Yeah. Right.

Today, I just think it's all still BS - MAYBE she was sincere in her last letter, or maybe she is still just manipulating me. Either way, I worry that a key part of her emotional development was lost to drugs, and wonder if she will ever be able to sync completely. "Little things" mean a lot in this drama, and are very revealing.

Recently the other grandparents told us we need to change the baby's name on his pediatrician records. TOLD us - nothing subtle or diplomatic about them... we on the other hand try to be reasonable and keep our exchanges with them civil... Anyway, to go back in time a bit: when baby was born, "boyfriend" wasn't there because he got arrested that day. He didn't sign the birth certificate, although he was released from jail later the night the baby was born and camped out at hospital til baby was discharged... He DID NOT WANT his name on there because of CPS records concerning his other children.

Medical records, since day one, have had my daughter's last name as Baby's last name. After a few weeks (& after CPS became involved anyway) a birth certificate name change was filed, so that "boyfriend's" last name replaced my daughter's. Fine. By then the baby was already on my insurance and so at the pediatrician's office we added "boyfriend's" last name, hyphenated to his chart.

I asked my daughter about legally changing the baby's name to include her name, you know, hyphenated. This was in a letter I wrote to her last week. She called last night to tell me that she expected to be released soon from the county jail she is in now... she went with getting felony theft charge dropped and time-served, counter to what she had written... and "boyfriend" went for the same thing. As for the name issue, she told me she "didn't want to make any decisions in jail" - What? "Mom, I just don't want to make any decisions like this now..." What? "Mom! He's his father, they feel strongly about this, it's tradition..."

OMG.
See - she's thinking she's about to get out. It's all about the "boyfriend" once again. She thinks I'm upset about the name. True, I was dismayed about that - I really did not expect her to say no... But what the baby's name is isn't as important as WHY... Why is because she doesn't want to hurt him and his family, doesn't want to go against something THEY feel so strongly about. Because he is the father of her child and she plans on being with him when she gets out of jail. This is not a good sign.

Where, in their traditional family values and mores is it ok that their 26 year old son impregnated a 17 year old girl while they were both addicted to heroin... While he is still married to a woman he has fathered three other children with? Three other children he has had his parental rights to terminated, because heroin was more important? This family that knew they were doing heroin while she was pregnant and made no efforts to intervene - in fact covered and lied for them.

Great. Just great. A little later I learned that the OTHER County, last week, returned a grand jury indictment against her for her heroin possession charge - you know, the arrest when she was 5 months pregnant, holding for him when they got pulled over on a traffic stop. Nice. He gets out soon. She gets transferred to another county and will likely be looking at 1-2 years additional jail time - if she's lucky.

I will continue to protect this baby. My daughter and her boyfriend's feelings be damned. (Baby is crawling now - all over the place... he's safe, Thank God... although it is very worrisome to me that "boyfriend" will soon be out of jail, and I can only pray that the other grandparents will make sure his contact, when they have Baby on visitations, is supervised)

PS - I am reading a book - devouring it actually - that I highly recommend: "Come Back: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back (P.S.)" by Clair and Mia Fontaine. It's the Mother-Daughter equivelant of "Beautiful Boy"