Somehow, almost despite ourselves, we started to live the
“American Dream.” At least it seemed we were. Collette got a new job and my career took off. Combining our bank
accounts, we had enough money to buy new cars and a three bedroom house in a nice suburb south of Boston. Working like dogs,
we fixed up the house, painting inside and doing yard work, side by side. It was satisfying and fun. We started talking about
having kids, not if we would have them, but how and when. Collette craved having a baby and becoming a mother. I wanted a
family.
We hadn’t gotten too far into planning
when Collette came home from the hospital talking about a baby in her unit.
“I’ve been
taking care of this really cute baby,” she told me over dinner.
There were many, many babies. We’d discussed hundreds of them in the past. I was just keeping the conversation
going. “Oh yeah?”
“Yes,
he’s older than the other babies; he’s not a newborn. He came over from Children’s. His name is Michael.”
“What’s wrong
with him?”
“Well,
he has many strikes against him. The biggest one is that he has hydrocephalus. You know what that is, right?” Before
I could answer, she said, “Its fluid on the brain. He was born drug addicted. His biological mother was a drug addict
who died during childbirth.”
“Wow,
that’s a lot. Is he going to be okay?”
“Who knows, but I think so. He’s really alert. He sits up on my lap and his eyes dart everywhere, watching
everything. But he’s at risk for cerebral palsy or maybe even AIDS. The doctors believe he might be either partially
blind or deaf, maybe both, but I really don’t.”
“How long will he be in the hospital?”
“At least another few weeks. He has to go back over to Children’s and have a shunt put in for the hydrocephalus.”
“What is a shunt?” I said, realizing I was getting more and more
involved in the conversation.
“A
shunt is a little valve that will go in his head, right at the top. They attach tubing to it and when water builds up in his
brain the pressure forces the valve open and water drains out through the tube. Then he’ll pee it out like everyone
else.”
“Sounds like a
big deal,” I said, remembering a neighbor we had once, a kid who was in high school when I was in junior high. He had
a big head. I wondered if he’d had hydrocephalus too. He had died a few years after we moved away.
“It
is, but years ago babies with this died. Their brains would swell up with fluid and there was no way to get it out. They’ve
been using a needle to take the fluid out of this baby’s head, hoping it would correct itself. It doesn’t look
like it’s going to, so most likely he’ll have to have the surgery.
I had a mental picture of a tiny baby lying on his stomach with a big doctor standing over him sticking him with
a huge needle. It wasn’t fair. I felt so sorry for the baby. I already wanted to protect him and I didn’t even
know him. Changing subjects, I asked, “How about AIDS? Do you think he has it?” AIDS had already
been recorded as the reason for death for many people, mostly gay men (about 26,000 people had already died of AIDS by 1988,
the year Michael was born).
“I
don’t know. He’s been tested and it was negative but he’ll have to have tests periodically to see if he
develops it,” Collette answered.
“I
hope he does okay. Sounds like he’s going to have a lot to deal with,” I said and the discussion ended there.
We moved on to other topics.
Over the
next few weeks I kept finding myself thinking about this baby. One night I asked, “Whatever happened to that baby with
hydrocephalus?”
“He’s okay.
He’s back from Children’s. The surgery went well; it seems like the shunt is working. Now they’re trying
to find a place to discharge him to.”
“Doesn’t
he have family?” I was aware that a question was lingering inside of me but I wasn’t ready to voice it just yet.
“He has a biological grandmother and aunt. They came to see him in the
hospital a few times right after he was born. The grandmother may want him, but the social worker at the hospital says she’ll
have to get approved by DSS first. She may be homeless. I don’t know about the aunt’s situation.”
“Does the social worker expect this will work out?” My question
was coming to the forefront, but I was still too afraid to say it out loud.
“I haven’t asked. All she told me is that she needs to find a place for him to live because he’s
going to be released in the next few weeks. She’s looking at rehab hospitals because they’re having trouble finding
a foster home. No one wants him because of the AIDS risk.”
I stopped and considered this for a few seconds. “You mean people are worried they’ll catch it from him?”
“Well, it isn’t fully
clear how you get AIDS. They say it’s transferred by bodily fluids so with a baby there is pee and poop, they spit up,
and throw up; you know, all those kinds of things.”
“Would you be worried about this?” I asked her. Then
I rephrased the question; I didn’t want her to wonder if I might be considering whether he could live with us yet. It
was too soon to ask that question. I needed to know more first. “I mean, are you worried about this when you take care
of him at the hospital?”
“Not
really, but we wear gloves whenever we touch him.”
I pictured having a baby and needing to wear gloves to touch him. “Is that really necessary?”
She avoided the real question, saying, “It’s a hospital rule so
we have to wear them.”
“What’s
going on with his eye sight and hearing now?” I was scoping out the entire situation.
“He looks at people and at the lights. He turns his head when he hears
noises. There might be some minor issues, but nothing major.”
Then there was a long pause. “What would they say if you asked if he could live with us?” I asked tentatively.
“The social worker already questioned some of the nurses, asking if they
knew anyone who might want to take him home. It would just be temporary, so I doubted that you’d be interested.”
“It would be better if it was permanent but I might be willing anyway.
Maybe you can get more information,” I suggested, taking a deep breath. This was a big decision, but I couldn’t
get the picture of this beautiful baby in the hospital with nowhere to go out of my mind. Who cared if it wasn’t permanent?
He needed our help right now.
“I’ll
ask her more about it tomorrow,” Collette responded, sounding both excited and nervous.
It took a few days for Collette to re-connect with the social worker, but when
she did, they had a really good conversation. The social worker said that there was not any record of Michael’s father.
His biological grandmother was a potential future caretaker but she had health issues. His aunt wasn’t interested. If
the grandmother hadn’t been in the picture, and if Michael’s health was better, he’d probably have been
put up for adoption right away. The social worker said she thought Collette would be a good foster parent because of her background
as a baby nurse. They agreed to talk again.
A few
days later I went to the hospital to meet Michael. I’d been to the neonatal unit many times, but I’d never really
looked at it this closely. On each side of the room were isolates filled with premature babies. All the babies were hooked
up to multiple monitors, feeding tubes, and other attachments. In the center of the room were three or four rocking chairs.
Collette was sitting in one of them. On her lap was a baby; he was bigger than all the other babies, huge actually, compared
to the others. I knew right away it was Michael.
He was just as Collette had described him: wispy auburn hair, large brown eyes with long lashes, and plump red lips.
His head was a little large for his body and he had to work hard to hold it up. Bright and alert, his eyes darted all over
the room as monitors buzzed and alarms went off. As nurses, doctors, parents, and others moved all around the room, he watched
them. Occasionally, he’d look up at the florescent lights in the ceiling seeming mesmerized by them for a few minutes.
He smiled, looking happy. He was small and his body was slightly stiff but this was all I noticed, other than that he looked
like any other almost three-month-old baby boy. He wore a light blue, stretchy, terrycloth, one-piece pajama suit. After a
minute, Collette stood up and gave him to me, saying she had other babies she needed to check on. I held him, overwhelmed
with excitement and disbelief; we might be taking this boy home to live with us.
It was 1988, and at this time gay men and lesbians
were not allowed to be foster parents in Massachusetts, despite a huge shortage of foster homes. In 1985, the Commissioner
of DSS under Governor Michael Dukakis had announced, "This administration believes that foster children are served best
when placed in traditional family settings -- that is, with relatives, or in families with married couples, except in exceptional
circumstances.”
Fortunately, this was
soon to change; although too late for Michael. In late 1989, the year after Michael was born the Massachusetts legislature
passed a bill adding "sexual orientation" to a state law that banned discrimination on the basis of race, color,
creed, sex, ancestry, and religion. Then in April 1990, the Dukakis administration changed
its policy on gay foster parenting, making parenting experience, as opposed to sexual orientation or marital status, the main
factor in assigning foster parents for foster children.
So, in
order for Michael to come live with us, Collette had to check off that she was heterosexual on the DSS paperwork. And, when
she had her required DSS home visit to show that the environment Michael would be living in was safe, I was just a friend
that Collette shared/owned a house with. I remember sitting there while Collette reviewed the paperwork. We had already discussed
it and we knew if she signed it she’d be lying. But Michael needed us and we wanted him. It was a risk, but one worth
taking, if it meant we could give Michael a home.
