For 57 seemingly endless days, Erika Johnson could not snuggle with her beloved baby girl. She couldn’t tickle her toes, inhale her intoxicating newborn baby smell or dress her in one of the many adorable newborn outfits hanging in her closet.
Although Johnson lovingly carried daughter Mikaela for nine months, she was abruptly taken away from Johnson and her partner, Blake Sinnett just two days after she was born — simply because they are blind.
Yet after a nearly two-month odyssey that outraged advocates for the blind across the country, Mikaela is finally back in her parents arms.
“I’m a forgiving person,” Johnson tearfully told the Kansas City Star, while indicating that this is a transgression she is just not sure she can ever overlook. “Disability does not equal inability.”
Johnson and Sinnett’s baby bliss turned to horror shortly after Mikaela’s birth when a lactation nurse at the hospital where Johnson delivered became concerned with the way Johnson was breastfeeding her daughter, even though many new moms experience breastfeeding difficulties. This nurse noticed the infant turn blue when Johnson’s breast briefly covered Mikaeka’s nose, although Johnson reportedly quickly realized there was a problem and switched her daughter to the other breast.
The nurse wrote on a chart that, “the child is without proper custody, support or care due to both of parents being blind and they do not have specialized training to assist them.” Those words soon launched the new parents 57-day nightmare. A social worker told them they needed 24-hour supervision by a sighted person, and when the couple said that was not a financial option, Mikaela, who is able to see, was taken away by Missouri Department of Social Services.
The couple hired a lawyer, and the National Federation of the Blind of Missouri took up their cause. The group in turn told other associations for the blind the couple’s tragic tale. Eventually, more than 100 people at a national convention in Dallas — blind parents and sighted children of blind parents — volunteered to travel to Kansas City to protest and testify on Johnson and Sinnett’s behalf.
Ultimately, the state came to its senses and returned Mikaela to her desperate parents. Finally, the trio has a chance to bond as a family — 57 days late.
Photo by Lenscap via stock.xchang.
