KAITLYN | TEXAS

"We are part of a “club” that I could have gone my entire life without being a part of. However, here we are. I will never be silent and idly sit by while other families continue to walk through the agony and trauma that false accusations bring.

Here is our story…

My entire life, all I wanted was to be a mother – ask anyone. Infertility made the road to get there a great challenge. It took a few years to get pregnant with our oldest but we were overjoyed once we became pregnant. When we decided to complete our family, we ran into additional infertility struggles and were given 0% chance of having any more children. We were told we could try IVF but due to my health struggles with Multiple Sclerosis, we were on a timeframe, a timeframe that made the financial aspect of things very challenging. As He does best, God provided through different avenues and we were able to begin our IVF process and were blessed with our twins, Kanton and Krew.

The twins joined us after a challenging pregnancy at 31 weeks and 3 days gestation on July 24, 2021. They spent the next 24 days in the NICU and we were thankful to bring them home to begin life together as a family of five on August 18th. It was a joy filled day for our family!

Upon leaving the NICU, we were told that our baby girl, Kanton, had an artery behind her heart that flows backwards. We asked many questions there as well as at the pediatrician the following day about this and were told to “watch her breathing”. That was unnerving but we did as we were told. Life was sweet, our babies were amazing, and we were adjusting to life as a family of five.

Fast forward to October…

October 22, 2021 our lives changed forever. I was at home with a family member. We noticed that Kanton was wincing a little when she would cry. We decided it was best to call the doctor, especially since the artery issue from the NICU was breathing related that we were instructed to watch for. We called the doctor and they told us to come straight in. Our pediatrician said they didn’t see anything outwardly wrong but we could do x-rays.

Those x-rays changed the trajectory of our lives forever.

Kanton's x-rays came back with “fractures”. We were admitted immediately to the hospital from there. Close to 11pm, two police detectives and a CPS caseworker arrived at the hospital. They spoke with Jared and had him strip Kanton’s clothes off to take pictures. There was nothing outward at all to photograph for any “signs of abuse”. When they left the hospital, they immediately drove to our home at almost midnight. They did an entire walkthrough, took pictures of every room and also had us take Krew’s clothes off to take pictures. The detective stated, “Your home is beautiful, your babies are beautiful, and you are upstanding citizens! You won’t be hearing from me again.”

We were told we must take Krew and Jaxton to the hospital for full body scans the following morning at 8am. The on call doctor met us to give us orders to go to the hospital and made statements like, “This looks really bad”, “Your kids are going to get taken if anything is wrong with the boys”. I sat in the car in complete hysterics on the phone with our CPS caseworker out of fear that our children were about to be ripped away from us. We spent the next 3 hours at the hospital getting the boy's scans done.

The admitting/on-call doctor came in and let us know the findings of the boys’ body scans. Jaxton was perfect, but Krew had what appeared to be one fracture. Since our oldest appeared to be fine, they decided to admit Krew, run CT scans on both babies, and begin to look at the babies as a medical situation since it was outwardly evident that there was no abuse to our children. All tests came back normal except Krew’s vitamin D level and both babies' Alkaline phosphatase level. (Kanton's Vitamin D was never drawn).

The admitting doctor, our pediatrician and two neonatologists agreed that our babies both had Metabolic Bone Disorder of Prematurity. Upon receiving this diagnosis, we were discharged home under a safety plan. That safety plan was lifted the following Wednesday by CPS after they received the paperwork stating our diagnosis. We were scheduled to re-do labs in 2 weeks time to make sure the changes we made (no more breastmilk and adding special vitamin supplements) were making the improvements we needed to see.

Our CPS case would have closed at the reading of these lab results, two weeks later.

However, we, as good parents who love and care deeply for our children, asked for a referral to ensure our children got the care they needed and that we knew how to take care of our fragile children with things such as normal handling and tummy time. Because we asked for this referral, it kept our case open for seeing additional doctors.

On November 11, 2021, we saw an Endocrinologist at the larger hospital that we asked to go to. We thought the appointment went well as we really liked the doctor. She had us do a lot of lab work and x-rays to test for rickets while we were there.

On November 19, 2021, the Endocrinologist called to let us know the x-rays did not show signs of rickets. She had our original x-rays re-read and the lab work was improving just as all original doctors suspected it would. She asked me to please not panic, but that she would be sending us to their CARE team. The CARE team has doctors that specialize in child abuse. The endocrinologist did state that she did not think we had abused our children but that our situation was so complex that she needed to send us to this specialty team. Although we were hesitant, we agreed to go as all we cared about was complying and KNOWING our children were okay.

The meeting with the CARE team lasted around 3 hours. We talked through everything, the doctor asked many questions and did full body assessments of the twins. The doctor informed us “none of this could have happened at birth or in the NICU” and also informed us that Krew had no actual “fractures”, only long bone “fractures” from rapid bone growth.

The doctor asked to do chest x-rays right then. We happily did, as all we care for is knowing our baby is okay. There were no new fractures and she was healing perfectly, as she should have been with the changes we made to correct the Metabolic Bone Disease issues.

We left that day feeling that things went as well as they could have and very hopeful this would end before the holidays.

The Monday after Thanksgiving, we got a phone call that changed everything. Our case worker called and I could instantly tell something was very wrong. I had spoken with her that morning and we were all very certain our case would be closing soon. However, the tone I was met with did not reflect that any longer.

“Mrs. Minze, we heard from the CARE team doctor. Uhm, they are saying they do not accept the original diagnosis and that this is 100% abuse.”

I couldn’t breathe. I remember yelling or something along those lines as I was hysterical. I remember Jared with tears streaming down his face. I remember my bible study friends arriving at my home and just sitting with us, crying with us and just…being. The rest is a blur.

From there, we lived under a safety plan, unable to be alone with our children, searching for legal counsel, and living in total fear that our children would be taken from us or we would be arrested.

The police department had to open the criminal case back up due to the accusing doctor’s accusations. We were called in for “interviews” which were actually full police interrogations.

We finally found an attorney that we agreed with and who would take our case. After retaining our attorney, we were informed that CPS had “staffed” with their team and tried to REMOVE our children TWICE. We were shocked and brokenhearted over this, but also incredibly thankful that God protected that from happening.

Our attorney requested a family team meeting with CPS, our accusing CARE team doctor, and the doctors who had made the original diagnosis of Metabolic bone disease of prematurity. The goal was to get everyone in one place and hopefully on the same page so things could be resolved and the safety plan could be lifted.

On January 7th, 2022 we had the family team meeting. The accusing CARE team doctor refused to attend due to “not wanting to be recorded.” Nothing was resolved. Just one more time of telling every detail of our story to a group of strangers through agonizing tears. We were still under the safety plan. We agreed to comply for one more week while the DA tried to reach the neonatologist to verify that he’s still on board with the original diagnosis of Metabolic Bone Disease.

On January 20th, we heard back from the DA that they had finally been able to speak with the neonatologist and everything was going to be dropped, our case was closing.

In short, four doctors, two of which saw our children first hand at the initial time in question, another who took care of them their first 24 days of life, and a Neonatologist at the same children's hospital as the accusing doctor, have diagnosed Metabolic Bone Disease of Prematurity and only one doctor who specializes in child abuse disagrees based on their medical opinion.

But because of this ONE doctor’s opinion, our CPS case was closed out as “reason to believe” abuse for Kanton with the perpetrator listed as unknown. Krew was “ruled out” for abuse and Jared and I were ruled as “undetermined".

We truly wouldn't have made it without the support of our family, friends, and the Fractured Families community.

Since then, we have been working to heal emotionally from the trauma we have endured. We struggle every single day with the trauma and worry of something happening to our children. I struggle with letting our kids be kids.

I am not sure how to do our story justice. I am honestly not sure that any of us that have walked through the horrors of being falsely accused can ever adequately explain all that this impacts. However, my prayer is that I have been able to shed some light on a very real and horrific problem that families like ours, are facing every single day at the hands of doctors who are not being held accountable.

Through the traumas and storms, it was evident every step of the way that we were never alone. If it weren’t for God, I truly do not know how we would have made it through. He was our strength when we literally had none. He led us and protected us in ways that I will never be able to fully express. Although we feel very robbed of time that should have been sweet moments with our miracle babies, we rest in a place of knowing that He will restore that time back to us in ways that only He can. At this time, He has instructed us to go and be a voice crying into the wilderness to help others know their rights, that this is a real problem, and to battle for change. So battle we will!"