One Couple's Crusade
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When Joy and Jim Jenkins took
little James Michael into their home and hearts, they knew he might have AIDS. But they
loved him no matter what - and that love has grown into their lives' true calling. "You wouldn't happen to have an extra little baby in the nursery nobody wants?" I asked Judi Wright, a first - year obstetrics resident at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Ariz., back in 1986. Judi laughed, "No, we don't have any extras," she said. I was a nurse at Maricopa. A native of South Dakota, I moved to Arizona in 1982, where I married Jim, an account executive for a computer firm. Though I was usually assigned to the emergency room and other departments at the hospital, I drifted by the newborn nursery, as often as I could. For Jim and I were desperately, eager to find a baby to adopt. I was 32 at the time, Jim, 49. He had two children by a previous marriage and had undergone a vasectomy. So our only hope for a child was to attempt to have his surgery reversed or to adopt a baby. Several times over the ensuing months I half-jokingly repeated my "extra baby" question to Judi. Her reply was always "No" and laughter. But when I asked her on July 17, 1987, she didn't laugh. "There is a baby," she said hesitantly. "But there are serious problems..." She told me about a three-month-old baby boy who'd been given up by his mother. He was racially mixed and suffered from seizures, probably because his mother was a drug addict, and he had been born addicted to heroin, cocaine, and methadone. Worse, his mother had AIDS and the newborn tested positive for AIDS antibodies. Judi went on to explain that the infant faced a 30 to 50 percent chance of developing a full-fledged case of AIDS, for which there is still no cure. It would be a year or more before doctors could say with certainty whether or not the little boy actually had the deadly virus. "So what's the big deal?" I heard myself say to Judi. "I think I want this baby. Yes, I want him!" On my next break. I met Judi at the door of the nursery. Among the 13 babies in the section set aside for infant drug addicts, I instantly spotted my baby. His little head was turned toward the door as if he was waiting for me. He was a lovely 'cafe au lair' color with dark eyes. I pointed to him and said, "That's my boy," and took him in my arms. As she watched me kiss his tiny face, she murmured half aloud, "Yes, she's the one." It seemed Marcia had been asking God daily to send someone to love this little boy and give him a home. She saw me as God's answer to her prayers. I could hardly wait to get home to call Jim. The one thing that worried me was that the baby had come along at an awkward moment. Jim and I had been planning to leave Phoenix. I had already accepted a nursing post in Santa Cruz, Calif., and Jim was in San Francisco at that very moment to line up work in his profession. How would he feel about a change in plan? I finally reached him on the phone and asked, "Do you want to be a daddy again? I've found a baby." Without hesitation, Jim said, "Great! I'll be home on Thursday." And when I told him about the baby's history, his reaction was "No problem!" We decided to name the baby James Michael, and we visited him at the hospital nursery every day. We held him, tucked him into his bed each night, took him on picnics on the medical center's grassy lawn. Needless to say, We scrapped plans to move to California. As each day passed, I grew more eager to take him home. But there were countless obstacles. First we had to qualify as foster parents. Only later could we go through adoption proceedings. The social workers began calling me "Mother Tiger" because or the fierceness of my determination to shorten the waiting period and cut through the endless red tape. But every step took time. In addition, the baby's biological mother, despite her overwhelming problems, would not sign the relinquishment papers until she was convinced he would be placed with loving, adoptive parents and not bounced around in foster care. During this waiting period, Jim and I underwent a special course in foster-parent training. I remember a particularly grim moment when an AIDS educator leapt from her seat, thrust her finger into my startled face, and demanded: "Are you prepared for the eventuality that this baby may die on you?" Jim and I sat speechless, both of us ghostly white. I think that was the first time we - Jim especially - really faced the fact that this could happen. But neither one of us faltered. After a month of delays, I got a call while I was on duty in the hospital that the paperwork was completed and James Michael was ready to go home with us. The call came at 11:30 in the morning. I had to work until 7:30 that night, and I tell you that was the longest eight hours in the history of the world! Taking little James Michael home was better than Christmas, New Year's, and my birthday rolled into one. Jim was at least as excited as I was. The nursery was all ready, thanks to kind neighbors who had given us furniture, and James Michael made himself right at home. But that night I couldn't sleep. Every few minutes I went in to peek at my precious baby. Is this real? Is he still there? This isn't a dream? |
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| I had already telephoned my parents, Don and Arlis Hentges, who are farmers in South Dakota, to tell them about their new grandson. I mentioned the baby's mixed race -that was no problem. I spoke of the mother's drug addiction. They expressed only sorrow for her. When I sent them photographs of James Michael looking absolutely adorable, my father, typically. wrote back advising me to get rid of the baby's pacifier. Dad is a rugged individualist and to him a pacifier is a crutch and unacceptable. As if in agreement with his granddad, three days later James Michael threw the pacifier out of his crib, and that was the end of it. | The baby
of an AIDS mother nearly always carries her antibodies... |
As open as I was with my parents, I kept silent about one thing. I knew that only in person could I tell them that the child tested positive for AIDS antibodies. They would need time to absorb the idea. I thought, and to grasp the complicated facts I would have to explain to them that the baby of an AIDS mother nearly always carries her antibodies, passed through her placenta. Therefore, the baby tests positive. Only after the baby is a little more than a year old is the truth known. If the antibodies are the mother's, they dissipate, and the baby is in the clear. But if the baby is manufacturing his own antibodies, he will continue to test positive, and that is very bad news indeed. For it means that the child will develop AIDS. Could I make my parents understand this? And what would their reaction be? Would they refuse to let me set foot again in the friendly farmhouse that was my childhood home? I was painfully aware of such a possibility because it had happened to a close friend in North Carolina. Since adopting a toddler with AIDS, my friend had been refused admission to her mother's home. Braced for the worst, I flew with James Michael to South Dakota when he was six months old. Jim stayed behind in Phoenix. When I arrived at my parents' two-story frame house, I left my luggage downstairs. If the reception was hostile, I thought, James Michael and I could make a quick escape. After dinner, as my mother cleared the dishes, my father hugged and cooed at James Michael. I finally got up my courage and said, "Before we go any further into this visit, there is something I have to tell you." |
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