Collateral Damage

Collateral damage.

That’s what our family has become. 

I realize that investigations need to take place when there is a question of abuse.  I understand that they need to be thorough to ensure that a child isn’t released to a horrible, abusive family.  I completely understand the idea of needing to follow through the motions with each step in order to make sure that the investigation is complete.

What I don’t understand is how the system is ok with families becoming collateral damage.  Our family has been through hell.  Matt was forced to leave the home, the girls couldn’t be alone with us, my mother had to stay for weeks longer than expected, Avery was in the hospital for over a month, I’ve completely failed my classes this semester, we had to get a lawyer and pay out of pocket for it, gas expenses driving back and forth to town two, three, four times a week, food expenses from having to eat out, eat cheap, eat quick…

Emotionally, the toll has been unparalleled. 

Madi, my oldest daughter, is 3 ½.  She is just barely old enough to understand why I’m upset, angry, hurt, frustrated and crying.  She sees that I’m in pain, that I’m feeling weak and guarded – and it is affecting her.  She has cried daily for the last two weeks.  I’ve tried so hard to get her to explain her emotions and she just says that she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her.  She doesn’t know how to stop crying.  I just want to hold her and tell her that I know how that feels and that it is going to be ok. That I’m not going to leave her, I won’t get taken away from my girls.  I want her to know that this is all going to end. 

Kailee, my middle child, is 2.  She doesn’t get what is going on, but she is affected by it regardless.  She has become quite the little terror in the last few weeks.  She is usually a very calm, happy, friendly little girl – but she’s been lashing out, crying, not eating as well, just a variety of small things that make everyone who knows her say “yeah, somethings up with her.” 

 Thank God that Avery will never remember these days.  She will not know the fear, terror and hurt that we have been through. She will grow up as a happy, healthy little girl who will never recall these hard, impossible days.

As far as me…oh my world is a completely different world now.  I use to be the friendliest, most out-going, open person.  My door was never locked.  NEVER.  I would talk to anyone who needed an ear, who needed a friend, who wanted to talk.  I have such a hard time now.  I can’t hold a conversation with people that I’m not incredibly close to because I live in fear that they are actually out to get some information that they can try and twist to use against me in some awful way.  When I’m asked “How are you holding up?” I’m always so hesitant to respond.  I always feel like whatever I say is the wrong answer.  If I’m ok, I’m too cold – too uncaring.  If I’m stressed, it’s obvious I can’t handle my family.  If I’m surviving then I am just barely above water and going to break.  It’s all wrong.  It doesn’t matter how you answer certain questions – it will always, always be the wrong answer.  The person I was before this will never come back.  I will never be as open, as trusting, as friendly with anyone, ever again.  I will never openly allow people into my home.  I have changed.  I have changed from offensive to defensive.  And I will defend.

We had Avery’s “family team meeting” on Thursday.  I HATE using the word “family” with a group of people who are hell-bent on destroying my family’s normalcy.  However, that’s what it is called.  We were asked, yet again, to take a polygraph which we refuse to do partially on the request of our lawyer and partially because I don’t trust, believe or see the benefit of doing them.  The state attorney seems hell-bent on pursuing criminal charges against our family.  The only new development appears to be that the Dr on base did in fact call CPS prior to the fractures discovery.  Apparently our family was reported for Avery’s failure to thrive. 

I wish I could explain how livid this makes me.  *I* was the one in the office telling them that she wasn’t eating.  I was the one who placed those calls to her.  I was the one who kept commenting on her declining ability to eat.  I was the one who was asking for new suggestions.  I was the one bringing in her dry diapers and saying that she wasn’t having wet ones anymore.  I was the one recording her daily formula intake with notes in an effort to get some help. I was the one who was taking every initiative to ensure that Avery’s health was the primary concern. 

However, in her medical records – it’s all backwards.  In her medical records I’m ‘psuedo-cooperative’ with the Dr’s requests.  My favorite line is where it states that when I cooperated Avery gained two ounces.  Which is HILARIOUS.  That was the day that I fed her right before we got there and when they told me that they wanted to weight her, I stated that she had just eaten two ounces.  They weighed her and guess what, she gained two ounces!  It has nothing to do with how cooperative or uncooperative I was, she had medical issues.

And to make it even more hilarious, even after getting admitted to the hospital and having an NG tube put down poor Avery’s nose, switching to the amino acid based formula, increasing the calories to 24cal/oz – she STILL didn’t gain weight!  She would gain 10g and lose 40g. 

The fact that Avery’s medical records are what the investigation is based off of infuriates me.  There are so many things in her medical records that just aren’t right.  They are not only drastic exaggerations of the actual circumstances, but there are point blank lies about things that were done, said and discussed.  It makes me so angry that every investigator, every medical professional, every person we will have contact with from this moment forward will see THOSE records.  Will read those notes.  The notes that make me and Matt both sound like complete idiots who refused to get Avery the help that she needed.

Obviously my refusal to cooperate is evidence in the fact that I had to get a second opinion from another Doctor in order to get Avery the help she needed.  My poor daughter has a tube coming out of her stomach because nothing was done to prevent her condition from worsening.  And the people who are to blame are the parents – instead of the medical facilities who had access to her, the programs that were invited into my house BY ME, voluntarily, who did nothing to help her either. 

I am angry.  I am furious.  I am livid.  I do not agree at all with the fact that this investigation is still on-going.  I do not agree at all with the fact that we are under investigation for deprivation because of failure-to-thrive – which is not only a condition that all three of my children have had, but a condition that I fought tooth and nail to get Avery medical help for.  I do not agree at all with the way that families who are forced into this system are made into collateral damage for the ones who actually do wrong.  It is not ok.  It is NOT ok. 

I want my family to live a normal life again.  I want to be able to pick up my infant and take her grocery shopping without having a supervisor.  I want to be able to sleep in my room, without a supervisor, in case Avery wakes up.  I want to be able to go where I want, when I want, without the knowledge that someone can and probably is watching us.  I hate being the subject of everyone’s public opinion, the butt of people’s jokes, being judged by people who know nothing of me, my family, our children, our medical history, our lives. 

I hate that my “family” isn’t allowed to be a FAMILY again.  We’re a home, a house, with people.  People who can’t live a normal, comfortable life.  We are people who are forced into a system meant to protect the innocent – a system that absolutely destroys the lives of innocent families.  This system does a lot of good, but sometimes people forget how much harm is being done to the innocent family.  And what retribution does the system get for so forcefully going after the innocent?  What repayment does the family get for having their life torn apart, having to employ lawyers, having to move a family member, having to follow every whim and will of the system?  What reprieve do we get?  Where’s OUR justice?