Two years ago today

November 24, 2007 I was working late in labor and delivery. I taught a childbirth class until 9 p.m. and then got “stuck” helping out in labor and delivery. It was busy and we ran out of speculums. Around one in the morning I went down to the ER to reallocate a couple. I was standing in the middle of the ER waiting room trying to remember why I was there. (I’d been working 17 hours, give me a break) The ER doors open and a girl walked in holding a towel over her faces, crying. It took me a minute to realize how I knew her. It was Jennifer. (I didn’t know she went by Jenny). I walked over to her, helped her sit down and asked her what had happened. She said that she and her boyfriend had been drinking and that he had snapped and beat her up. He’d done a pretty good job; she had a foot print bruise to the face and chest.

The first words out of my mouth were, “where are the kids.” I knew she had kids because I had been working in labor and delivery eleven days before when she’d delivered a baby. And I knew she had two little girls because she had taken my C.N.A. class and I had given her rides home and she had talked about them. Granted I didn’t know her kids names and didn’t recall ever meeting the girls. She just kept crying. I told her I had to go back to labor and delivery but would check back with her. I went up to labor and delivery got things settled there and went back to the ER. I asked Jenny if she wanted me to go pick up her kids. She said yes and gave me an address. I asked her the kids name and wrote them on a scrap of paper and put it in my pocket. I called my nephew Peter and asked him to meet me at the address. Peter lived close by the hospital. Being the good sport that he is he didn’t even question why we were going into an apartment building at 2 am to pick up three kids we didn’t know. We picked up the kids from a neighbors apartment where they were lying on a bed with no sheets and none of them had on anything but a diaper. I sent Peter to try and find clothes and a car seat. He found the car seat we had given them at the hospital and one little shirt. It was 27 degrees outside. I found some towels in my car wrapped the kids up and we put them in the car. I stopped at Smiths and left Peter in the car while I bought diapers and formula.

I called Don and told him I was bringing home three babies. His only response was “THREE?” I think if I had said one, he would have just said oh. When I got home Don came out to the car to help me carry the kids in. He had made up a bed at the foot of our bed which included baby blankets and stuffed toys. We laid the girls down. As Don was putting the two year old under a blanket she looked at him and said, “F(*! You.” Don said, did you hear that? I hadn’t but she repeated it. Don and I were both like, wow! By the next day we knew that the F word, s*#! and ca ca were the extent of her vocabulary. In the morning Alika came in our room and the one year old popped her head up. I hadn’t really looked at her the night before but my heck how I could have missed all those curls. Alika looked confused, and said “well hello, who are you.” I reached over to the scrap of my paper with the names on it and said “that must be Brie.”

We took the kids home later that morning and I thought that was weird experience and fully expected it to be over. But alas, Jenny had my phone number. I am still amazed that two years later she is still in our lives, that we have legal custody of Sean and that she had another baby after that who lives with a loving family. When you think of all the series of events that lined up for Sean to come into our lives it is amazing. Jenny took my C.N.A. class. The state paid for her to take my class. Her social worker was someone I dated in college. Why is that significant? Because if she hadn’t had Rich as a case worker he wouldn’t have called me to followed up on a C.N.A. student. Because he knew me and Jenny he knew where I worked and where she was having her baby. He would call periodically and ask if I had seen her or if she had delivered. Because of that I made sure that I visited her when Sean was born, gave her a car seat and clothes etc. I did that for lots of poor mom’s but I actually had a note for my secretary to make sure she let me know when Jenny delivered. If Jenny had a car I would never have met her at class. She would have just been one of many students. Since she didn’t have a car and since she lived in an apartment that was on my way home I gave her rides. During those rides I heard her miserable life story. Still, that wasn’t the connection. If I hadn’t taught a child birth class that night, I wouldn’t have been at the hospital. If it hadn’t been busy I wouldn’t have stayed after the childbirth class. If we hadn’t run out of speculums I wouldn’t have been in the ER. If Ryan hadn’t beaten her she wouldn’t have been in the ER. If that series of events hadn’t occurred Sean wouldn’t be with us and Ryder wouldn’t be with the Jensen’s. It’s like the book Because a little bug went kachoo. It’s surreal. How did this all come to be and why? I am expecting great things from Sean and Ryder.

Here’s to two years ago today.