KYLIE | DELAWARE

“On March 13th 2019, just two days after our almost eight week old baby boy, Fynn, had undergone a tongue and lip tie correction, his uncomfortable demeanor and refusal to nurse was incredibly concerning to me. I dropped my two older children off at my mom’s work, and headed to my lactation appointment as quickly as I could. I walked into my lactation RN’s office in tears. I described how “He won’t latch, he won’t even take a bottle. He’s vomiting and I’m so worried he’s dehydrated and now he’s covered in these spots.” I sobbed. My lactation specialist listened to my concerns and agreed that he wasn’t acting as he should. Once he was weighed and it showed he had lost weight, I knew he needed to go to the hospital and the lactation specialist agreed. I drove straight to the children’s hospital just 20 minutes north. The worst decision I ever made for my baby was to take him to that hospital.

[Photo credit: Brittany Reisler Photography]

Shortly after getting him into the ER, they took him back for an X-Ray to check for intestinal blockages. Then they started an IV and evaluated the spots on his skin. I leaned into him on the bed, holding his little hands, watching him kick his little feet all around, while reassuring him he would be okay soon.

A doctor entered the room. “Mrs. Wingert, this is our hospital social worker. Please take a seat here.” The doctor kneeled at my feet, the social worker stood stoic to my right, and the other doctors who had funneled in stood near the walls of the room. “Rib fractures” is all I heard. “Excuse me, what did you say?” I replied. “Mrs. Wingert. Fynn has rib fractures. Do you understand?” I stared back. “No… I don’t understand…. How? How did he get them? Why does he have them? HOW?” She took a moment, looked down, looked back up and replied “Well. We… we were hoping you could tell us.” The next thing I remember was hovering over the red biohazard trash can, dry heave vomiting into it.

I turned around and said “I need to call my husband. I NEED TO CALL MY HUSBAND”. I walked out of the room towards a pillar and put the phone to my ear. As Brian answered on the other end, I began to sob. “Brian. He has RIB FRACTURES. Our son has fractures ON HIS RIBS!!!” My husband, in shock, replies “WHAT? How? Is he okay? Oh my God…. How???” Brian, incredibly upset, also couldn’t believe what I was telling him. We hung up so I could go back into the room and so my husband could call his mom. I ran back to Fynn, sobbing over him as he finally started to get fluids into his system. “Please don’t touch him there” and “please be careful” were all I could ask of the nurses. “He has fractures, I don’t know what’s wrong with him. PLEASE. Please be careful.” I begged the nurses to treat my baby like glass.

An hour later a doctor came to talk to me. “Mrs. Wingert, I am so sorry to add news, but we found an abnormality in his brain. Unfortunately at this time, I do not know what it is. What I can tell you is that it’s very small, only 4mm in size, the size of your pinky nail there. And we’ll need to do a skeletal x-ray and brain scans to be more sure.” “This is it” I thought. “This is the day they discover my baby has an aggressive form of cancer.” This was all I thought about and assumed it was. How else did my baby have a brain abnormality? How else did he have FRACTURES? Nothing made sense.

The next 24 hours were a blur of specialists. In between specialists was a steady rotation of members from the CARE Team. I didn't know until weeks after we were discharged, but the pediatrician on my care team was actually a CAP, which stands for Child Abuse Pediatrician. When they suspect abuse, this is the pediatrician who comes to talk to you. And they do not identify themselves as a CAP, or introduce themselves as such. You are completely in the dark as to what kind of pediatrician is sitting with you, asking so many questions and anything you say can be used against you.

After a traumatic 3 hour skeletal x-ray and brain scan, our child was diagnosed with non-accidental trauma. He had six rib fractures and a 4mm “brain bleed”. He had no retinal bleeding. No bruising. No bone breaks. No marks at all, aside from those red spots. Turns out those red spots were the only thing properly diagnosed by the hospital, and it was a viral infection called para-influenza.

Fynn was a happy baby. He was born with complications, but we brought him home after ten days in the NICU, and loved him every single day of his life. It made absolutely no sense at all as to why my baby had fractures AND a 4mm “brain bleed”.

Now, reading until this point you’re probably thinking “Well, your baby had fractures. That’s a good reason for them to investigate.” And you would be right! I AGREE WITH THE INITIAL INVESTIGATION. Child abuse DOES happen. It happens every day and saving children from it is surely what got these doctors into their subspecialty of “Child Abuse Pediatrician.” What is troublesome to my husband and I, our friends, our families, and other families who have walked this path, is the lack of investigating these CAPs do to rule out genetic diseases that mimic child abuse. Combine this toxic misdiagnosis with the fact that the CAPs work hand in hand with CPS and you have a grave recipe for disaster. Families, INNOCENT families, are being torn apart at the mere sightings of bruises, birthmarks, genetic conditions, and abnormalities. With no further research done. There are dozens of medical conditions that mimic child abuse and yet there is an alarming rising number of cases where families have children removed, or parental rights TERMINATED, when a medical condition was later identified. But why? Why doesn’t the hospital perform the genetic blood work required to diagnose Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Marfans Syndrome, Metabolic Bone Diseases, etc ON THE SPOT? Why doesn’t CPS let-up once a medical diagnosis, that is not child abuse, is made?

Here are the devastating and all-too-real consequences when child abuse pediatricians refuse to rule out medical conditions that mimic abuse: We were sent home on a safety plan, which lasted 24 grueling months. I was arrested and in jail for 52 days. I missed Fynn’s first birthday and first Christmas before a judge finally allowed me to come home to await my trial. We sold our home to pay for legal fees. We were crucified on social media. Nothing made sense and I almost didn’t make it.

But thanks to doctors who specialize in genetic conditions, bone conditions, genetics, and neurology, we went on to find the true diagnosis. Fynn, his brother, his sister, myself, and my mother were eventually all diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome by the world’s leading expert in the syndrome. We have hEDS (Type 3), which causes us to be hyper mobile. My mother and myself have dealt with a range of insane symptoms for years and our diagnosis finally connected the dots. With the hEDS diagnosis came the discovery that we were all Vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D is a crucial building block of bone health and babies only get 70% of their mother’s vitamin D levels at birth. So whatever Fynn got from my level of 19 ng/ml, (supposed to be 30 - 35 ng/dl for a healthy adult) wasn’t nearly enough for him to grow healthy bones. Our radiologist AND our Geneticist, with a sub specialty in bone diseases, diagnosed Fynn with a Metabolic Bone Disease known as Rickets. Not only did he have the bone abnormalities, which look like healing fractures, but are not… he also had Rachitic Rosary (cupping/extending on the ends of his ribs). Dead giveaways for Rickets. Our pediatrician ALSO AGREED it was rickets. At birth, Fynn actually had bruises on his ribs. We were brushed off by the birth hospital. I hate that we didn’t push to know why. Even the Child Abuse Pediatrician AGREED that at least ONE of the fractures came from his birth! Our Geneticist told us they were mostly, if not all, from birth though and could even be from everyday handling and care as is common with babies with this condition.

Fynn’s neurologist drove it all home with a startling discovery that his brain bleed was NOT a brain bleed at all. It was a blood clot, which is a common occurrence in very young infants who are suffering from a viral infection, especially in addition to dehydration. What if this had dislodged? What if it had gone to his heart? We are so grateful it dissipated.

Finally, both my husband and I OFFERED ourselves for psychological evaluations in hopes of clearing up any doubts CPS had. The psychologist, who CPS paid to evaluate me, testified at our family court hearing ON MY BEHALF. Turned out I had completely cleared my evaluation, as did my husband with his own separate psychologist.

But even with all of that, none of it was ever enough.

After 29 long months of being thrown around, court date to court date, at the mercy of CPS and wondering if I was going to lose my family, I was done. I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to be a mom again. I wanted to move on with my life. I wanted to heal. So finally, leading up to my trial dates, I bravely accepted something called an Alford Plea. It’s a plea where you maintain innocence, but accept the consequences. I accepted two years of Probation with a felony, which will change to PBJ after a year (meaning my record will be conviction free) thanks to an incredibly kind offer by our wonderful judge. An expungement will then take place in 2023 and this whole mess will be completely gone for good. We also decided to facilitate a temporary custody transfer, of Fynn only, to my mother in law. We did this in civil court and it satisfied CPS so they would close their case.

It’s been a beautiful year since all that happened! We took the kids to Disney. My husband and I went to Jamaica to celebrate ten years of marriage. We LIVED, my friends. My husband began his own company, business is thriving, and we have plans to buy a home to begin healing as a family in. It all worked out wonderfully for our family, so we can be together, and things are normal. Oh, and happy. SO happy. But every knock on the door, every bump, or fall, or bruise, or sickness will forever have us sick with the trauma we faced. And families facing the same struggles we went through are forever on my mind. To help in my own healing, I’ve begun helping other families by offering emotional support, resources, and information that might benefit them in their search for the truth. When I’m done in this life, I hope the world will be a better place because Child Abuse Pediatricians will be legally required to test for other conditions BEFORE calling CPS, and CPS will be legally required to give parents a 2nd medical opinion before tearing children away from their innocent parents. This is what I fight for.

Thanks to this situation, I don’t know if I really believe in God anymore. But I do believe in who I am as a person and mother. And I will never stop fiercely advocating for other families facing the same fate we did. Special heartfelt thank you to Fractured Families and Parents Behind the Pinwheels for supporting our plight for answers. I will forever be in your debt."