I'm a mom, not a monster. I need advice and guidance.

[PurpleSky]

I had my son in March of this year. He was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Blonde hair, blue eyes, milky skin.. He is everything I could ever ask for...
For the first three months of his life, he had a lot of problems gaining weight. His ped switched him up formula after formula, ran tests, etc to find out what was going on with the little guy. In June, he stayed with his grandma for a few days. She wanted to spend time with him.. No big deal. She is very knowledgeable on babies and knows what she's doing. She brought him home to my boyfriend and I and had a talk with us. She told us she noticed a weird bump on his head that was where his soft spot was. It had fluid built up in it. We were all crying and afraid. We didn't know what to think or what it could be, so we quickly made an appointment with his ped. While at his doctor's appointment, they checked him over and were worried about a perhaps leakage of spinal fluid in his soft spot. They recommended an MRI and the MRI did not find much, but the doctor told us it was most likely caused during labor due to the labor being rough. No big deal. Nothing to worry about....

About a week or so later, I came home from taking my dog to the vet to find a strange woman sitting on the floor with my boyfriend and his mom. I thought perhaps she was a friend of his mom's and continued talking about how my dog's vet visit went. She stood up and asked me if I was my son's mom; in which I was quickly thrown a curve ball. I asked who she was with a bit of bitterness in my voice and she explained she was from CPS and was called to investigate the lump on his head. I freaked out. As a former slave to the foster care system, I was very upset. I was angry. Who wouldn't be? So before I continued to rant about how I didn't want these people in my life again, I stepped out to get some air and smoke a cigarette. I chilled out, came back in, and listened to what she had to say. MIND YOU. My boyfriend was ALREADY SIGNING PAPERWORK because he knew how pissed I was going to be. It was insane. She told me they were signing a plan and that my son would be better spending a few days with his grandma. I submitted to her requests like a dog and she had told me I had nothing to worry about. Cool, right? NO NO NO. I was wrong again...

She told me that she set up an appointment at the children's hospital even though I explained already about the bump on his head. She said that they just wanted to make sure everything was okay with it and to be certain that's what it was. The next day, that's where we went. When we got there, we sat in a fairly large room. My eyes are sensitive to certain lights and I put on my sunglasses to avoid getting sick. It took over an hour before people entered the room, but soon enough, a woman came in. She introduced herself as "Dr. Knox". An "abuse specialist" who takes on some pretty extreme cases in Wisconsin. She then began to interrogate my boyfriend and I.

She asked me why I was wearing the sunglasses, I happily explained, but then she asked me to take them off for a moment. I did. She then asked if I had taken any drugs and if I were to be drug tested, if I would pass. I laughed at her threat and told her I would pee in a cup in it was needed. I don't partake in drugs, so I wasn't concerned. She quickly dropped the threat as she saw how confident I was. She started asking questions about his weight and why he was so "thin". I explained the formula ordeal and that his PED mentioned he has some allergies. We had started him on elecare about a week before all this also and he seemed to be doing okay on it. She set his growth chart next to us and asked us to explain it. He was not meeting what he was suppose to at his age and my boyfriend and I explained the same thing. He has allergies. None of this is anything we've been doing. We explained that we are small people. I'm 5'0 and prepregnancy I was only 107. My boyfriend is small and skinny as well, but she didn't take any of this into consideration.

She began to drill us with horrible things. Asking how much he's fed on average. I was trying to remain silent. I did not want anything to do with this beast of a woman. I looked to my boyfriend for an answer as he is always better at speaking then I am. He paused to think for a moment in which she got firm and told him that if he had to think about it, it was an issue. That's the point I had a panic attack. I have borderline personality disorder. I have anxiety issues. This woman was tearing us a new one and I couldn't remain calm. This woman is accusing us of neglecting our son. Something I took to heart.

Now- Let me tell you something about this "Dr. Knox". Barbara L Knox does nothing but go by books and statistics. I actually was watching her on the news tonight and she was talking about a teenager who had been severely abused and starved by their father and what is the first thing this lady talks about? How this teenager's growth curve is way off and her height wasn't what it needed to be. I understand that this teenager was abused and was in bad shape, but I had no idea they do growth curve charts for teenagers and base height off of it either. If doctor Knox knew who I was as a teenager, she'd think I was abused too due to my height.

After the two hour long session of this woman basically telling us how bad of parents we were, we were allowed to leave and my son was with his grandma. He is now 8 months old and is still with his grandma....

Where I'm happy he is with her and not some strangers, I'm still not understanding why this is still going on. My boyfriend and I have to attend court for all this now, jump through cps' hoops, and so on. We have been doing EVERYTHING we can. We have gone through 3 pretrails that were 5 minutes long. Those three consisted of everyone else for and against us not getting their stuff right. Our court appointed lawyers kind of suck and don't provide enough information, our new social worker is part time and seems to be procrastinating on many things though she seems nicer then the first worker...

The first social worker we had was crazy. She wrote up this plan thing and it discussed what she thought was going on. She made us out to be monsters. Apparently I love my dog more then my son, my boyfriend and I prioritize sleep over our son, my boyfriend cares about his job more then our son, my boyfriend is an alcoholic; which he's not, My son isn't safe with me because I need mental health help, and so on.. She trashed our names. It was sickening. She also lied to us and said he was going in about his head but instead we were interrogated and when I confronted her, she told me that was not what she said.

The court asked my boyfriend to get a DNA test done because they weren't certain my son was his, but he got the test done and at the last court date, the people couldn't find the damn paperwork with the results of that test. Which now we have another pretrail. The judge is getting frustrated because he's tired of all the open CHIPS cases that these people have open. He seems to be a bit agitated with CPS, which COULD work in our favor.

My boyfriend was told by his lawyer that there's some thing going around saying we aren't doing anything with our son in which I record visits on a calender and the times we were there. So, they are trying to make up more crap. I've recorded sessions with the cps worker and I've also recorded phone calls as well, but I'm 22 years old and I'm SO LOST.

I don't know what more we can do. We want our son home with us. The visit I went to today, by the end, my son was clinging to my leg crying "mamamamamama" because he didn't want to go. My heart was in pieces when I left.

I'm also pregnant again. I didn't find out until I was out of the first trimester and now I'm scared because I don't want them to take this baby from me. These people are running us into the ground. I need help. I need someone to tell me SOMETHING USEFUL. I am scared to talk to many people about this because I'm ashamed. I want to just scream for help, but like I said, I don't know what to do.

I'm in Madison Wisconsin if that helps any.. Just please, someone give me some advice.. I need it...

Thank you for reading this. It means the world to me.

[fatherofthree]

The investigation sounds rather normal. Most likely the DR's office reported the possible abuse. Most dr's are not experts on abusive injuries and it would be normal for an expert to conduct a work up on the child. I have seen time and time again children with abusive injuries that a regular pediatrician missed. The process is lengthy and the non abuser usually finds the process offensive, however people that abuse children are also offensive and the truth must be discovered. The truth is needed for many reasons: they need to know what has happened so they may treat child; they need to find out who the abuser is (if this is a valid case); and just as importantly they need to clear people that did not abuse the child. This is very important when the father is the abuser. This way the mother can be around the child which the child needs.

More often then not people showing up in dark sunglasses are under the influence and it would be part of a proper investigation to address that. What were the last doctor's findings? Did they find the lump indicative of abuse? There are certain child abuse type injuries that are usually abusive when found. I have seen babies that don't thrive because they are being abused. When they are taken out of that environment they immediately start putting on weight and thriving. Has this occurred with your child?

I would be concerned how the lump occurred. There is not enough in a post to know what happened, if anything. I would have tons of questions on an investigation like this to even form an opinion. This would be a complex investigation and need to be done correctly to determine what if anything that may have happened. I can also say nobody ever believes that a loved one may have harmed a child and from what I am reading there is not enough info to know what happened if anything.

The paternity test would be normal to see if the boyfriend is the father. He may have said something during an interview to cause doubt or not be on the birth cert?

Unless this case is resolved, be prepared for CPS to intervene when your baby is born. Were any criminal charges filed?

[monkette31]

Well, the good news is that the baby is with family instead of the foster care system. Many times relatives are ruled out for care by social workers, just so the state can exploit the child via the funded foster and adoption industry. What are your allegations? If you have agreed to a case plan, most likely you admitted to child abuse. Have you completed the caseplan?

Are you under the care of a doctor for the borderline personality? Does cps know of your diagnosis? It is most likely that cps will take custody of your newborn if you have an open case and your other child is removed. Sometimes, cps will let the mother keep the baby for a few weeks, but ultimately they'll take custody soon after you give birth.

What does the grandma think about giving your child back?