and fed my two beautiful girls, Jessy who was 2 and Abby who was 5 mos. We played and cuddled some and then it was time for their naps.
We were a military family. My husband served proudly in the Air Force and we lived in base housing and as such basically lived in whichever house they told us too. I had been arguing with the housing office for some time because AF regulations say that they are to provide one bedroom per child and the home we lived in had only 2 bedrooms so my girls had to share. They put us on a 6 month long waiting list for a three bedroom house and we impatiently for our name to come up. It never did. We never got our three bedroom house because on April 10th 2008 when I put my girls down for their naps one of them never woke up.
After I put the girls down to sleep ( each in their own bed, NOT together) I left to run some errands, leaving my husband to watch the girls. When I returned, an hour or so later I got a funny feeling in my stomache. One of those “mommy things”, so I went to check on the girls and wake them up from their nap. I found my oldest Jessy playing on the floor and as I walked over to the crib to get my youngest, Abby , up my heart stopped. There was a mountain of stuffed animals in the crib with Abby. Jessy had tried to share her toys with Abby by throwing them into her crib. I ran to Abby and frantically threw the off of her only to find I was too late. My sweet precious little Abby was gone from us forever.
I picked her up and tried CPR and called 911 for help. Little did I know that I would not get help but harassment. I held Abby in my arms until a fire truck pulled up at our house and I ran her out to them hoping they could save her. A neighbor saw the commotion and took Jessy to her house to play with her children so that My husband and I could go to the hospital to be with Abby. Once we got to the hospital the Dr confirmed our worst fears. Nothing could be done. Our little Abby was gone.
There is no pain in this world than the pain of losing a child. We went in to see Abby and hold her one last time. I remember I was kissing her goodbye on the forehead when I was informed the police were there to speak to us. Naturally I spoke to them. I had done nothing wrong and in my mind by speaking to them and telling the the truth, they would understand this and we could go back to our grieving. We were interrogated for 3 hours each. It was gruelling. The kind of thing you see on tv but dont really think anyone actually has to go through.
Then the other shoe dropped. A woman came in and introduced herself as a CPS case worker and told me she would be removing Jessica from our custody. I tried to reason with her, tried explaining the situation to her but she was resolute in her decision and I was powerless to stop it. She took my 2 year old from the neighbors home and wouldnt even let me say goodbye. I asked the case worker to give Jessy a hug from her mommy and daddy and she said that she would but I’m sure she didn’t. That night my daughter spent the first night of what would be 3 weeks in foster care.
My husband and I were in shock. We didnt know what to do or who to talk to or not talk to, so we answered any questions anyone had for us. We even signed away our right to a search warrant and refused to ask for a lawyer because we were told if we did, it would look like we were guilty of something. We spent that night in a hotel on the Air Force base because we were denied access to our home while they were “collecting evidence”. Evidence of WHAT I still do not know.
We were honest, forthright and upfront about everything. We had nothing to hide. However that did not stop CPS and the police from launching an investigation against us. CPS turned the greatest tragedy of my life into the TWO greatest tragedies of my life, all in one day. God took one of my babies, but CPS stole the other.
fightingforjessy