A family regained custody of their son more than a year after a nurse called CPS when she found fractures in the baby’s collarbone.
Kaylee Doss and her husband Landon had decided to take their baby, Rowan, to the emergency room when they felt a knot in their collarbone.
‘I’m thinking about cancer or something crazy. We have some bone problems in my family. So we decided to go ahead and take her to the hospital,” Kaylee said. People Magazine.
At first, the nurses comforted Kaylee, assuring her that her little angel would be okay. But after they examined her baby, the nurse’s tone completely changed.
“She looked at us and asked, ‘What have you done to this baby?'” Kaylee said. “She said, ‘For a child to be injured that badly, something serious has to have happened.’
Kaylee and Landon Doss took their daughter Rowan to the emergency room when they noticed a knot in her collarbone.
The couple learned that the 6-week-old boy had multiple fractures and was referred to CPS as an abused and neglected child.
The family proved their innocence by conducting medical research and seeking out the right doctors to find their son’s diagnosis.
The parents were informed that they called CPS and were not allowed to leave the hospital until they spoke with them.
And she just left. She didn’t tell us what was wrong with Rowan, she didn’t specify her injuries. She simply told us… that “we needed to get our story straight.”
The nurse had Kaylee sign her consent for further testing.
‘We signed thinking that they would do genetic tests on us. And they didn’t. “Instead, he received rape kits and full skeletal exams, as well as some extensive CT scans and MRIs,” she said.
A pediatrician specializing in child abuse revealed that she had between 8 and 13 fractures and told Kaylee and Landon to prepare to talk to a social worker. The nurse told the parents that Rowan was referred to CPS as an abused and neglected child.
The family was then put through a “safety plan,” which included a hospital room with large windows so staff could check on them.
They spent the night with Rowan, but the next day social workers informed Kaylee and Landon that their baby would be placed in foster care. Kaylee’s grandmother was offered a possible kindness.
When Kaylee and Landon noticed their daughter was hungry, they started giving her a bottle. The nurses quickly took the child from his arms and left the room.
“I have never faced trauma like this in my life. “I’ve been through some things, but nothing compares to having your child taken away from you and grieving for a child who is alive,” Kaylee says.
‘And that’s what we were doing. We were mourning the loss of a living child that we could see, but could not raise. There was a lot to do just sit and watch.’
The couple met with a social worker, who told them that Rowan “did not seem hurt, abused or neglected,” but they needed to “let the investigation take its course, which normally takes between 30 and 45 days.”
Although Kaylee’s grandmother was able to stay at the hospital after Kaylee and Landon were forced to leave, Rowan was eventually given to a hospital employee as a foster mother.
Three days later, the kinship placement was approved and the couple was able to begin seeing Rowan while he was in grandmother’s care.
‘I just remember how blessed I was because most people in our cases don’t get to see their children at all. And if they get to see them, it is one hour a week, maybe two hours a week if they are under two years old. So I was able to see her, but I wasn’t allowed to bathe her. They didn’t let me take her outside,” Kaylee said.
The couple visited Rowan at Kaylee’s grandparents’ house from June to November 2022 while they waited for developments in the case.
‘We would feed her, change her, play with her. We made sure to be there as much as possible, but we still missed her first laugh, her first crawl, and the first time she ate solids,” Kaylee said.
“I felt hopeless because we missed those key moments in his development and felt so stripped of everything you’re supposed to have after becoming a father.”
The couple eventually went to court and fought to get their son back. Kaylee refused to take responsibility for her son’s injuries.
After their statement, the couple signed a stipulation filed by DSS, which “contained the facts that the child abuse pediatrician believed to be true.” “They were their conclusions and their accusations, and they wanted us to recognize them.” His lawyer reiterated that this was not an admission of guilt.
While the judge deemed Rowan an abused and neglected child and that she would remain in state custody, they would continue with a reunification plan.
‘They wanted us to do parenting classes, sexual assault prevention classes, get a clinical cognitive assessment and a parenting capacity assessment. They wanted us to go to individual and marriage counseling,” Kaylee said.
“I was in fight or flight mode. I don’t know how I managed it. We had to go to DSS once a week for a visit supervised by a social worker, which was already daunting given the conditions.’
While undergoing state protocols, Kaylee sought medical answers to explain her daughter’s symptoms.
‘I had done a lot of research and found this article. One study involved 72 babies who had broken bones and problems similar to metabolic bone diseases. But everyone ended up having it,’ she said.
‘I put this article everywhere and said, ‘I swear this is the same thing.’ It was the same fractures, the same number of fractures, the same locations.’
He managed to contact the same doctor who conducted the study, Dr. Michael Hollick. The parents were granted permission to take their daughter to see the doctor in Boston.
‘He did a genetic test. He tested me, my mother, and Rowan, and all three of us passed the Beighton scoring system. He had eight of the nine markers. Rowan and my mom were seven,” Kaylee said.
‘He explained all of our medical problems and vitamin deficiencies. There wasn’t a single thing in Rowan’s medical records that she had called a doctor about, concerned, that she wasn’t related to. That explains the fractures so early in childhood.
Kaylee and Landon continued to cooperate throughout 2023. In December, the case was finally closed.
The judge apologized to the family of three.
“I felt like it was a breath of fresh air to receive an apology from someone acknowledging the fact that we had been through hell and back. But it was a little bitter because I didn’t want to be congratulated for getting my daughter back from the state,” Kaylee said.
‘I finally feel the calm after the storm. “We can finally breathe and are walking our healing path as a family.”