Not Enough Love

The Long Way Home

Anastasia Lassiter
I don't take the alleyways home anymore, because they aren't safe day or night at this point. I have put in another hard day and I am tired. I walk around the block to get to my house. I notice something strange and hear it, before I see it. A baby softly crying and I see blood on the young lady holding onto the baby, the umbilical cord is still attached and the baby is on the mothers stomach. I dial 911. Soon I am surrounded by cops, EMTS and I am being questioned by the police and the EMTS. They got my name and address and they made note of the street I found the dead mother and baby. If I hadn't taken this route I would have missed the baby crying. They said she was barely breathing when they got to her. I tried to find out about the baby, but since I am not related they wouldn't give me any information.

Dr Grace Grey
How is it that in a week we have had two pregnant women who died during childbirth on the street of Seattle? I look at the two girl babies laying side by side, one named Anastasia Rose Howard and the other a simple baby Doe and a number. The cops and the EMTs gave Anastasia Rose Howard as the name for the baby who is on a ventilator and has had to be watched very carefully. We had to resuscitate her when she arrived in the ER. I am contacted by the caseworker and baby Doe has been released to be adopted, no one in her family wants the baby and gave up their rights to her. So Carrick and I are adopting her. Anastasia has a long way to go before she is ready to go any place at all. Tests are being ran on her, she is 12 inches long and weighed three pounds when she arrived. Apparently her mother was tiny as well. She was released to foster care and no one wanted to adopt her due to her size and her propensity to become ill at the drop of a hat. Poor little thing. I couldn't get any information after she left the hospital.

Anastasia Lassiter
I went to the hospital NICU and watched them work on Anastasia Howard. I went when no one would notice me. She was a real fighter. One day she just wasn't there any longer. I went to the regular nursery and there she was. Being held by a nurse and fed by bottle. She looked beautiful and bigger than the day I found her. A week later she was gone for good, I asked the nurse and said she had been transferred to foster care.

Carrick
Mia is growing like a weed, I know Grace was hoping to adopt the other little girl that was brought in at the same time as Mia, but her health issues were going to be a real issue and we already have Christian's issues to deal with. So I talked her out of adopting the other baby too. I hated doing it, but I know she couldn't deal with everything she had going on at this point. The boys were not happy we brought home a baby girl. Christian was better than Elliott and he finally started talking and said her name. From that point on her started talking and he helps out with Mia all the time.

Isobel Archer
I am ready for our new foster baby, Anastasia Howard I am a trained pediatric nurse and David is a pediatric surgeon. We decided to take on babies who don't have a chance at being adopted and see that they are healthy and get the care they need to become viable toddlers. We teach them how to do everything we can. Sometimes we have little geniuses and others we just can't do anything to get to where they need to be on the chart and we recommend special education. Little miss Howard was well above average and then some. It was like she knew she had to learn to survive right from birth. Normally we don't know these babies background, but this one we were given more information than we needed.

David Archer
I would have loved to keep Anastasia Howard, but we were only going to be assuring that she gain weight grow and learn how to do things all young toddlers needed to do. Soon we found out she was ahead of the curve and she was learning things on her own. Talking, reading, writing potty training before a year old, she hated wet or soiled clothing on, she walked at six months old and spoke in full sentences. We actually found out that she was reading and writing one day after she had found a book that was written for educating children. She was unhappy about that book and wanted to know more. We had to release her to her new foster parents and that hurt. We weren't allowed to know who they were or where they lived.

Elena Lincoln
I picked up the little brat and took her home. She is a shy little girl with bright blue eyes and brown hair, she is very tiny and is easy to carry around, but she can walk very well. She is of course fully capable of going to the bathroom by herself and eating. She can do a lot of things. We are going to have her for six months. It is for show and we really could care less about the child or children we bring into our home. I was hoping for teenagers and got a three year old.

Richard Lincoln
I told Elena she would be taking care of this little munchkin on her own, unless I am home. Which is not often. The little girls answers questions and follows instructions. She is good and going to the potty and feeding herself and everything else. I think I saw her reading a book when we took her to get her some books. It was a science book and I stood there amazed until she put the book back on the shelf and accepted the books for children her age. I went back and bought her several science books and other books she had looked at. I hid them under her bed and showed them to her. Elena would read books to her just to make me believe she did it all the time. I knew better.