Her world came crashing down on May 26, 2017. The night before, her daughter’s father, whom she was separated from, had picked the baby up and taken her home with him. She was at work the next morning when her boss walked up to her and told her she needed to get to the hospital because her baby was there. She rushed to her car and saw that she had missed almost twenty calls from her mom. As she drove toward the hospital, her mom called again, and all she could hear was yelling and crying through the phone.
She arrived at the ER alone and confused. The night before, she had asked the baby’s father how their daughter was doing, and each time he said she was fine. But as she walked closer to the ER, she heard the worst sound she had ever heard, a moaning she prayed wasn’t coming from her child. It was. Doctors and nurses ran in and out, asking her questions she couldn’t answer. When she looked at her three-month-old, all she saw was a blank stare. The smiling baby she had held the day before was gone. After doctors got her stable enough to transfer, they told her she couldn’t ride in the ambulance and needed to drive to the children’s hospital.
Her mom arrived and drove them. On the way, a nurse from the first hospital called and said, “I need you to come back.” She grew angry, thinking she had just forgotten the paperwork. But when the nurse said she couldn’t explain over the phone, she knew. Her daughter was gone. She screamed and sobbed, telling her baby was dead.
At the hospital, two police officers met them and led them into the small room families are taken to when they lose someone. A nurse told her that her daughter had coded when they got her into the ambulance, that CPR had been going for twenty minutes, and they would stop soon. She said she wanted her to have the chance to say goodbye. She refused at first, but something told her to go. When she walked into the room, everything looked white except for her daughter’s tiny blue hand bouncing with each compression. She dropped to her knees, grabbed the hand, and prayed out loud. Moments later, a doctor said, “I have a pulse,” and color returned to her hand.
At the next hospital, the father joined them. When she asked what happened, the PICU doctor told her it was shaken baby syndrome. She turned to her then-husband and asked if he had shaken her. He said no. She was in shock. Investigators questioned them, and she felt like she was in a nightmare. She denied what doctors said, arguing there was no way her daughter had been hurt. She researched constantly, desperate for another explanation.
Her daughter stayed on life support for two weeks. Doctors said she would likely never come off the vent, but she did on her first try. They said she would never move or open her eyes, but slowly she did both. After four weeks, she was discharged and given custody of the children. When DCS told her the father failed his polygraph, she began to accept the truth. She moved in with her grandmother and tried to learn how to care for a medically fragile child. Nights were filled with pain, choking, and tears. She quit her job and entrusted her to her daughter’s care.
Over time, she learned her new normal. Her daughter was diagnosed with blindness, cerebral palsy, and gastroparesis, yet she saw her as a miracle. A year after the injury, her daughter nearly died again but survived emergency surgery. After 88 days, they went home. Life as a single mother to a shaken-baby survivor was exhausting, but she kept fighting beside her daughter. And she wanted others to know: never leave a child with someone abusive or under the influence. She may never know exactly what happened, except what doctors and investigators told her, but she carries the truth with her every day.
