How a baby, now 4 months old, was left without a name
If life had started gentler for the baby girl who was born at a D.C. hospital on a Sunday in January, traces of cocaine wouldn’t have been found in her system, a birth complication wouldn’t have left her unable to control her right arm and she wouldn’t have been sent home without a name.
Yolanda didn’t expect to be raising a baby right now. She worked for 39 years at the U.S. Postal headquarters before deciding to retire. She planned to spend these days concentrating more on her health and traveling. Instead, she spends them changing diapers, searching online for a type of formula that is difficult to find and rarely going anywhere without the baby.
Spindel got involved with the family’s case after a judge recommended Yolanda contact the organization. Spindel, who is an attorney, said she has asked several D.C. government agencies to help the family but none have. She has also filed several motions on behalf of Yolanda in D.C. Superior Court requesting that a judge order the D.C. Vital Records Division to issue a birth certificate for the baby.
“Even though she was 35, she still called me mom,” Yolanda said of her foster daughter Jessica. “She aged out of the system, but she didn’t age out of my life.” The court records show that Yolanda then took additional steps. She applied for permanent custody, which was granted. Again, she went to Vital Records. This time, court records show, she was told she needed to get guardianship, which she would have been eligible for if she had been licensed as a foster parent for the baby.
That pamphlet sat on a kitchen island next to a Fisher Price rocker on the day a photographer and I visited the family. The loss has left Yolanda mourning the woman who called her mom and worrying about the baby she now mothers. The hospital recommended that the baby receive regular physical therapy for her arm and Yolanda takes her weekly. That therapy and her monthly doctor appointments have so far been covered through Jessica’s Medicaid, but that coverage could now end at any moment.
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