life goes on to fucked up places

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After two years we decided to make a baby. We were so happy together that it seemed easy to dismiss the drunken episodes since they only came every other month or so. The times in between were bliss. I never once thought about leaving him when he was sober. It was literally like living with two completely different people.

When our daughter, Hazel was only four months old, she got a broken collarbone. I was dressing her in the morning and noticed a bright red bump on her shoulder. She was unusually fussy, but only when I moved her a certain way. Michael came home for lunch and we took her to the hospital.

When the E.R. doctor told us it was broken we were shocked and horrified and we had absolutely no idea how it happened.The doctor spent about an hour and a half talking with us. He was trying to get an idea how dangerous we were, I think. He asked us over and over if she had fallen or been dropped. We told him that she had never been dropped, or rolled off of anything. The only thing we could think of was that I’d had to slam on my brakes the day before going about 35 mph. She was still in a rear facing car seat at that time. He believed us, I think, but had to defer to a pediatrician. He called his pediatric colleague who said that there was no way she could have suffered a broken bone from a panic stop. We were terrified and confused. We needed an answer. The doctor explained that he was required by law to contact the police since Hazel had an unexplained fracture. It was like being in a movie. I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that she actually, really-for-reals had a broken bone.

We remained calm and worried….the officer showed up about 20 minutes later. I told both the cop and the doctor that I understood that they were obligated to report it, but it was all I could do to keep my cool. I felt like screaming. The nurses had started looking at us funny. I just wanted to take my baby home and call my mom. The cop asked to speak to us separately. We were very cooperative. Michael went outside of the room first. They were gone for about 20 minutes. When it was my turn, I handed the baby to Michael and the look on his face gave me goosebumps. The cop asked me if Michael or I used drugs. He asked me if Michael was violent or ever made me afraid. The tone of his questions were designed, I think, to make me believe that he had gathered something in his conversation with Michael. It was weird. I told him no,no,no. The cop was really quite nice. He was a rookie- his badge said he’d only been doing this for a year. He told us a couple of related stories- one about a similar case to ours where the babysitter had dropped the baby. Well, no one had watched her so that was out of the question.

The doctor and the cop went outside the room for a minute. When they came back in the doctor told us that neither one of them felt like Hazel was in any danger and that she would be safe to go home with us. I hadn’t even considered that they were considering whether to send us home without our baby. The cop told us we could go home but that D.H.S. would be contacting us. D.H.S. (Department of Human Services) was formerly C.S.D. (Child Services Division) was formerly C.P.S. (Child Protective Services). Why they keep changing their name….what they are running from….who knows. But there was probably a few broken families left behind.