A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: Choosing Motherhood Rescued Both Lives.
Eight months pregnant and in severe pain, Stephanie Rosell arrived at the medical facility after her infection worsened up her legs. Jobless and without shelter, cut off from her relatives, she stayed in a makeshift shelter she had assembled in a acquaintance's garden. She was also addicted to fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she grew increasingly fearful. The onset of withdrawal began. She bent over the bedside and vomited.
Stephanie finally broke down. “Listen, I gotta go. I have to go home and get high.”
She had taken the drug before arriving at the hospital and had just enough time to get treated before she was compelled to leave to relapse. She thought she still had several weeks to find a way to become sober and have this baby.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the condition in her limbs was severe, but medical staff detected she also had an leakage of amniotic fluid. The nurse, her nurse, warned her: if she walked out, she and her baby would not survive.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie measured quantities of fentanyl periodically, knowing that withdrawal could endanger her and the baby. Once the baby was born Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in rehabilitation.
Five days later, on 12 November 2022, Stephanie delivered a daughter weighing just over four pounds – premature, small but alive.
When the attendant inquired if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “not now.” She was emotionless. Her pain relief did not work, her previous intake of fentanyl had been provided four hours before delivery.
She felt sick. Unprepared to be a mother. Undeserving.
Stephanie had tried to get clean several times during pregnancy, and felt awful each time she was unsuccessful. She felt hopeless, berating herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An doctor told her to “only” stop using. Even her supplier would not provide to her when she became clearly expecting.
“Yet I was unable,” she said. “I had to seek support.”
The common assumption that her affection for her child would make her quit only led to increased guilt and self-harm, a trigger for her to relapse. Yet she could not easily command her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a long-term illness.
The baby was taken to the NICU. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was attached to tubes and leads, so small she thought she would harm her. Holding her for the first time, she felt nothing. “I just stared at her and was like, ‘What am I going to do with you?’” She continued to doubt she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to give her child the name Izzie, after the professional who provided support to her.
Hospital staff told her about a care center, a unique recovery environment where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are supported as a unit, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is diagnosed with infant withdrawal condition frequently, infants are still rushed to special care and medicated while their mothers face custody evaluations. But a limited but expanding group of centers like the care home is showing an important truth: when parents and infants remain united, outcomes improve, foster placements fall and future expenses reduce.
It took Stephanie a while to gather the courage to call, but she ultimately reached out. After verifying her eligibility for the program, two staff members came to bring her to the facility.
She departed the institution still in withdrawal, fearful and unsure about what would happen next.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still was concerned that authorities would come take Izzie – even though she was uncertain about motherhood. The anxiety remained: that at any time, someone could enter and separate them.
For the beginning period, Stephanie stayed withdrawn. “I avoided interaction,” she said. “I lacked confidence at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about survival. Addiction came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that bond was fragile. The individuals she cared for always found ways to cause pain. She was unable to care for herself, much less anyone else.
Every day, staff from the facility transported her to a clinic for methadone, given as medication. Slowly, she was embracing sobriety.
She utilized each moment when not in sessions with Izzie, and could see that her baby was obtaining necessary support she needed. Her infant faced feeding challenges at first, with intolerance to some formulas and pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed dietary support. She also had heightened sensory issues and required an specialist – all frequent conditions for babies born with NAS.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I could do this. I could be a mom.
On a day prior to the holiday, Stephanie sat in the visitation area, where those still using can come for supervised visits with their babies. A support specialist, a mentor, visited with her own five kids in tow to drop off cookies. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was seated on the ground holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in awe of the little newborn in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. Such issues were irrelevant.”
She keeps a photo of the moment. She is wearing dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a cap with a bobble on her head, resting on the floor with the exit nearby. She is slender. Her head is tilted forward so you miss her features. She is holding Izzie up on her knee for the children to see and they are gathered around, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the parents: “Why are there no men?” The moms tried to explain that the fathers had obligations, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there given the chance.
“Once I become a parent,” Jacob said, “I plan to be a great parent. They will know they are valued.”
Stephanie and the specialist made eye contact. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand that infants need affection, then I was able. I could parent.”
Approaches for managing infants affected by substances have been used for a long time.
The evaluation method was developed in 1975|
