July Baby Coming Home

[JulyBabyComing]

I’m not even sure where to begin but I guess I’ll start at the very beginning, in 2017

In 2017, I was in a domestically abusive relationship and had a little girl and baby boy. My baby boy died when in the care of his dad and after his death I learnt that he had an injury dating from before his death that I didn’t know about. I very shortly after that got out of the DA relationship and began the freedom programme.
This led to my daughter being given to her dad full-time and I became one of two people left in a ‘pool of perpetrators’. I then had another baby (in 2018), and who was given to my parents under a gaurdianship. I went on to complete more courses that I self-referred too, including child protection courses with the NSPCC.

Since 2019 I have seen I began seeing the baby I had in 2018 unsupervised, and by 2020 I had a shared-care arrangement with my parents. This arrangement continues to this day.

In 2022 I got into a new relationship and it is the most supportive, loving relationship that I absolutely treasure. We got a house together in 2023 and my daughter’s dad also began letting us see my daughter unsupervised and we had her half of the week too. By Christmas 2023 I was pregnant again and we had informed children’s services.

Because of children’s services involvement I was put back on supervised with my two oldest children for 2 months while they conducted updated assessments. This led to cases being closed for both of my older children, and previous arrangements resumed with the one under the SGO, but not with my daughters dad (who has a child arrangements order) - who we then had to report to the police for ‘malicious communications’ as he became quite controlling and intimating via messages.

We then began a pre-birth assessment for our unborn baby at about 16 weeks pregnant. This involved weekly sessions with our social worker, discussing everything from baby care to mental health to managing stress to finances and our relationship.

And our baby is coming home! They have absolutely no concerns about us and the only concern is the historic one of me being in a pool. Because of the severity of the pool, our baby will be on a child protection plan but he will be home, and we’re over the moon!

We’ve since tried reaching out to my daughter’s dad but he immediately became controlling again and so my daughter will remain on supervised and we’ve had to re-block him on social media, we don’t want any drama.

Wanted to post our journey here if it’ll help anyone

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear JulyBabyComing,

Thank you for sharing this positive update and congratulations on the wonderful news that your baby will be coming home with you.

We wish you all the best.

Suzie.