Category Archives: Trisomy 21

A baby boy with Trisomy 21 is available – will we be his new family?

Foster Care, Parenting, Trisomy 21

Last week I shared that our application for special needs foster care was approved but that we’d have to wait a few months until we attended a two day training in the late spring before we’d be allowed to bring a baby home.  So I let you know that our fostering will likely be on hold for a number of months.

At the end of the same day I wrote my post, I got a call from the placement social worker.  She told me there is a baby who matches our profile and she asked us to come in right away the next morning to discuss it!  I asked for some details but she refused to tell me anything – she said she can only tell me in the office as part of an official meeting.

Dh and I got there, read through the file and agreed we would theoretically be willing to bring the baby into our family.  The next step is to arrange for us to meet the biological parents and see if we are all compatible.  (This case is almost identical to the situation with Baby M except that this time everything is going through legal channels; my concern is the same now as it was then – that our family won’t be seen as a match by the biological parents since we aren’t chassidic.)  Since the baby is almost 5 weeks old, is still in the hospital but has been medically approved to be released, we were told his placement is a priority.

After five days, we’re still waiting to hear about if there will be a meeting set up with the baby’s parents.  (The parents were given our names by their social worker so they can ‘look into us’.)  Dh will be starting a new job in the beginning of February and at the meeting I told the social worker that once he begins, it will be a while until we will have the flexibility to come in for meetings and appointments.

(Each time there is a baby available that you might be a match for, you have to go in for a meeting to read the file.  And then another meeting on another day to meet the parents.  Then another meeting or two on yet another day to meet the baby and doctors.  This is in addition to all the meetings we had with the social worker during the application process.)

There are two days left until the end of the month!  Will they be in touch with us before then?  Is it possible for things to move that fast?  I really can’t even begin to guess what direction this will go in.  I know how I would like this to work out, but I also know that G-d is better than I am at working things out perfectly.  🙂

gds timing

The day after we were called in I was feeling quite edgy because of the uncertainty, waiting to hear that a meeting was scheduled.  I just wanted some definite detail to hold onto instead of all this misty nothingness.  I hardly slept that night and when I woke up it was with a terrible headache that stayed with me for hours.

Somehow I was able to recenter myself and just say, okay, it will be what it will be.  Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t.  Maybe it will happen at the very last moment and maybe it will be a few months from now with a different baby.  Maybe it will never happen.  It’s a good thing that I was able to do that because that was a few days ago and my anxiety level would have been sky high by now if I hadn’t!

On yet another related note, this evening I received a forward from a blog reader about a baby with DS whose family is seeking a foster family for him.  Even though we’re supposed to be on the brink of meeting with these other parents, I responded to the email because I believe if something comes your way, then G-d sent it to you for some reason.  It might not be the reason that I think or hope it comes to me, but there’s always some reason!

So here I am, living in the moment but at the same time wanting to keep you in the loop. 🙂

Avivah

Our foster care paperwork – we’re approved but …

Foster Care, Parenting, Trisomy 21

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from the social worker who is responsible for our foster care file.  She apologized for delay in processing our paperwork, and said that the supervisor was requesting more information about us after learning that Yirmi (age 4) is being homeschooled.

Homeschooling isn’t a common choice in Israel and hearing Yirmi isn’t in a school framework triggered the supervisor to look extra closely at our case.  She wanted to know: have we ever homeschooled another child, if so, who, why, and how long.  They made additional inquiries beyond the standard application – they wanted to know if he is being taken to the well baby clinic for checkups and to the child development center for therapies, and requested additional medical references to speak to (in addition to those references who are usually requested whom they had already spoken with).

After a long conversation in which I provided all the additional information that was requested as well as a conversation with our pediatrician (who when pressed for a response if there’s something suspicious since we don’t take Yirmi to the child development center for therapies said, ‘What don’t you understand?  She’s the best mother ever and I would want to be a child in her home!’) , our file has now been approved.

So what happens now?  Is it imminent in the near future that we’ll be welcoming a new child into our family?  It doesn’t seem like that, since we were told we’ll need to attend a two day foster care workshop before they will let us bring a child home – and the next workshop we can attend won’t be earlier than the end of April.  So unless the agency decides there’s a baby who needs a home and is willing to let us defer attendance of this workshop until after we foster a baby, we’ll be waiting for a while.

waiting

(Not all foster care agencies have this requirement – a friend who does foster care in a different part of the country was surprised by this requirement, since neither she nor her friends who do foster care had to do this for their agency. )

I feel very at peace with this situation as it is.  We’ve done our part and if and when there’s a need for our help, it will happen at that time and only at that time.  I’m not trying to second guess G-d’s plans and timing!  When something changes, I’ll be sure to keep you posted!

Avivah

How and why I use flashcards to support language development

Homeschooling, Parenting, Trisomy 21

A favorite activity of our four year old, one that he requests at least once a day is…. flashcards.

Yes, really.  Flashcards.  I know, you wouldn’t expect flashcards to be so compelling, right? 🙂 But he really likes them!

I started using these when Yirmi was 14 months old.  I began by printing out words and pictures from the Brill Kids Little Reader computer program; each card is the size of half of an A4 sheet of paper.  One side has the word printed on it in a large font, the other side has a color illustration of the word.

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Over time I printed out a number of these sets and laminated them.  Sets include categories like foods, colors, transportation, nature, seasons, parts of the body, and household items.  Ideally I would have used these systematically several times a day, using one set a week and switching out an old word for a new word each day.  Sometimes I did more and sometimes I did less, and I reminded myself that whatever I did was of value.  I found it easiest for me to do first thing in the day since it was before I got distracted with with lots of other things.

Our basket of flashcards
Our basket of flashcards

As a very relaxed homeschooler, it might seem strange that I would embrace something so seemingly formal as a learning tool.  However, if we approach something as a fun and enjoyable activity without the heavy weight of expectations, kids will often perceive the activity as fun and enjoyable – regardless of how ‘schooly’ it might seem.

I use flashcards as a tool to teach reading and support language development, language comprehension and speech development.  The brain grows from use!  Stimulation and input are very important to a child.  Don’t get caught up in looking for visible results – if you’re sharing quality information, it’s beneficial whether you see tangible results or not!   (I don’t know what Yirmi’s reading ability is since I don’t test him, but there’s no question his receptive language is excellent.)

When I introduce new words, I explain what the word means and how it is used.  So he can tell you, for example, that a ‘stethoscope’ is used to listen to your heart.  Usually the words are nouns or verbs and are pretty easy to explain; some are harder concepts like ‘hibernation’, ‘relaxation’ and ‘humidity’ but I do my best. 🙂

Once he’s familiar with the words, I don’t explain them each time we look at the card.  I read the the word printed on the front, then turn it over, saying the word again while looking at the picture, then turn it back to the word and reading the word out loud again.  It’s a fairly quick process.

small flashcardsAs Yirmi got older, we moved onto cards that were smaller, the size of standard index cards.  In the summer I finally shifted away from using printed picture cards and now the new cards I prepare only have the word handwritten on one side.

While I considered this option from the beginning, I felt it would be more enjoyable and better for comprehension to have the pictures on the back side of the card.  The only downside of that approach was that it took much more time to prepare the cards and I didn’t prepare nearly as many as I would have without needing to go to that effort – we have only about 300 or so cards with pictures.

What I do now is super simple.  Using a dark marker, I write the word in large print on a small white index card.  Recently I went through a children’s book he enjoys and picked out words that we don’t yet have in our sets; preparing the new set of 32 cards took about fifteen minutes!

Most days we ‘do words’, as we call it, once a day.  I’ve kept it a relaxed and positive experience both of us.  For Yirmi,  it means I follow his lead as to which group of words he wants to read together and stop before he’s ready to stop.  I want to keep it fun; I don’t quiz him and I don’t turn it into something he’s ‘supposed’ to do.  For me keeping it relaxed means letting go of the voices that tell me I’m not doing it right by not doing it more often or in a certain order.  Just like I tell you that it’s important to let go of beating yourself up with unrealistic expectations, that’s what I tell myself!

Yirmi has recently been repeating the words as I flash them, so it’s been a great speech opportunity (he has an expressive speech delay called apraxia).  I now slow down as I read the word and ennunciate the word clearly and slowly, techniques we’ve all picked up from the Gemiini video modeling program that he uses daily for speech.

We enjoy reading flashcards together, snuggled up on the couch or in my bed – it’s nice that we can integrate something so beneficial so easily!

Avivah

Understanding the question that wasn’t asked

Parenting, Trisomy 21

Today I read a letter to the editor in Mishpacha magazine (Dec. 7 issue) regarding a Q&A session at the Agudah Convention.  The letter writer admits to being confused by the answers of the panelists to the questions presented – again and again the answers didn’t seem to specifically address the question that was asked.

For example, when asked about letting a child go to a Super Bowl party, the response was about creating warmth, love and joy in the family.  The panelists didn’t seem in touch with the questioners.

He went on to say that he was later struck by the realization that it wasn’t the panelists who didn’t understand the question.  They had deep insight into what the core issues were that were behind the questions and their answers reflected that understanding.  He stated the problem was the questioners didn’t understand their own problems.

Not long ago the parent of a young child with Trisomy 21 called me.  She had questions about how to further her child’s development, and wanted to get specifics on my curriculum for ds4.  I told her I’d be happy to share my perspective with her but wanted her to first understand that my approach is one of integration, and doesn’t look ‘schooly’; I don’t have a curriculum for him.  She said she’d still be interested in coming to visit with her son to speak with me.

She brought her cute little guy  over and we settled in to chat.  After about an hour, she said in frustration, “I see your son is doing well but you’re not telling me anything specifically that would be helpful.”  I was nonplussed for a moment.

For an hour I had shared with her books I read, taken them out and offered to loan them to her, shown her Yirmi’s flashcards and explained why and how we use them, talked about how we work on language every day, explained the process of physical development and supporting core strength before encouraging more advanced activities.  I talked about mediating the world around one’s child constantly, explaining, describing, engaging him.

And most importantly I had again and again stressed that your child and his disability isn’t a problem.  It simply is.  Acceptance is so important.  The nonverbal message to your child is that he is perfect as he is while supporting his unique needs appropriately.  This is a huge, huge attitude shift that a minority of parents are able to embrace but I think is critical.

After a pause, I told her I had shared many specifics but since we defined the problem differently, she wasn’t recognizing that I had answered her questions in detail because it wasn’t what she was expecting to hear.  I suggested she continue to follow the traditional therapy model since she seemed more comfortable with that.  I stressed that different things work for different people and while I share what works for us, what is important is that each family finds an approach that is right for them.

She stayed another half hour and before leaving surprised me by thanking me and telling me that my approach was empowering and reassuring! She called me a week or two later and thanked me again, telling me it had given her hope and perspective, and was very calming.   I was so glad she was able to absorb some of what I was really saying – a paradigm shift can take a lot of time to digest and integrate.  It took me many months to come to fully embrace and understand the application of the ideas that I shared with her, and I continue to come back to it regularly and rethink how it applies in different situations.

When the panelists answered the question about attending ballgames with suggestions for strengthening the home environment, it was because they understood that kids who always want to be somewhere else is the problem, and the solution isn’t to say, “Yes, go to the game” or “No, don’t take them to the game.”  The solution is to create a home environment that is warm and loving, so your home is a place your child wants to be!

When I was asked about how to get a child to walk, talk and what therapies to purse, I stressed the importance of believing in your child.  Is your child okay as he is or do you think you need to fix him?  What unspoken beliefs are you raising him with?  The way you view your child and his disability can be part of the problem or part of the solution.

A child with Trisomy 21 is born into a world that has an abortion rate for children like him of over 90% (and quickly rising with the advancement of earlier and more accurate testing) – the birth of a baby with T21 is widely seen as a tragedy.  He is surrounded by the non-verbal message that he isn’t enough, that he is defective.  It’s a world of judgment and this judgement is the reality that our children face almost every time someone looks at them and recognizes their diagnosis by their features.

In our home, I want the formative messages to affirm my son’s worth and value, to build a sense in him of his wonderfulness! This is what I consider to be the critical foundation that all further supportive actions are based on.

Avivah

Our foster care application for an infant with special needs

Foster Care, Parenting, Trisomy 21

Today I received a voice text from a friend who commented on how it seems that something is leading us in the direction of helping newborn infants with Trisomy 21 whose families don’t want to keep them.

She was referring to my involvement with Baby M in addition to my posting several days ago on Facebook about another baby girl with T21 who was waiting in the hospital for a foster family.  In that case, I was contacted by four different people within a short period and was in contact with a social worker who verified that baby happily has found a home.

I’ve heard it said that you don’t choose your mission but that your mission chooses you.  I can’t say that this is my mission.  I certainly haven’t sought it out.  But it’s interesting that these situations came to me without me soliciting them in any way.  For whatever reason, different people thought that we could be of help, though I never indicated any specific interest or desire to do this.

My lack of expressed interest about it wasn’t due to a concern or willingness.  In fact, it was two days before someone called us about Baby M, after weeks of discussion with my husband and children, that I spoke with a foster care agency representative and told them we wanted to apply as a foster family for an infant with T21.  No one who contacted me knew anything about that, though!

I don’t like to talk about things until there’s something to talk about and hence haven’t shared about this.  However, the application process has have been humming along in the background, and I decided today to share this with you.

The application process to become a foster parent takes about 3 – 4 months.  At the end of last week we completed our foster care application for children with special needs.   (This is a different track than fostering children who don’t have special needs.)  In Israel, fostering a child with special needs is a long term commitment – until the age of 21.

The application process included medical checks, bloodwork, extensive paperwork, criminal checks on everyone in our family over the age of 18, and several visits by a social worker to our home (including meeting with our youngest six children and discussing fostering with them) and a tour of our home.

The meetings with the social worker were pleasant and she told us at the end of our final visit that it had been very inspiring for her to  meet us.  Which was of course nice to hear but trying to impress her wasn’t something we set out to do.  I think she got an accurate idea of who we are and how we parent, and I’m glad of that.  (She also told me she can’t understand how I don’t have a clothes dryer and every time she does laundry for her two children she now thinks of me! :))

She asked each child their thoughts on fostering.  Ds7 told her it would be nice to have another person in our family.  “But you have so many people in your family already,” she protested.  Ds7: “It’s not so many – it feels like we’re a pretty small family!” 🙂  It really does feel like that to us sometimes!

At this point we’re waiting for the final approval of our application, which we were told to expect will take 2 – 4 weeks.  My younger kids have asked several times, “When are we getting a baby???” and I’ve explained to them it’s not like a store that has babies stocked and you pick one off the shelf!  If a baby is born who matches our profile, we’ll be contacted.  This could take a very short or very long time.

I don’t feel any urgency about this.  We’ve done what we can to be positioned to help if there’s an opportunity to help, in a way that is aligned with our values.  If our help in this way is called upon or not  isn’t up to us!  My preference is that every child with T21 will be born to a family who will love and cherish him – that would clearly be the best scenario.  I’d really rather not be needed!

If it does happen that there’s a situation in which there’s an infant who needs a home and we’re able to offer that, then of course you’ll hear about it.  But don’t wait with bated breath – as I said, it could be a long time!

Avivah

Why being included is lots better than being ‘special’

Parenting, Trisomy 21, Uncategorized

We had a visitor recently who works in special ed in the US. She was going crazy over ds4 – she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him in shul on Simchas Torah- and later on she couldn’t stop talking about how ‘special’ he was.

‘Special’ is a word that I don’t particularly care for so I asked her what she meant.  She seemed taken aback – ‘you can’t see that he’s special?”  “All my kids are special,” I responded.  “What’s special about Yirmi?”

She told me she works with many kids with Trisomy 21 of different ages and he’s not typical of kids with that diagnosis.  She said he acts like a typical kid, he’s so ‘with it’ and ‘so smart’. Okay, that kind of special I can agree with.  🙂

Well, that launched a long talk (monologue? :)) on my opinion about why Yirmi is the way he is and why inclusion is critical and why special ed is not so special and how at least 80% of kids with T21 could be doing just as well or better than him if they had proper support.  She was fascinated by my perspective.  But she apparently had never met a parent with my outlook, because she asked me a few times in disbelief, “You really believe that how he is being raised made the difference?  And you don’t think he would be better off in special ed with professionals?”

Yes, I know that how a child is raised affects his brain development.  Yes, our home environment is critical to supporting his development.  No, I don’t think we’re remarkable or have done anything that couldn’t easily be replicated by others.  No, I don’t think he would be better off in a special ed setting.  I don’t think anyone is better off in a special ed setting than with appropriate and well-mediated inclusion.

Yirmi is being raised in a family where he’s one of the gang.  He’s expected to act appropriately, to express himself, to be helpful and kind – the same as we expect of any of our children. We assume he will develop on his own timeline and while we give him support and encouragement, we don’t pressure him – just like our other kids.  Being treated like everyone else is really important and I think this is a huge factor in how well Yirmi is doing.

Everyone wants to belong.  Everyone wants to be part of.  No one wants to be ‘special’.  I firmly believe that the more we treat others with compassion, acceptance, appreciation and inclusion, the better the outcome is for all of us.  Not only does each individual child flourish in that environment, it makes the world a much kinder, gentler and more beautiful world to live in – for all of us.

Avivah

A new beginning for Baby M

Parenting, Self-Growth, Trisomy 21

As I close this challenging month of advocating for Baby M, I want to give you a final update.

After an emergency meeting held by social services this week, the decision was made to remove her from where she is now and place her in a temporary foster home.  While she is living with the temporary family, social services will be facilitating the long term placement for her with a specific foster family that her biological parents requested.

No, this will not be our family.

While to others involved we were the obvious choice to take home Baby M,  I never had confidence that the parents would make the choice based on the factors that seemed relevant to others.  Like the parents, we are charedi native English speakers.  However, the parents are chassidim and we are not, we are from America and they are from Europe, and I expected that cultural compatibility would be of very high priority to them.

I don’t have any details on the two families who will take Baby M and I won’t be getting any details.  In a conversation a week ago with the grandmother, she told me the mother was very excited to find a woman from the same country that she came from who would take Baby M and agreed she would give her back when the parents wanted.  I assume this is the family they requested at the meeting with social services.

Was this decision a huge disappointment to me?  Yes.  I have a huge place in my heart for this baby and was emotionally completely ready to take her.

However, I believe that G-d makes no mistakes and therefore whatever happened was the best thing to have happen in this situation.   If it was truly the best scenario for everyone (including us), we would have been chosen.

So I’m trying to keep my focus on this – remembering that G-d runs the world, that He cares about each of us more than we can imagine, that everything we experience is for our ultimate good and that He knows what He is doing.  As difficult as this last month has been for me, every tiny aspect of it was engineered for the spiritual benefit of every person involved.

My other emotion is gratitude: gratitude that Baby M will finally be with a family who will care for her.  And gratitude for emotional closure for myself and my family.

Thank you to all of you for your prayers and concern for Baby M.  I am so glad that as we go into Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, she will have a new beginning of her own!

Avivah

Baby M – permission to visit withdrawn

Parenting, Trisomy 21

I didn’t know when I got a call a month ago regarding a newborn baby girl with Trisomy 21 whose parents didn’t want her that getting involved was going to break my heart again…and again…and again.

I didn’t know that it would bring me under attack and accusation, that I would be treated like a criminal and even threatened with jail.

I didn’t know how very, very hard I would have to work to let go of my anger and blame towards those involved, how hard it would be to balance staying involved and respecting my own emotional boundaries, how I could invest so much of myself into helping and then be forced to walk away and still trust that G-d is protecting this baby.

But I’ve done it.  And I’ve grown a lot through this process.

This has been a dramatic and gut wrenching situation to be part of and every day there are changes in this situation that make it an emotional roller coaster.  Sometimes I feel like I’m living in the Twilight Zone.

  • Yesterday a senior staff member from the institution where Baby M is called and cried when she told me how sorry she is how badly I’ve been treated.  (This was after receiving a very sanitized update from the management.)
  • Yesterday I got a call from a social worker that social services was aware of my involvement and was seeking more information about me.
  • Yesterday an emergency meeting was held by social services to determine what to do for Baby M.
  • Yesterday approval for me to visit Baby M was withdrawn by the parents.

And that is where the situation stands now.  Though I’m now unable to physically be there for Baby M (Malka bas Esther), I will continue to pray that the final outcome be for the highest and best good for all involved.

Avivah

How attachments in early infancy set the stage for the rest of your life

Parenting, Trisomy 21

After my last post about Baby M, a woman in her sixties called me.  She shared that she spent the first year of her life in an institution and wanted to know what the cognitive and emotional deficits were that occur in order that she could begin to heal from them.  She told me that despite a wonderful step mother who came into her life when she was one who loved her completely and deeply, she has struggled her entire life with emotional attachments to people, and that she never really felt connected even to her children.

Someone else told me that her single mother struggled with giving her up after birth and though in the end she kept her, mentioned that her mother would keep her in a drawer in a closet when she taught.  She is now doing a lot of work to heal from her experience as a newborn.

For many years it was believed that newborns were little blobs that weren’t conscious of what went on around them.  If they were fed and changed, that was all the care they needed.  There are those who still are unaware of all the research that shows how extremely aware and influenced newborns are by the circumstances and even feelings of those around them, and how the experiences of this very formative time in an infant’s life sets the foundation for his emotional future.  Unfortunately, Baby’s M’s parents (who I haven’t met but believe are genuinely kind and well-intended people) are in this category and though it is sin is one of omission rather than purposeful denying of an infant’s needs, the end result is the same.

Babies are hard-wired for attachment to one or two primary people and secure attachment is at the root of their emotional and physical development.  When from the earliest days of life an infant is responded to, held close and given lots of love, he integrates a positive sense of his own value and is able to later have healthy and emotionally satisfying relationships.  When this closeness and resulting trust is absent for whatever reason and however unavoidable or undesired it was by the parent, the result is a deep seated sense of insecurity and unworthiness.

A child is biologically programmed to thrive with lots of love and physical contact.  A child denied that won’t thrive.  When I first met Baby M, my overriding concern was that at the age of one month she was already emotionally shutting down.  Her brain was protecting her from the pain of not being emotionally tended to by keeping her asleep and lethargic.  It was extraordinarily difficult to wake her up.

Once she woke up, she wasn’t able to focus her eyes.  Learning to focus is a skill that comes with practice and she wasn’t getting it.  She also wasn’t getting the sensory stimulation and input that is important in activating different parts of the brain.

The attachment deficit was my biggest concern, however.  (Reactive Attachment Disorder is the diagnosis when this deficit is prolonged but the damage is there even when less apparent.)  When I found out that Baby’s M’s parents weren’t going to keep her, I called someone experienced with this issue and told her my concern about the effect being in an institution for 2-3 months could have on her long term emotional health.  She suggested that since ‘Mohammed wouldn’t go to the mountain’ (ie Baby M isn’t being placed yet with a loving family), that ‘the mountain go to Mohammed’ (that we provide her with consistent attachment figures by being there with her all day long).

This advice really resonated with me because it matches my own conviction about what she needs, and dramatically limits the damage she is experiencing while in an institutional setting.

Dd15 and I have been with her the last few days – I took the first 25 hours, she took the following day and a half, and dd20 arrived late Weds. evening and will be there until early Friday morning.  I hope that we will continue to be allowed to offer this support for her.  It’s quite moving to see her becoming dramatically more alert, socially interactive and physically active  – a senior staff member exclaimed that it was obvious that our time with her was making a big difference.

We would love to make Baby M part of our family and it is my hope that this will somehow happen.  There is a lot we can give her that most families can’t.  However, the parents want the family who takes her to agree that they could take her back in nine months or two years or five years or ten years or whenever they might change their mind.

I can’t do that.  I just can’t. While I’m willing to allow the birth family regular contact, it isn’t fair to agree to raise her without the security and sense of belonging that she deserves.

Right now Baby M and her parents need prayers.  I could use some prayers as well since this is a very hard situation to be part of.

Avivah

Staying involved but staying out of judgment – a hard balance

Parenting, Trisomy 21

I’ve been emotionally preoccupied the last couple of weeks with trying to get help for a newborn baby girl with Trisomy 21 who has been left in an institution while the parents decide if they should keep her or not.

I was asked to get involved by someone aware of the situation.  Initially I was told the parents definitely didn’t want her and she would stay in the institution until a home was found for her.  As I got more involved I learned the situation was much more complicated.  Through the staff members I’ve repeatedly told them the parents can be in touch with me to get accurate information about T21 to help them with the decision.

Eventually the grandmother reached out to me and I spoke to her at length.  My goal has been to communicate the importance of placing the baby with someone who will care for her while the parents make up their minds since Baby M is in a physically and emotionally sterile environment and every day that goes by is causing her emotional and cognitive harm.

Has any of this effort been helpful?  To my mind, not nearly helpful enough.  But after two weeks of no change in the situation, my two daughters and I were officially given permission to visit Baby M (the day we visited she was exactly a month old).   The next day, volunteers were organized to come for four hours a day.  Two of my daughters will also be visiting for 6.5 hours a day and this means that now she will have substantially more stimulation and social connection.  Clearly a newborn needs more than this but this is where it stands now.

There are a lot of details I’m not including and this has been a situation that has raised a lot of emotion for me. Dealing with this been a hard balance.  On one hand, I don’t want to judge the parents.  Everyone does the best he can with the resources he has.

On the other hand, I’m deeply, deeply upset to see an infant not getting the care she needs, especially since the financial and social resources are available to support it – and it’s appropriate to feel anger when you see injustice perpetrated.

On Tuesday the parents will be making a decision as to if they will keep Baby M or not.  I am hoping and praying that that very soon she will be in a good home and ask you to whisper a prayer for her sake as well.

**Update: I was notified by the grandmother that the parents were told to find a family for the baby.  Continued prayers, please.**

Avivah