“We haven’t located any family.’ ‘When will we get her?’ ‘Tonight. Now.’ At 11:30 p.m., we brought our foster daughter, Laycee, into our home. Six months later, we got another call. ‘Mrs. Morgan? We have a 3-year-old little boy in the PICU. He’s been here 6 months and needs a home.”
“‘Are you sure your OB has heard the heartbeat on the Doppler? Maybe she is just hiding!’ I knew then, they were buying time.”
“I took him to his pediatrician with no knowledge of what was to happen later that evening. The doctor walked in, looked at his stomach bulging out on the left side, and told me to go straight to the Children’s Hospital.”
“I had been in the hospital for a week being monitored. I was in the safest place that I could be and under constant supervision. And then, it happened.”
“He shot back with a look on his face I had never seen before. Fear, maybe. Shock. Panic. Oh God, what was it? The blood left his face. He was pale. Almost confused.”
“Things escalated so fast. But, truthfully, I didn’t have a choice.”
“Before kids, you make out in your big bed, have a little nasty time and fall asleep lovingly in each other’s arms. After kids, you promise you’ll meet up later and lock the bathroom door for some adult time, but instead you both fall asleep snoring.”
“I woke up at 1 a.m. on our wedding anniversary, and felt like I needed to go to the bathroom. This wasn’t unusual. I had been pregnant for over a month. But something didn’t feel right.”
“I thought, ‘Hey, these ladies are kind of doctors, they’ll know what to do.’ I asked their advice. ‘Does he seem sick? Should I bring him in?’ The doctor had JUST examined him. The women wholeheartedly agreed it was probably just a cold and he’d be just fine. Oh naive me. I would slap the stupid out of me if I could go back.”
“I saw bruises on my 2-year-old’s face. I figured, ok he’s clumsy, maybe he fell down or something. Then I found a bruise on his neck that looked like a handprint. I pushed the feeling aside, and thanked her for watching my boys. I ran my little guy a bath and started taking his clothes off. Immediately I knew something more sinister had happened. My baby had bruises from his upper back all the way down to his ankles.”
