***all names have been changed to protect their real identity***
We (the pregnant girl's aunt and I) went to downtown and parked in front of City Hall. We waited for Shelby to call us. We got out of the car and sat on the sidewalk bench while Aunt Lisa smoked a cigarette. We waited there for 20 minutes or more. Homeless people walked by and dug through the trash cans while talking to themselves. We acted like they weren’t there at all. It was strange. Finally we decided to drive down the road and try to find the church she said she was in. After a few blocks Aunt Lisa pulled over and said, “There she is! Who is that guy and she better not think he is getting in my car!” Immediately Shelby ran up to the car and asked if the guy could get a ride, Aunt Lisa said NO! Shelby got in. She wasn’t what I expected at all. In the photo I had seen on face book she was much heavier with a round face and large nose and thick eyebrows. This girl had a thin face, regular nose, and almost no eyebrows. She was thin all over except her belly and thighs and butt. She had her hair slicked back into a bun and secured with barretts. She smelled nice like she had just taken a shower, which surprised me. She was wearing blue and green plaid boxer shorts that had a poop stain in the crack. They were very short and she kept tugging them down. She had on a magenta bra that matched the magenta maternity top she wore. It was cut like a v in the front with spagetti straps with an empire waist. You could tell she had a baby belly, but it wasn’t huge. She also walked with a cane, I don’t know why. She wore silver flip flops and carried a torn bag full of books and such and a nice small purse.
She sat in the car and spoke with Aunt Lisa for a minute. I turned around and introduced myself. I told her my name and we shook hands. After a few minutes Aunt Lisa told her, “this is the lady that wants to adopt your baby.” Shelby said, “Oh, okay. Cool.” Aunt Lisa told her to ask me questions she might have for me, which Shelby thought about for a moment. She asked what I do for a living and if I could have kids myself. I answered her questions and then she told me she wanted to be either a forensic scientist, or an animal control officer. I asked if she was scared of animals, she said no. It was obvious from this very short conversation we had that she was a very immature, emotionally stunted person. I immediately changed my way of thinking and my tactic in which I would deal with her. She would need to be talked to and thought of as a child. I was not prepared for this by Aunt Lisa, but I could certainly handle talking to a child. I do it everyday at school. Shelby said she didn’t need to be invited to birthday parties, but would like to see pictures and maybe come to her graduation. I said that was completely reasonable and I would be happy to do that.
We took her to the Medicaid and Food Stamps office. At the office we stood in line to give them paper work, then sat in a small room in the basement and waited. Shelby and I talked then. She told me about the things she wanted to buy once she got her Food Stamps and her Social Security money. She wanted to buy a turtle (but wasn’t sure if she wanted a boy or a girl), she also wanted a porcelain doll, a bamboo flower vase, a Michael Jackson picture, and a mirror. Aunt Lisa argued with her about the turtle saying she would just kill it when she took off. Shelby said her roommate would feed it, or she would just leave extra food for it.
Shelby started to get a little uneasy and said it was warm and claustrophobic in there. I suggested we take a walk up stairs and go to the bathroom. Upstairs I bought her a Dr. Pepper and a Kit Kat from a vending machine. She picked up two different flyers about medical alert tags that she wanted to give Aunt Lisa. She was certain that you could only get one kind if you donated, and another kind if you had surgery. It became very clear that Shelby did not understand some very basic things. Those flyers just had sample tags that mentioned surgery or organ donors, but they were just basic medical alert tags. This was my second clue that we were dealing with someone who has a lot of problems.
While she snacked we talked. She told me she had been seen by a doctor 3 times, each time while in jail. She is due September 11, 2011 and had been thinking about naming this child Alexia Jada. Shelby quickly added, “But you can name her whatever you want though cause you’re the mom.”
We talked about who the father might be and she said that it could be 3 different guys. She used the restroom and then we headed downstairs to see if they had called her name yet. It wasn’t log until they did.
After we got her Medicaid card and while we were waiting for her food stamp card I called some clinics in the area to see about getting her in to be checked out. Two refused to take her because she is so far along and hasn’t had prenatal care, another one would take her but wouldn’t talk to me or Aunt Lisa, they had to talk to Shelby. After speaking with Shelby for about 5 minutes they asked to speak to one of us. (should have just talked to us in the first place…but they figured it out pretty quickly that Shelby has trouble communicating) So we booked her appointment for the following Tuesday with instructions to feed her a big lunch and bring a book because we would be there for at least 4 hours.
I didn’t like the idea of my baby (hopefully my baby anyway) being cared for by a clinic full of nasty people who didn’t give a damn about her or me…so I called my personal ob/gyn and talked to the nurse. Dr. was on vacation, but would work us in on Thursday and he took Medicaid! Perfect! At least now I had control of the care my baby would be getting and would be a part every doctor’s visit because Shelby can’t get there without a ride from me.
