When the house is quiet, and everyone is asleep, that is when my mind races. That’s when I keep reliving this nightmare one flash of memory at a time. No matter how long I live, I will never forget any detail, and I’ll never forget just how much losing someone I love so much has impacted my life and changed everything about me. I will remember every tear I cried, every time it felt like I couldn’t go on. I will remember how hard it is to get through each day. Almost 9 years later, I still hear the minutes ticking, counting down the days until my precious niece can make her own decision and come back to the family that loves her like no other. A family she belongs to. A family she was taken from.

I haven’t slept without anxiety or nightmares since I received that dreadful phone call in November, 2004, my mother hysterical on the other end, telling me news I still refuse to accept.

At night when I should be resting, I obsess  about this incredible injustice that has been done to us. All I know is that it hurts. It makes me so angry I feel like coming out of my own skin. My heart pounds, and I just want to get up out of bed, turn on all the lights, and do something. But what can I do?. I lie paralyzed with a burning hatred toward those responsible.

I write at night because that’s when it hurts the most. Thinking that another day has passed and another day I have been separated from my flesh and blood.

In my mind, I am screaming to God for help….

The night we found out that my niece wasn’t coming home was the longest, and it sticks out in my memory plain as day almost 9 years later. It still hurts to think about it, and I’ve been trying to erase it from my memory ever since. If I close my eyes, I can still feel myself laying down on that uncomfortable bed, the covers pulled over my head so my mom wouldn’t know I was still awake.

We were in a hotel room, the four of us together, bound together by blood and heartache. A long way from home, in a city I hated, simply because my heart was being yanked out during this week of pure hell there.

My dad lay asleep in the bed next to the window. Sleeping heavily out of pure exhaustion. My baby sister in the bed next to me, having cried herself to sleep.

My mom sat up, in a chair, no t.v. on, no radio. In the dark, only a crack of light coming through the window. I can only imagine what was going through her mind. She sat there, helpless. A woman who always took care of everything and put her best heart forward, unable to fix or make sense of this life-shattering and life-altering event.

Nothing she could do to take the pain away. Maybe she was thinking about the grand-daughter she would never know. The daughter my sister would never be able to hold. The incredible ache, emptiness, and sorrow that my sister would feel for the rest of her life.

My mind was racing all over the place. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted this to just somehow not be true. How was this happening? How was it possible that such a thing could happen to us?

My mom sat there all night. Quiet and still. I don’t know why I didn’t get up and sit with her. I think maybe my own pain kept me stuck to the bed. My jaw was clenched. I wanted to jump out of the bed, get in the car, go get my niece and bring her home….

That was the night my heart shattered into a million pieces.

That was the night I knew nothing would never, not ever, be the same again. 

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Dedicated to my wonderful and loving mother, who to this day is the one who is always there. Strong and smart, beautiful in every way.

For her dedication to her family, friends, and all those around her. It was her love that kept her up that night. The love for her daughter, Samantha. The love for her grand-daughter, Nevaeh.

That’s what a loving mother does. She sits awake at night, watching over her heartbroken family, silently pleading with God. Knowing there’s nothing she can do, but willing to do anything.

THAT is a Mother’s Love….

Letty was our across-the-street-neighbor, she moved in when I was in 6th grade.

The morning she and her family started moving in, my mom took cereal and milk to them for breakfast, as a kind gesture and friendly welcome.

Before long, I was babysitting both of her sons.

My sister at this time was about 3.

Fast forward 15 years. Through that time a friendship was built, a trust was formed, we looked after their family as if they were our own. Summers had passed, things were  mostly peaceful, typical teen life. Later, Letty and her husband even borrowed money from my parents for a bulk payment on their home, which my parents happily lent them.

In short, we trusted her, we trusted her husband and sons. We were there for them. We cared about them.

So you can imagine our surprise and disgust at the thought of her selling my sister’s baby away. My first and only niece (until recently….a niece just arrived days ago.)

Letty actually facilitating and profiting from the adoption of my niece and the causing the worst heartache I had never felt before and have never felt since.

I have broken down every detail of this adoption case. The more I find out or put together, the more I realize that indeed this was a complete injustice committed against my young and so vulnerable sister and her baby daughter that never had a fighting chance to stay in her arms.

I have the right to exercise my First Amendment Right of Free Speech, and I have a right to make the details of this ugly and devastating adoption known to my niece, and to the rest of the world.

If this adoption was handled morally, legally, and correctly, I would not be up at 2am, restless. The way this all happened was so incredibly wrong, so very sneaky, and extremely devastating to have been betrayed by such a trusted family friend and neighbor.

She thinks what she did was right, then why was it all done in the dark? Why did she handle anything? Why did she receive anything? Why was SHE in the driver’s seat of this adoption?

So before I start spilling the story in painful detail, this is ALL IN MY OPINION. Although, I want to make absolutely clear that plenty of evidence accompanies our complaint. Once the puzzle is put together, I hope it will be clear that this adoption should never been finalized and that it should have been investigated to the fullest. My niece was NOT FOR SALE….

Auntie loves you and adores you…wishes you were here.

Just can’t live without you…wishing you were near.

Want to hear your voice…want to see your eyes.

Show you where you come from…fix our family ties.

God will lead you home…only laughter, pain replaced.

We anxiously await you…our darling, angel face ….

My sweet Nevaeh …. we love you with every piece of our hearts. Life has not been the same since we learned that you were taken from us, your rightful family. To this day, we are still suffering, trying to make people aware of how your adoption took place.

Your mom, Samantha, did not just “give you away.” She was scared and taken advantage of by someone who our family trusted for more than 20 years, and a woman who was infertile and couldn’t have children of her own.

So many things didn’t add up with this adoption…the first one being that your mom Samantha never contacted any such adoption office, it was the woman we trusted. A woman who also received an engraved Tiffany & Co. bracelet, and was flown to your baby shower as the guest of honor. Your mom had no counseling and no legal counsel either. She was alone, and after you were taken from your mommy’s arms and given to a stranger, your mom was left more than $25,000 in debt after they took you away.

After your now “parents” found out that we were working to set aside the adoption, we couldn’t see you unless we paid a monitor $75 an hour at a public park, with them watching us the whole time. Visits we had to travel over a thousand miles for, costing more than a thousand dollars, just to see you for 3 hours. We would’ve paid any amount, but every time a visit came near, there were always new rules, and you were never “available” when we could come visit with you.

The photo that you see with a baby’s foot in my hand, is yours. Your “parents” wouldn’t let your real grandparents see you, so I took that picture so that I could give them an idea of how big you were. Your “parents” made the rules that we could not tell you who we were, we couldn’t take pictures of you, and we couldn’t call you any terms of endearment, only the name they gave you, Italia.

Babygirl, let me tell you that you are NOT Italian. You are Puerto-Rican, Mexican, and Norwegian. You have first cousins named Monique, Josiah, and Amador. I am your aunt Elizabeth, and you also have an uncle Xavier.

You also have a brother, named Jason, and a baby sister due this month. Your grandparents’ names are Diana and Bryan.

I spend countless days and nights doing whatever I can to keep our case alive so that one day you will know how hard we prayed and how hard we fought. We have your pictures everywhere in our house, and your mom Samantha and I also have your name tattooed on our wrists, the name your real mom Samantha gave you.

We love you, we miss you, and we feel so incomplete without you. I know that your “parents” are going to do whatever it takes to make this as hard as possible for us to even see or talk to you, because they always have.

Just know, my love, you have your rightful family ready and waiting for you. You are us, and we are you….

In regards to this adoption case and the absence of my niece, not a moment of the last seven and a half years have been spent in peace.

Every day, I find myself on the internet, writing letters of complaint, doing research, making phone calls, writing to my niece; anything I can do to keep myself from going crazy. I’m so overwrought with grief, sometimes not willing to get out of bed, and trying to find a way to cope with this devastation.

To those responsible, I’m sure it looks as if we’ve given up and forgotten about the baby that was taken from us. Nothing could be further from the truth. One day, my niece will know how hard we fought for her and how much losing her left our life in broken pieces.

We’re fighting an uphill battle, against a once trusted neighbor and friend. Someone who works at a courthouse, under the protection of people who just want this case and our allegations to just go away. It’s funny how every complaint we’ve made keeps getting referred to this office, and that office, everyone playing “hot potato” with the paperwork. Yet, no one has said we don’t have valid concerns or a case.

Never giving up, in spite of all the obstacles. There is no giving up when something such as this happens to you. Do parents of a murdered child ever stop looking for the killer? Do victims of abuse ever stop wanting to bring the perpetrator to justice? No. So why should I just accept that my niece was sold away by someone who had no business being involved at all?

No amount of paperwork in the world would ever convince me that this child isn’t my niece, that she doesn’t have our family blood running through her veins. Until she knows the truth, I will never stop. I can only imagine what she is being told, if she’s being told anything at all.

All this time later, nothing makes sense. How it happened, why it happened. Why so many people chose to look the other way when obviously it warranted a full investigation being that our allegations are severe.

Desperate people will do anything for a child, and I have seen it first hand. The lies they tell. The manipulation. The blatant disregard for any feeling’s besides their own.

Playing house with a child they should never have gotten their hand’s on. Trying to erase us completely, acting as if this child just dropped out of the sky. As if we have no right to love or want her simply because they bought her. I don’t know how these people sleep at night, knowing full well the damage that tearing her away from us has caused. Do they even care what this will do to her? How could any person keep a child away from her mother, her family, her place in the world? Was it our responsibility to fix this woman’s infertility?

So many things go through my mind everyday. I have to force myself to stop thinking about it. Never have I felt fire rise inside of me like I do now, having to deal with such heartache. Always looking for answers. Always asking questions. Always longing to bring my niece home to her rightful family and bring those responsible to justice by exposing their web of lies and deliberate deception.