The first day of the rest of my life

The phone rang, I shakingly answered the phone, it was her. The mother of the baby I could be taking home in just a few short days. We will call her Betty. Betty explained to me the situation a little better than my mother in law was able to. She had a baby 3 days previous to our conversation. He had tested positive for drugs, so the state had moved in to remove the baby from her temporarily. Betty had 3 kids previous to this pregnancy who had all been adopted and her words "lost" in the system. She wanted someone in the family that could help out and take him while she got clean. While I didn't stop to think about the difficulties this could bring, I immediately said YES! We will take him, what do we need to do? I THEN called my husband, yes that's right I just said we would take a newborn without speaking to my husband! I called Sheldon, and I asked him, "do you wanna have a baby this week?" He confusingly answered...um, yes? 

I then took the next few minutes to explain to him the situation of his distant relative Betty. He agreed and was just as excited as I was to even have a baby in our home and our care temporarily. My amazing boss let me leave work immediately so we could go start the process of getting approved, and later that evening we were able to go and meet this sweet child. Waiting outside of the NICU to go in and meet this baby seemed like a dream. Gowning up, scrubbing down, this was happening I was going to meet him! Betty took me around the corner to this tiny, precious little bundle. I was instantly filled with emotion I don't know how to express in words. I knew he wasn't mine, but I loved him. She turned to me and said, "this is AJ. Would you like to hold him?" I picked him up and my eyes were instantly filled with tears. Happy tears because I knew I could give him the most loving home as long as I could, sad tears because of what he was going through. He was going to be taken away from the only thing he had known in his short little life, the withdrawals he was experiencing. I loved every tiny 6 lb 5 oz of him. 

The day before we were suppose to bring him home from the NICU we got a call explaining that we were not close enough related to take him home without doing a live fingerprint scan, which the results could take up to WEEKS! I instantly ran to my mother in laws classroom and asked her if she would be able to take him during the nights because she was close enough related. She agreed to help out, so the next morning her and I went and bought all the new born essentials we would need for the first little bit. We were also overwhelmingly thankful for countless family members who offered what they had to us with no questions asked. Everything was working out perfectly. We left to finally go and pick little AJ up from the hospital, I was so nervous that I actually ran a red light!! My brain didn't know what to do with all of the emotions I had been feeling! We showed up to the hospital, where my father in law had met us. Because they were going to be the care givers for the next few days they got to go in and discharge him and bring him out in a tiny new born outfit that was too big on him. He was more perfect than I remember. Betty came right before we left to say goodbye to him, I reassured her we would see her soon. 

My in laws agreed with Sheldon and I that we would take care of him all day as long as they could take him for the nights. So we went straight from the hospital to our apartment. It was finally just us, and him. Our hearts were so full they wanted to burst! It then hit me that I was in for the biggest heart break of my life. What happens if I have to give him back? I mean that was the goal, to reunite him with his birth mom. I knew as long as what was going to happen would be in his best interest I could do it. If Betty got clean, she deserved to raise him. After what we had been through, we would never want to take a child from a deserving mother. So I decided to give him all the love I could possibly possess, as long as he was in my care. 

Two days later, on a Monday, we got to bring him home with us and not have to take him back at night! It was now us, full time! We celebrated him being a week old and having all the cuddles! Everything was perfect. Nothing in this world felt as natural as being a mother figure to this little boy. About a week later, we had his 2 week doctors appt. We had relayed the information to Betty so she could meet us there. She got to hold him while we were there, but she seemed very off. Maybe she was just nervous? We went in to meet with the doctor and she just kept talking about off subject items and talking over the doctor. I tried my hardest to make her feel comfortable and try to listen to her and the doctor. I felt very overwhelmed. The doctor said everything was looking great and we scheduled his circumcision for a day that would work for both Betty and I. We said our goodbyes and headed home. About 45 min after being home I got a call from the doctors office. They asked who was with me because they needed to contact her. I got a very bad gut feeling. And I explained to the person on the phone that I was his foster mom, and legally I had to do everything in my power to protect this little boy and if it had something to do with drugs I really needed to know. He then replied with, "she left her paraphernalia in the bathroom." This was the first time I experienced my very powerful mama bear instincts. I spent the next while on the phone with various case workers. 

After a few weeks, We showed up for his circumcision, Betty was nowhere to be found. She didn't show up. I got a text later that day asking how he was, and informing me she had been sick. This was just the beginning of her "i'm sick" stories. I started receiving very manipulating text messages up to 20 times in an hour time frame. It had got out of hand I finally had to bring it the the attention of one of the caseworkers. It was then agreed that Betty and I would only communicate through the case worker. I had no idea this would cause a vendetta against me. After a perfect Christmas together, Visitation moved from being supervised at the DCFS office, to in her home where she lived with her mom, who was going to be supervising. Betty was known to run away. So this made me extremely nervous. This also meant she was hopefully cleaning up her life, and the state felt she was making her way towards bringing him home for good. Things then took a very nasty turn...