Yesterday (August 18) Box Butte County Judge Charles Plantz dismissed the Baby Boy Ana/Baby Box Butte case; thus affirming his earlier decision to return the baby to his family permanently. According to a statement by Todd Recklng director of the Nebraska Division of Children and Family Service, all parties to the case agreed to the dismissal. Reckling’s statement is not posted on the DFS Safe Haven or DFS press release page. News reports, however, say that the parents, whose names remain confidential, will continue to work voluntarily with the department. The statement does not say what services they will use. Baby Boy Ana is the first infant dropped off under Nebraska’s “new and improved” baby dump law. We hope he is the last. The easiest way to follow this case is through reading Children of the Corn. If any more news on this case surfaces, we’ll keep you updated. The most detailed account of yesterday’s hearing (so far) can be found at the Fremont Tribune. Welcome home, Baby Boy Ana!

The August 4 Lincoln Journal Star reported more details in the “safe haven” abandonment of Baby Box Butte, now known as Baby Boy Ana. According to court documents, recounted by reporter Joanne Young, but not released to the public: …show the baby boy still had a partial umbilical cord intact when dropped off by a woman who said she was the child’s aunt. Without giving hospital staff her name or the mother’s name, she provided some family medical history. Two days later, while HHS was working on placing the baby with foster parents who could adopt him, a woman contacted HHS, saying she was the biological mother. Officials met shortly after that with her and the alleged father, maternal grandparents and aunt… …Court documents show the mother, whose name has not been made public, reported she had not known she was pregnant until she went into labor. She had started birth control, but had stopped after three months. She then noticed she was gaining weight, but never larger than “one size in jeans.” She said she thought the “bloating” she was experiencing was from taking the birth control pill. She had a period after stopping the pill and another two Continue Reading →

Here’s updates on the July 20 Box Butte baby dump case. (Go directly below this entry for entries posted by Baby Love Child and me on the case). Thursday and Friday news reports (here, here, and here) circulated that the biological parents of the newborn had contacted authorities as early as July 22, to see about the return of the infant. Saturday, the Alliance Star Herald and Omaha World-Herald gave details. The papers report that on July 22, two days after the baby was left at Box Butte General Hospital, the mother, her relatives, and the baby’s father contacted the hospital, asking for the baby’s return. The baby had been put on a routine 48-hour hold and officials were preparing to release him to a foster-to-adopt family. HHS, consequently, decided to keep the baby for another night at the hospital where both parents visited him, and the mother cared and stayed with him. Reports in both papers are substantially the same. The quote below is from the Alliance Star-Herald, a more detailed account than appears in the World-Herald: The biological parents of a baby boy abandoned under the state’s Safe Haven Act had asked for the baby to be returned Continue Reading →