In 2022 Rebekah Stone and Mike Bishop completed the adoption of their children Emerson and Olivia, biological siblings who are now 5 and 4 years old.
They remained in touch with the children’s biological mother from the birth of both children and last September, the birth mom invited them to meet her new child, a seven-month-old girl. Four days later at 4:30 p.m. Stone got a call from an unlisted number. It was a Vermont State Police officer who told her to “come get your baby.”
“I said ‘I’m pretty sure my babies are accounted for. Do you think you might have the wrong number.’ He more or less hung up and within a minute my kids’ birth mom called and said she’d left the baby at the police barracks with our name as next of kin and she was checking herself into a hospital,” Stone said.
While she was on that call, DCF called and said the barracks was closing its administrative side in the next half hour and said someone was willing to drive the baby to Waterbury. DCF asked her to provide care for 24 hours while they put together a care plan. She picked up the baby in the Shaw’s parking lot.
A BABY IN A ONESIE
“When she was given to us, we just got a baby in a onesie. She was in horrible physical condition she had experienced significant massive neglect. And her birth mom had tried her best but she's just not capable,” Stone said.
At that point, Baby L was in their physical custody and still in her birth parents’ legal custody. That meant there was no state support or access to WIC for formula or discounted diapers or reimbursed day care.
Baby L, at seven months old couldn’t lift her head or she had no muscle tone or resistance in her arms and legs. She wasn't reaching or grabbing. She had open skin wounds and infections all over her body. Her weight was off the charts’ poor. She has positional plagiocephaly, which is head flattening from being restricted. Her eyes did not respond appropriately to light because she hadn't been exposed to light; she'd been kept in a dark room with the curtains drawn. She has hip dysplasia with a completely dislocated left leg from the socket.
“Our little lady grew up in very challenging circumstances,” Stone said.
No one from DCF called back after 24 hours. They had Baby L for another three days with no one responding to their calls. On the third day they got a call back and were asked to keep Baby L for two more weeks.
“At that point it became a priority to get her to a doctor so I sought out her birth parents and got written permission from each of them to take her to her primary care provider,” Stone said.
That visit led to a long series of medical interventions. Baby L started occupational therapy, physical therapy, ophthalmology, audiology, neo med, nutrition, and orthopedics. They got to UVMC for her hip issue and were told her case was too complex, so they were referred to Boston. By now Baby L was in state custody so she had Medicaid covering her health care.
Her case was accepted by Dr. Yong Jo Kim, the head of the hip preservation at Harvard, a specialist in late diagnosed hip dislocations in children.
“He’s the best guy in the whole country. The best of the best and he accepts very few cases, and he took ours,” Stone said.
The head of Baby L’s femur had not formed properly, nor had the acetabulum in which the femoral head rests, formed properly. Surgical intervention to correct the issue was required.
On March 8, Baby L had her first surgery, coming home in a spica cast that holds her legs out to the side, slightly bent under her. That spica cast means she doesn’t fit in a regular car seat, or highchair, requiring Bishop to build a table for her to eat. They have adaptive equipment for carrying her and changing her diaper is a complex process requiring a pad, diaper with tabs ribbed off, a re-usable diaper to hold everything together, and a hairdryer.
The spica cast will be used for at least the next five months and after it comes a Rhino brace to continue the healing.
“It’s challenging -- but we’re figuring it out,” Stone said.
HEALING APPROPRIATELY
This week, on April 1 the family returned to Boston for a six-week follow up and got the news that her hips were healing appropriately, and she got a new cast and gets checked again in six weeks.
Her other health issues are clearing up but she’s still wearing a helmet to help correct the flatness at the back of her head.
Both birth parents have asked the Bishop/Stone family to adopt Baby L, who turned 1 year old in late February.
‘Mentally she’s very bright. Physically, she is severely delayed. She was just beginning to sit up before going into surgery and with the spica and some of her skills are coming much later, some of which is from lack of opportunity for natural growth and stimulation. Some might just be in general delays -- luck of the draw. But we're fully involved in all the early intervention stuff to try to make sure she has everything that she needs to achieve maximum wildness,” Stone said.
Stone and Bishop are committed to bringing Baby L into their family and are working with therapists to help Emerson and Olivia understand what adoption means and help them work through what it means as a family. The kids know they are adopted. They know their dad is adopted. When Baby L first came home, they understood that Baby L’s birth mom was sick and that they were going to take care of her for the time being. The kids now know that their birth mom is their birth mom as opposed to a close family friend and they’re working to process it.
REFER TO HER AS SISTER
“We have changed the conversation from she's with us while birth mom gets well to all the grown-ups have talked and decided that the best thing would be for Baby L to be adopted into our family. They are referring to her as sister. They certainly love her and took to her right away. And they've both matured so much over the last few months in caring for her and taking on different roles, you know, like each having little jobs that is their responsibility for the baby,” Stone said.
Stone harbors no anger or ill feelings about the birth mother and said she really did try.
“She was doing the absolute maximum that she was capable of. And it's not a lack of love, or a lack of wanting to do it and wanting to parent, which is I think why I have so much empathy because I see how much she loves these kids, and how much she wishes that she could parent them so I try to be very respectful of the honor of being given another mother's child,” Stone explained.
It's a lot of work for the family. Stone’s mother is with them now to help. While she is in the spica cast Baby L needs to be moved every two hours to prevent bedsores. But she’s doing well.
“She's the most tolerant easygoing, right smiley little thing. She is the most appreciative baby that I've ever met. She's just happy, mellow. She uses every tool in her toolbox to communicate ‘thank you for any bit of attention or love or play or care.’ She's a lovely, happy little person,” Stone said.
Caring for Baby L is very time consuming between her medical care and juggling the other kids and their jobs. Until recently, they resisted their friends desire to set up a way to help them financially. Neither of them qualifies for family medical leave. Bishop had changed jobs in September and Stone does not work full time.
WRITING ON THE WALL
“We bled through our rainy-day fund and our rainy season fund. It was hard to swallow our pride, but it is also time to swallow our pride. We’re not behind on anything yet, but the writing was on the wall,” Stone said.
They had not planned on having another child and had closed their foster license and gotten rid of all their baby things.
“But what do you do when you get a call and there’s a baby sitting in a police station?” Stone asked.
Here’s a link to the GoFundMe for the Stone/Bishop family:
Here’s a link to the story about how Stone and Bishop adopted Emerson and Olivia:
https://www.valleyreporter.com/index.php/news/artsent/17470-instant-family-unintended-but-fully-intentional-for-the-bishops
