For 11 years, I have struggled to give my son safety, stability and a home we can call our own.
This is our story.
Fourteen years ago, I was living in Mexico, and I met the most amazing man I have ever known. We spent the next two years falling deeply in love and when I found out I was having a baby with the Love of my life, I couldn’t have been happier.
When Cristian was born, the love that I felt for him, it was immense and indescribable. I just knew that I would do anything to give him a happy healthy childhood.
For three months the three of us were the happiest little family in existence. I never put Cristian down, I didn’t want to miss a moment with him. Eventually I had to let his dad take over so I could get some sleep. That day was the last one we had together.
Later that evening Ray woke me up in a panic. He told me that something was wrong with Cristian, he wasn’t breathing. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to find my baby boy in his bassinet. My heart stopped when I saw how pale and motionless, he was. When I picked him up, he didn’t respond to me at all. I had no idea what I was doing but I tried to perform CPR to get him breathing and somehow it worked. I felt very little relief however because something was still wrong. We rushed Cristian to an emergency clinic nearby, where the Doctors proceeded to tell me that everything was fine. They said that he had aspirated on formula at some point and that was what caused him to be unable to breathe. They said that he was fine now, and we could take him home. When we got home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going on. A mother knows her child and even at only three months old, I could tell that Cristian seemed different. Everyone tried to convince me that I was just a nervous new mother and that everything was fine. Finally, I convinced my mom to give us a ride to a real hospital, where the doctors discovered that My baby’s brain was bleeding and the pressure in his skull was quickly killing him, inducing a coma was the only option. The next month, I never left his side, and I never gave up hope. Even when I was told to say my goodbyes, I insisted that my son was going to be ok. The day that the doctors told me that Cristian had pulled through, they would be waking him up and in just a few days I would be able to take him back home, I felt such joy and relief. A few days later my world came crashing down around me for the second time. A woman walked into our hospital room, told me that she was from Child Protective Services and that I needed to leave the hospital immediately because my Son’s Foster Mother was on her way to pick him up and I wasn’t allowed to meet her. It felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath my feet. I was utterly confused and, understandably, freaking out. I remember telling her that she might as well cut out my heart because that was less painful than taking my baby. When I asked why, she said that he was being removed from my care for “failure to protect” and then had me escorted from the hospital for causing a scene with my “emotional outburst”. She didn’t even let me kiss him goodbye.
From that day on I dedicated every single waking moment to getting my son back. I was told that I could not have visits with my son if I chose to go back home to Mexico because they feared that I would leave the country with him, and they would no longer be in control. I made the choice to move into a homeless shelter in San Diego since I didn’t have any friends or family in the area, and I needed to do whatever it took to be with my son. For the next six months, I jumped through every hoop and followed every single rule. I took every possible opportunity to visit Cristian and I attended every doctor appointment. Finally it was time for the Judge to decide if I would be allowed overnight visits. I couldn’t believe my ears when, instead of awarding overnight visits, the Judge declared that “Seeing as they had not provided any evidence that removing the child from the care of his mother was necessary”, Child Protective Services needed to return Cristian to me immediately.
After everything we had been through, I was terrified to go back to Mexico. As much as I wanted to be with Ray, I couldn’t risk anything that could make losing my son a possibility in any way. I decided to move back to San Bernardino County instead. My family was there, and I thought that I would be able to give my son a better life with their support. Ray never forgave me for breaking his heart, and I am still in love with him, but I had to put our son first. Since then, I have been trying to give my son a better life. I got a job at Kmart and worked so hard for 6 years. Even though I was promoted to the Lead Position in both the Cash Office and The Service Desk I was not given a raise. Then just before my 7th year with the company, I was diagnosed with degenerative disk disease and had to have two surgeries on my spine. Two weeks before my temporary disability was supposed to run out, I was still healing from having my lower two vertebrae fused and I received a call from HR informing me that I had been replaced and they were mailing me my last check.
To make matters worse, the owner of the house I had been renting with my parents, decided that he wanted to move back into the house, so we needed to move. My parents decided to take the opportunity to move back to Mexico because of the low cost of living which meant I was also losing my only childcare option. Cristian had recently been diagnosed with ADHD and ODD and he also suffers from Severe Separation Anxiety making regular childcare not a viable option. Suddenly we were homeless, incomeless and we no longer had any support system. Over the past four years I have been a licensed tax preparer, a licensed Life Insurance Agent, an in-home caregiver, an administrative assistant and the bookkeeper of a small nonprofit. I have tried freelance work and I am working on getting both of us approved for supplemental social security/disability. When the pandemic hit, I had no choice but to use every cent I had been able to save so that we could stay in motel rooms instead of my car. I managed to get us into low-income housing in May of 2020 and I felt so lucky that we would finally have a home of own. Then we moved in, and I discovered the truth. The house is completely infested with cockroaches and termites. The plumbing backs up on a weekly basis and we are literally unable to shower, do any laundry, wash a single dish or even flush a toilet until the property managers get a plumber out to fix it. When the plumbers do come out, they always find a way to blame the plumbing issues on us, even though we don’t even flush toilet paper anymore. Then the property managers tell me that I am responsible for the plumbing expenses. Any time I contact my property manager to inquire about having the exterminators come out to get rid of the roaches, I end up being threatened with eviction for some reason or another.
The neighborhood we live in is also extremely dangerous. My son was so excited because he met a couple of boys his age who also play basketball. I was so happy for him and thought things were finally going to get better. Two days later and the same two boys broke into our house and stole my son’s PlayStation 4 and his iPhone. His two prized possessions, stolen by people he thought were his friends. From there things have only escalated. They came back and stole his bike, my step stool and have destroyed any property they can get their hands on. When I called the police, they did nothing to help us, and the boys just came back and retaliated with their friends by shooting my little boy a bunch of times with pellet guns.
Through all of this I have tried so hard to get us through on my own. Asking for help is incredibly hard for me. I feel like a piece of my soul is chipped away every time I have to admit that I cannot take care of my son on my own. The thing is, My Son NEEDS and DESERVES so much better. After 11 Years of struggling, I will endure any and all emotional pain and the damage to my pride if it means I will get to see his sweet smile again. Please, if you can help us in any way, anything helps. My deepest wish is to somehow get enough money for a down payment on a little house in a safe neighborhood and a few months expenses paid. Something like that would literally be the catalyst to change our lives forever. I would finally be able to focus on completing the steps necessary to secure a guaranteed steady income. I can only imagine how incredible it would feel to tell Cristian that we have a house that will be ours and only ours always, that he didn’t need to worry anymore and could actually enjoy the rest of his childhood and that there was hope for the future to be even better.