ERICA | OHIO

“Our identical twin girls, River & Novah, were born on December 8th, 2022 at 33 weeks due to them being growth restricted. Both girls weighed under 4lbs. During the first part of their stay in the NICU, everything was going great. They were hitting all of their milestones and growing every day. Towards the end of their NICU stay, our babies had this one nurse who we thought was too rough with our girls. River was extremely fussy after her encounter with this nurse and started crying in a way that we had NEVER heard before. That following night we actually were so uncomfortable with the fact that she was the nurse on duty, we asked to switch nurses and told the staff we didn’t want her caring for the girls anymore.

River and Novah came home on January 1st and we were beyond excited to start this incredible journey as a family. We only had our girls home for one week before they were taken from us…

The first couple nights after bringing them home from the NICU we noticed when we changed River’s diaper or clothes she would cry that same way we’d heard in the NICU.

A few days later, I took River to the children’s urgent care because she wouldn’t stop crying. They checked her for a UTI and they did an x-ray of her belly. I thought her discomfort might be from something with her hips so the doctor also checked over her hips as well. Everything came back normal so the doctor told me to go home and do bicycle kicks and tummy time to help her belly.

When I got home, I tried to do those bicycle kicks and I immediately felt something in River’s leg click and pop. Right away I knew something was wrong so I took her to the children’s hospital. They did an x-ray of her leg. A doctor came in and told me River’s femur was broken. The doctor also said she had reviewed the x-ray from the children’s urgent care and that they had missed the broken femur before sending me home to do those bicycle kicks. River was put into a hip dysplasia harness to keep her leg from moving.

Since our baby had a broken bone that we didn’t know the cause of, CPS took both our girls out of our care and placed them with their grandma. Our twins were examined by a child abuse pediatrician. We had to talk to a detective, police officers, and social workers to give our statements of what we thought happened. We brought up our concerns about the NICU nurse, fully believing that had something to do with the fracture, and they just brushed it off, didn’t give it another thought.

We got assigned a caseworker that we would have to check in with on a regular basis. They had us do genetic testing and the girls had to have multiple x-rays of their whole bodies every two weeks.

At a follow up orthopedic appointment to get River’s harness off, we told the doctor we’d noticed she wasn’t moving the opposite leg. The doctor said that was normal because of River’s legs being in that position and to slowly and gently rub on the area because it was most likely “muscle balled up".

Well at a pediatrician appointment for the girls, our doctor noticed River’s arm and her other leg was a little swollen so she had us take her to children’s hospital again. There, they did more x-rays & found out she had a broken arm and now her other femur was broken.

At this point, we had several doctors including our pediatrician and a radiologist saying they don’t believe it’s child abuse and has to be an underlying medical condition. NO MARKS OR BRUISES ANYWHERE on either of my girls. But yet, we were told we had to go to parenting classes. Somehow we weren’t good enough parents already by doing the right thing and getting our child medical help.

I asked to do more testing, but they refused to do any more because “more testing wasn’t necessary”. CPS removed removed River and Novah from their grandma’s house, now accusing her of abusing the girls due to the additional fractures. CPS then placed our babies with their grandpa and said this would be the last chance for family placement or else our twins would be going into foster care.

We couldn’t have any contact with our babies during this time because they thought we (along with BOTH the girls’ grandmas AND great grandma) were abusing them.

FINALLY we got a call with River’s genetic test results: she has Osteogenesis Imperfecta. It’s a genetic disorder that causes brittle bones and explained why she has had three broken bones with no explanation.

Our case was closed and our babies were placed back in our care after a long and tireless fight. All of this has caused us extreme anxiety and I actually got diagnosed with PPD and PPA because of all the trauma we endured. I hope by sharing our story this brings more awareness about OI and gives other falsely accused families hope.”