H is for Hawk (Men of ALPHAbet Mountain)

I nodded. “That happens. She’s a baby. Crying is the only means of communication she has. Remember that. At this point, babies are primal. They care about their basic needs and bonding with the people closest to them. That’s it. If a baby is crying, it means they need something. And that something might just be attention.” I reached down and picked up the baby. “But I would say right now she needs a diaper change.”

“Oh,” Hawk said. He sounded relieved but also upset with himself for not knowing what to do.

“Do you know how to change her?” I asked.

He looked sheepish. “I looked it up on YouTube, but I’m not sure I did everything right.”

“Alright. I’ll show you.”

I handed Rose to Hawk and went to a nearby cabinet to get supplies to change the baby. I instructed him to lay her out on the examination table and went through each step carefully. He watched with rapt attention, nodding along the way like he was learning a complicated process he needed to memorize. When I was finished, I got a clean blanket and showed him how to swaddle her. The warmth and snug pressure around her, along with the fresh diaper, calmed her, and within seconds, Rose was asleep.

Hawk looked at her in relieved awe as he took her into his arms. “Thank you so much.”

“You just need to learn how to recognize what she needs and address it. Remember, there’s never a moment when she is crying for no reason. If she is crying, there is something she needs. Food. Attention. Reassurance. A clean diaper. Relief from pressure or pain from bubbles in her belly.”

Hawk’s eyes got a little sad. “I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby. Every time she cries, I panic.”

“That’s how a lot of people feel when they are first tasked with taking care of a baby. You’ll be fine. Now, I can’t protect you, or Rose, from Dr. Sutton or anyone else calling Child Protective Services.”

“CPS?” Hawk asked. He sounded right on the edge of frantic. Not that I could blame him. He’d been thrown into a situation he never expected and didn’t necessarily want, and now had to figure out what he was going to do. “Could they really come and take her? Just because I’m not her father?”

“It’s not that you’re not her father,” I said. “It’s that you’re not her guardian. Technically, if it is more than just a very temporary situation, she needs to be under the care of a parent or a legal guardian. CPS can come and take her from your care and put her into the foster system until the situation is sorted out. Now, you need to make an important decision …”

“I want to take care of her,” he said without even letting me finish the sentence. “She should be with family. I don’t know what’s going on in Kim’s head and what she’s dealing with. I don’t know if she’s going to come back eventually or what. Either way, Rose shouldn’t be thrown away because of it.”

He sounds impassioned and determined, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do to take care of this baby. I nodded.

“Alright. If you want to be her caregiver, you will need to go through a legal process to be declared her guardian. You may be able to maintain custody of her while that process is underway. I might be able to help keep her with you, but I can’t make any promises,” I said.

“Anything you can do, I would appreciate so much,” Hawk said. He looked down at her in his arms, then back at me. “Could you help me? Teach me how to take care of her?” I stammered for a second, unsure of what to say. “Please. I’ve never done this before, and I don’t know what I’m doing, but I don’t want to risk losing my niece because of it. Could you just help me learn the basics?”

I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t leave him in this kind of a lurch. As much as it still gave me a tight pain in the middle of my chest to look at him, and even though I’d already been reprimanded by my boss for my involvement, he obviously just wanted to do what was right for the baby. I nodded.

“Alright.”

“Thank you so much. Can you come to my place? That way I can learn in her actual environment,” he said.

This was getting to a whole new level, but I’d already agreed, so I nodded again. “My shift is over in ten hours. If that works for you, I can come over then.”

“That would be perfect. Thank you.”

“Until then, the baby will cry. It’s what babies do. Just remember, if she’s crying, she needs you. All you have to do is figure out what she needs and give it to her. Try the big three. Feed her, change her, hold her.”