Sadie’s 8th Birthday

November 12, 2022

2 days ago, it was Sadie Evelyn Marie Napholz’s 8th birthday. Although, her name has been legally changed to Costillo since she was 3, she will always be a Napholz to me – just like her mom, Amanda, will always be a Napholz even though her name was never legally changed. Napholz is a name that reflects and invites love-even when life isn’t perfect-or maybe especially when life isn’t perfect. The last few days I’ve gone through Sadie’s baby pictures. There is a picture of the 3 of them (Paul, Amanda and Sadie) taken within 24 hours of her birth that speaks volumes of how they will always be intertwined-through genetics, through love, and through a soul that will always surround her in a way that he couldn’t here on earth. I was there the day she was born. So was her Grandma Jackie. We waited in the waiting room as Amanda had a C-section and Paul was by her side. We were both dozing and Jackie heard the nursery song being played that meant a new baby was born. The doctor came out of the delivery room and snuck us back to see the baby. Jackie was on it. She was snapping pictures-the same pictures I was looking at this week. I could only stare at her-in awe and with a wave of love that was the same but different from the birth of my own boys.

After Amanda, Paul and Sadie were back in their hospital room, visitors were flowing. Her new aunts and uncles, grandparents, neighbors, and friends were ecstatic over the birth of Sweet Sadie. My husband, Tom, was holding Sadie at one point and I remember Paul walking up to him and proudly saying, “move over. there’s a new dad in town”. Amanda and Paul were beaming and so peaceful. If you see the picture, you’ll see and feel all of that.

It didn’t take long for that to change. It didn’t matter that Sadie was where she belonged and with her birth parents. She was born with NAS, Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. She was born addicted to opiates as Amanda and Paul both battled substance use disorder. That status should have invited social services in the room to wrap their family into services so that Sadie’s parents could heal and raise her. But that status ripped her away from a very large family and community that loved her and wanted to be a part of her life. That status put a scarlet letter on my daughter in law that still burns a whole in her heart. That status took a healing opportunity for their little family and turned it into years of hell fighting through the DCFS system, recurrences of their disease and absolutely nothing founded that they couldn’t heal and be the parents Sadie needed.

I know what I’m writing is controversial because the rhetoric, the shame and the stigma of substance use disorder leads people to believe that those who use substances suffer are morally inept and selfish. However, it is a treatable disease but that same rhetoric will keep families from healing-and generations will continue to be victims of the carnage of a screwed up system. I’ve always felt that Sadie was stolen and I still do. A woman in our county that is fighting for kids in exactly these situations-because she was raised in foster care-called DCFS child trafficking. I can honestly say that the way this was treated was very much in line with that.

Being raised as a Costillo is at least a piece of genetics as Fred is Amanda’s father and therefore Sadie’s grandfather. Justyna, Amanda’s step mom is Sadie’s step grandmother. Having a child 2 years older than Sadie was convenient because while they were supposed to be keeping Sadie safe while Paul and Amanda healed, they told their daughter that Sadie was her sister and when Sadie began to speak, she called them mommy and daddy (Justyna would’ve flipped her lid if she called her grandma). To this day that I am writing this, Sadie doesn’t know that Amanda is her mother and Evie is her sister. Fred and Justyna hung that letter of addiction high over their heads and no matter what they did, they would never be good enough for even a visit with their daughter. Despite telling Amanda and Paul prior to signing their rights over that if they did the right things, they would be a part of her life. They didn’t tell them that they would never do the right things and nothing they did would ever be good enough for them to change the lie that they chose to weave for Sadie and the family that they created with someone else’s child.

When Sadie was 2 and Paul and Amanda were at one of the lowest points in their lives, they chose to sign Sadie over to Fred and Justyna. There were two drivers behind this and it’s important to add that the biggest driver was the intense love for their daughter. They were promised to be a part of her life by Fred and Justyna. After signing Sadie over, Paul and Amanda saw Sadie 1 X/year. Our family lost the ability to see her at all. Justyna said it was too stressful and of course it would be, because Anabelle and Sadie didn’t know the truth. The other driver was from DCFS telling them that if they did not sign over their rights, it would affect their future children.

Losing Sadie was the second hardest period in my life. Clearly the hardest period continues to be losing Paul.

I personally, more than anyone really, walked this journey with the two of them.  I saw the highs and the lows. And I never, ever saw anything but pure unselfish adoration and love for Sadie in any point of the highs or the lows. Frustration, sadness, self loathing, and so many other emotions were mixed in but at the end of the day, they signed Sadie over because they knew that she was happy in the world she was in since she was 2 months old. They did not want to rip her away from the only family that she knew.

Funny. With all of the pain. All of the bullshit. All of the anger that I have felt. My anger was not directed at Paul and Amanda. Watching the two of them fight while being so mentally ill from the substance use disorder that claimed so many years of their lives, left me more with sadness. My anger has been towards the systems and the family members who conveniently chose to discard the importance of their presence and healing in Sadie’s life. I have vowed that when Sadie comes into our family, she will feel the unconditional love that is her birthright and that I will never be a part of lying to her. She will know that there are people out there that she can trust to be truth tellers.

We love you, Sadie Evelyn Marie Napholz.