I'm Jeannine, and that lil guy in the photo is Skyler - he was only a few months old there ... That was ONE of our bonding moments - although it was cut short, every Monday's and Thursday's only two hours and only two days a week ...
He now has a new little brother, his name is Malachi and he was born two months premature and is right now in the Cincinnati Children's Hospital ... He has only gotten to be held once so far by his mommy - my 20 year old daughter, she also got feed him and change his diaper for the first time too ... It was the first since he was born on Saturday, June 21st at 3:24 am ... Because of his tiny and frail body, she was not allowed to hold him, only see him through his tiny litle bed ... I can only imagine that there was plastic separating him from her and vice versa ... Not even a whisk of her fingers across his soft baby skin, to let him know she was there and she loves him ...
No bonding time, no hugs, or kisses, or even whispers of sweet things into his tiny little ears ... Just a plastic bed that kept him from her and hoses or tubes that helped keep him breathing ...
Now, it's been FIVE days since he was born and the CPS has their claws into him already! They couldn't even WAIT to see if Tianna would do better this time, they didn't even give her a CHANCE to try and redeem herself, they just started the paper work and that was that!
It's hard to admit, but I have to say, I don't blame them for what they are doing and have done, knowing how she has been living her life and the people she has hanging around her and that she hangs around ... Knowing how she "keeps" house and isn't really motivated to get and DO SOMETHING to GET her sons back!
I have seen it once before, last year and the time before that, it was me ..... I was depressed, lazy, and unmotivated! I was a young mother who didn't know better, only knew I wasn't being the mom I needed to be to my beautiful little baby girl, whom I was letting run rampant around the house and feed herself hotdogs out of the frided, because I layed depressed on the couch for days at a time ... It only got worse, because my depression (although I don't think I really knew that I was depressed or what it meant, if I did, and didn't know ANYTHING about the resources available for people like me), I only knew I wasn't a "SUPER MOM" - as I read on the cup, everytime I passed by the Halmark window - I would wished it was me and that I could be this "SUPER MOM" and work and clean house and take care of my daughter - but instead I was just the opposite, I was "UN-SUPER MOM"! Maybe not in the eyes of my bouncing 2 year old, but in my eyes and that is all that seemed to matter!
Well, now we'll fastforward, it's now EXACTLY 20 years later and a repeat is happening, but this time my bouncing "two year old daughter" is now 20 and has TWO babies of her own, (neither of whom are in her possesion at this time ...)
One lives in a foster home, (where he has been since he was a week old) and the other lies in an infants hospital bed, being cared for by nurses and Dr.s and an invisible wall that keeps his Nana and anyone else who loves and cares for him - OUT of the picture!
I have tried talking to my daughter (as well as my mom has), till I was BLUE in the face, telling her that she needs to get a job and get her own place and NOT wait for someone else to help her! I made an effort to look for places for her and for jobs, but, she has not made the effort to try and obtain either one ...
Mean while, Skyler is about to be adopted by (to us - I know not to him, but to US) complete strangers! People who do NOT have the same blood coursing through their viens like Skyler and I do! People whom he NO visual disticnt features that connect him to them - showing others that he looks like them - no, but we do! He has our nose and eyes, and that sweet smile ........
Malachi, I am sure is the same, but with his own looks, of course - but still, they are OUR looks - NOT THEIRS!
I am a Grandma to these two beautiful baby boys, but they don't know it and won't know it, UNLESS I can get help on FIGHTING them - THEM being the SOCIAL WORKERS, THE CASA, THE LAWYERS, AND THE JUDGES!!!
I was there last year, visiting my lil Skyler, bringing him new clothes to wear (hoping I would get to see him in them, but it was wrong of me - according to the social worker - to even want to say anything about him not being put into the clothes that I HAD bought for him), I bought him little slippers that rattled when he would shake his feet, but never got to see him in those either, so I have NO IDEA if they even fit him and if so, for how long .... I never got to see him in ANYTHING I bought for him!
I would go to the library and pick out books and read them to him, I even made up a song for him, because in the room where we would visit, was planes on one wall ... I noticed how he LOVED those planes - I think he loved the red one most, or was it the yellow one ..........*sighs* I don't remember - it's sad ......
I remember wearing certain body spray and perfume, everytime I would go to visit him, so that maybe, just MAYBE someday, he would recognize that smell and associate it with me and that it would make him happy and bring good memories to his mind ... But, I don't know how it will, because I am not there and he is not here, and we are miles apart - and I think it would only bring sad memories now ......
Then on my 39 birthday, ( a time I was hoping that MAYBE I could get him for a day AWAY from the office, but there was no such luck), more devastating news came my way, because Chris was in jail and Tianna had not been showing up for the visits, the visits were now being cut back to only ONE day a week! That began on MY birthday and at the beginning of the visit - so my visit was very sad that day, my heart had been broken even more, (not that I could've even imagined it being broken more than it was, but it was) ..........
*sighs*
I want my boys home, I want them HERE with THEIR NANA~! I am READY (STILL - just like last year) TO DO WHATEVER it takes to GET THEM into MY CUSTODY!
I can only pray that God will show me the way - what direction do I go, what road do I turn down now? I can't see the signs, but I hope to soon, because this highway is long and dark .........
Thanks for reading,
Sincerely,
Nana to Skyler and Malachi
