We admitted to the first four allegations. I fell asleep and he got out. His medical was behind. His dental was behind. The house was dirty that day. But I made a point of clarifying each. Like the fact our apartment has monthly inspections which we pass, and its not usually dirty. And that I had a signed statement from the landlady that he was only outside 20 minutes, not an hour. And then they got into allegations that weren’t on the first paperwork. That our son was not circumcised and had been improperly cared for. I flat out denied that, and pointed out that the statement was completely the foster parent’s claim, and (as my lawyer had pointed out in the first hearing) there was nothing to that effect on the doctor’s paperwork.

The CPS lawyer went off, claiming we’d said we’d agree to everything and she would have had the officer there if she’d known we were going to say that. The officer wasn’t even there until after the landlady had our son.

The judge ruled our son as abused and neglected. I still don’t get that. How can they lump the two together? There’s a world of difference between abusing a child and making wrong decisions like not having current shots. And even the latter isn’t neglect if its done with thought and concern for the child.

And the judge asked the lawyers what had been decided at the MDT. He didn’t seem very happy to find out *nothing* had been decided. Just that we would admit, and we would go to psychological evaluation.

When we went to the MDT, I had gone prepared with a “tentative treatment plan”. We never went over it or any plan at the MDT. I had given a copy of my plan to my lawyer before the hearing. And I honestly think that plan may have saved us. Because my lawyer gave a copy of it to everyone in the room. And the judge spent a good five minutes reading it. Then the judge asked how long the evaluation would take. CPS said 30 days.

The judge ordered that the evaluation, and a new MDT be done by June 22nd, and that another discretionary hearing would be held on the 22nd. He said at that meeting, we could choose to deny the allegations we had admitted to.

So, in a way, its like nothing happened, because it’s all been put off till the next hearing. I feel that’s neither bad nor good. It could have been a lot worse.

But the next MDT *must* go well, and we have to come out of it with a plan. Otherwise the judge will decide, and I somehow don’t think that’s a good thing..

Thursday, April 23 at 11:30am, I checked on my 4 year old son, and he was taking a nap in front of the television. I laid down in front of the computer. Without intending to, I fell asleep.

I woke up with a state police officer and my landlady (I live in an apartment) in the hallway outside my bedroom door. They told me my son had been outside, unsupervised, for over an hour. The officer said my son was in just a diaper, and covered head to toe in human feces. I did what any decent parent would do, I ran to get my son. He was in the playground, wearing a pullup and a shirt that wasn’t his. Yes, the pullup was dirty, but he was definitely not covered head to toe in feces.

I took him home, put him in the bathtub, and called my husband at work to tell him to come home immediately. He got home a few minutes later, and the police officer was still outside. We also called my husband’s mother and told her what was going on.

A short time later, the CPS worker showed up, and came in with the officer. We tried to explain what had happened. In order to get out, our son had taken down the baby gate at the top of the stairs, unlocked the regular turnbolt on the front door, and used a broom to open the chain that was 5 feet up the door (he really is too clever for his own good). My mother-in-law came over, and was told she wasn’t allowed to be there.

The CPS worker looked around the house, and of course, I hadn’t cleaned that day, because I’d been trying to figure out how one saves a house that’s about to be repossessed. So there were dishes in the sink, the floor needed vacuumed, and there was a load of laundry waiting for washing. Nothing big, nothing that showed weeks of neglect, just the usual sort of thing. There was food in the cupboards and fridge so all was good on that count.

She asked about his shots. Well, state law requires them to have their shots before they go to school. And he had had very bad reactions to his shots when he was little. So no, they weren’t current, but as far as I knew, it wasn’t illegal, as long as he got them before starting school. She asked about his teeth. Not so good. He was nursed as an infant, and he never liked regular milk. As a result he has tooth decay in the top front four teeth. We figured that baby teeth were temporary, and we watched him for any sign of fussiness or infection, but he’s always been a healthy little boy.

And then.. she told us she was taking our son. We were shocked. When we realised there was no dissuading her, we asked if he could stay with his grandmother. She said he had to go to a foster home, but to provide her with Grandmother’s name and social security number, and she would start the process for relative placement. She didn’t talk to my mother-in-law, nor did she talk to the landlady, who wanted to talk to her.

She asked to use our carseat as she didn’t have one of her own. She said she would be back later that evening with the carseat and the emergency custody order. And then, she took our son away.

We expected her to come back that night, and to tell us what we had to do to get our son back. She didn’t. A few hours later, a different police officer came with the custody order. The CPS worker came the next day, dropped off the carseat with my husband, and left. I wasn’t there at the time.

We read the paperwork thoroughly. It said they had legal custody “for no longer than the next two judicial days” “unless a petition has been filed and custody transferred”. We called the court on Friday and were told who our court-appointed lawyer was, and that we had a hearing on May 1st. We set up an appointment with the lawyer for Monday. And we figured, by Tuesday at the latest (two judicial days if Thursday didn’t count), we would have our son back.

We went to see the lawyer on Monday, and he told me to leave. Apparently, my husband and I get seperate lawyers, even tho we’re on the same side. So my husband talked to his lawyer, and I set up an appointment with mine. And Tuesday came, and we didn’t get our son back. Apparently just filing paperwork was enough to keep him, because the judge didn’t sign off on the paperwork until the 28th, at which point the two days was already up.

So we went to the hearing on Friday, May 1st. We came prepared, with pictures of a clean house, letters of character reference, scheduled doctor and dentist appointments, receipt for a door alarm we ordered online. We also had a statement from our landlady, which said our son had been outside for twenty minutes (not the hour they said).. and our lawyers both told us to waive the hearing. We refused. We went into the hearing with high hopes.

I have three children from a previous marriage, ages 14, 12, and 9. They live with their father in their home state of Arizona during the school year, and they live with me in the summer. My ex-husband and I agreed on this because we felt it was in the children’s best interests to stay in the same schools. My ex-husband even wrote one of my reference letters. In 14 years of parenting, even during my divorce, I have NEVER been involved with CPS. Not once. So we figured the hearing would go well, we’d get our son back, and we’d have to agree to some sort of monitored plan.

Instead, the judge confirmed their custody, set another hearing for June 1st, ordered an MDT meeting be held before the next hearing, ordered weekly drug testing, and gave us 2 hours supervised visitation a week. Then the hearing ended, and we were sent to take a drug test, which we both of course passed. I was told that if my other children came out for the summer, they would be placed in foster care too. When we asked about relative placement, they told us his grandmother hadn’t filled out the paperwork (of course, that was because they said they would take care of it), so she began that process.

The CPS worker told us she couldn’t schedule a visit that week as she had an emergency to deal with. Monday came, and we called her about our visitation, and she said someone else handled visitation and would call us. No-one did. We called her supervisor the next day, who gave me a number to call. Two days no-one answered, only to finally call and leave a message that they weren’t handling our case. We called someone at the State office, and finally, an hour after that, received a call saying we could have an hour on Friday, as this was last minute, and we would get our missing hour the following week.

Finally, 2 weeks after he was taken, we got to see our son, in a tiny room in the DHHR office, with a woman who was not part of CPS supervising. When he showed up, he had a huge bruise on his face (we were told another child threw a toy at him in daycare). He was quiet, subdued, not at all the happy vibrant child we were used to. He didn’t run up to us and yell “Mommy, Daddy” in fact he barely even looked at us. He played with the toys in that little room, and we finally coaxed some tiny smiles out of him, but it wasn’t at all what we expected. And when the visit ended, he didn’t look back. He took the foster-father’s hand and just walked away.

Two more visits went much the same. After the first one, they were scheduled for Thursday afternoons.

During this time, we had had no contact with CPS. They did do a home visit with my mother-in-law, which meant she got passed along the chain for another visit by someone else. They didn’t call us and schedule the MDT. Our lawyers didn’t call us. Nor did my lawyer return the call I made asking for copies of our son’s medical paperwork. CPS did not even call us to schedule any more drug testing.

On May 21st we called CPS, no answer. I called my lawyer’s secretary and asked if they had gotten a date for the MDT yet. She said they had been told yesterday it was set for 10am Wednesday the 27th. When we went to our visitation that day, we found out the foster-parents had been told of the visitation on Tuesday. We called CPS twice more after we got home, and finally got through to our worker. Only after I asked did she tell me the time and date of the MDT.

We went to the MDT on the 27th, armed with fresh pictures of a clean house, pictures of our door with its new child-proof chain, and a tentative treatment plan. We had done our research over the last month, and thought we knew what to expect. But CPS wasn’t there to discuss a treatment plan. They wanted us to agree to admit to the allegations in the custody paperwork. Okay, fine, I thought. I did fall asleep, he did get out, we were behind on doctor and dental, the house was dirty THAT day. I figured, we admit to that, work on a plan for improvement, and move on. Our lawyers had different ideas. Without consulting us, they said no to admitting. And CPS dug in its heels and refused to work on a plan. Now frankly, I don’t see the point in not admitting the stuff, since most of it is clearly proven. And none of it is a crime. If we have to admit to it to get our son back, fine. But by the time we got our lawyers out of the room and said that, it was too late. The result of the meeting was – we’re to get psychological evaluations. Nothing was arranged on what we have to do or when we get our son back.

The next day, we had our weekly visitation. This time, things went differently. I brought my laptop with me. I showed our son pictures of him at home, pictures of his brothers and sister, pictures of his cousins, and pictures of our apartment. When I showed him a picture of the dining room and said “what’s that?”, he said “home”. And when I showed him pictures of his bedroom, and his toys, for the first time he said “I want to go home.” I was thrilled. And I explained to him, because I don’t doubt they have him thinking we abandoned him, “You know how sometimes you aren’t allowed to do things? Well, mommy and daddy aren’t allowed to take you home, even though we want to, very much, and we’re working very hard on it.” And for the rest of that visit, he was his normal, happy self.

So, tomorrow is the next hearing. And we’re going armed with the pictures and all the rest. And we have a list of points we want addressed, which we’ll give copies of to our lawyers. But by now, all we expect is delays.. another hearing, another MDT, the psychological evaluations.

Here we stand, 5 weeks after losing our son. And all because I fell asleep..