Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 914 | Holistic Parents vs. the State of Iowa | Guest: Emily Donlin

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

Today we're joined by Emily Donlin, an Iowa mother who is under investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services after her newborn baby's umbilical cord tested positive for cocaine even though she has never consumed the drug. What ensued over the following few months was a nightmare for the family, including endless drug tests that all came back negative, the threat of removing the kids from the parents' care, and the installation of a state legal guardian over the baby. Emily shares the story from the beginning to where the family is at now and why, despite some wins in court, there's still a big battle ahead to clear her name. --- Timecodes: (01:08) Being told about the positive test (10:24) First DHS interaction (17:15) Dealing with DHS & supervision (37:00) Government accountability  (51:40) DHS doubles down (56:06) Retesting the umbilical cord (59:00) Dismissal (01:02:08) Child abuse registry & next steps --- Today's Sponsors: A'Del — go to adelnaturalcosmetics.com and enter promo code "ALLIE" for 30% off your first order! Good Ranchers — get 10% OFF your box today at GoodRanchers.com – make sure to use code 'ALLIE' when you subscribe. Patriot Mobile — go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 972-PATRIOT and use promo code 'FRIDAY76' to get a free smart phone with activation! Brave Books — go to BraveBooks.com and get BRAVE’s newest book free when you subscribe to their Freedom Island Book Club! Use code ALLIE to get a FREE book and 20% off your subscription. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 603 | How CPS & Foster Care Corruption is Killing Kids | Guest: Naomi Schaefer Riley https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-603-how-cps-foster-care-corruption-is-killing-kids/id1359249098?i=1000558186236 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. An Iowa mother has been accused by the state of using cocaine while she was pregnant with her son and since then has been embroiled in a conflict with DHS over custody of her two boys. She claims she has never done drugs in her life. She doesn't even take pain reliever.

So today she's here to tell us her story, what has really gone on the nightmare of the past few months of trying to protect her family and to protect her sons from the predation of the government. You will be absolutely blown away by this story. And there's a lot to learn, I think, from her testimony. This episode is brought to you by our friends at GoToDranters. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code

Ali. Emily, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I really appreciate it. Hi, Ali. Thanks. I'm glad. I'm happy to be here. Yeah. So I'm bringing you on to talk about your story, which I originally, I think I saw it on Instagram. You posted a video that just, it broke my heart because you were talking about what happened with your son, who is now eight months old. months, yeah. So I'll just kind of give you the floor. Tell us what happened. Yeah. So I've never, I guess, had so many people listening to me. And so if I bear with me if I have trouble. So my son is eight months old, my son Paul. He was born at the end of March. And he was actually born in an unplanned home birth. And we, he was born healthy and it was actually a really,

maybe at some point I'll tell that story too. It's really amazing. But he was born and we went into the hospital afterwards to just, you know, make sure everyone is fine and that he's okay. So you didn't plan this. This was just a very precipitous birth. It just happened really fast. Yes. And like, uh-oh. And so he was born at home. That wasn't the intention. Yes. No, that was not the intention. I actually love home birth, but we had some financial struggles. And so we decided to go through insurance. And that's why we went through the hospital. But his birth, no, it was not planned to be at home.

It actually wasn't precipitous necessarily. It lasted about 10 hours. And my first labor was, I think, 28 hours. And so we really thought we had at least five months. hours or something. So you have, you have an older son and how old is he? Yes, he's two and a half. He's two and a half. So this was your second birth. So as you said, it wasn't like it was super fast. You just thought you had more time. Yeah, exactly. And so we went into the hospital afterwards and everything checked out okay. He was perfectly healthy, no concerns or anything. I had some

complications in the hospital, but we were able to resolve them. And then we, we, We went home and settled in. And two weeks later, we got a knock on our door unannounced, and it was DHS with a sheriff, and they told us that our son tested positive for cocaine. And DHS stands for Department of Health and Human Services, DHS. Yeah. So in other, like some places, child protective services, CPS, same kind of thing. Yeah.

And so when they knocked on our door, we were completely shocked and blindsided and extremely fearful. Because when you get a knock on your door from DHS, you just kind of jump to the possibility of them coming to remove your children. So tell us about that moment. You open the door and you say two people, or however many, however many people was, two people that you. didn't know, I'm guessing, and they're, you know, I don't know what kind of like official guard they had on, probably very serious. Were you just completely confused at first? Were you like, this is, this has got to be a mistake. You've got the wrong person. Yeah, a lot of confusion. I actually was recovering. I hemorrhaged in the hospital after the birth. And so I became

anemic and I was, you know, obviously had a really large, like, harder. recovery from like my past birth. And so I, I was also like very weak and I had, I was nursing my son. And and so you can kind of imagine like the hormones and the emotions that are going on at that time. And so, yeah, all of that was going on. And so when we answered the door, we were very shocked. We were extremely upset. And yeah, we kind of just didn't know what to say. And, you know, you say all these things like, well, that's impossible. I've never done cocaine.

I've never done cocaine in my life, actually. Yeah. And so they, when they, when you open the door, did, were there any pleasant trees? Like, how did they say, this is why we're here? All I can remember really is that she said, hi, my name is, you know, her name with DHS. And, you know, she asked me, are you Emily Donlin? She said, are you the mother of Paul Donlin? And then I answered yes and yes.

And then she said, well, Paul tested positive for cocaine. And then, yeah, at that point, we just kind of said, you know, everything we could think of. She, we'll get into more of this, I guess, in a little bit. But she didn't really, like, lead us through the situation. And so we were kind of, like, confused, like, what are we supposed to do? You know, most people, they don't have, they don't know anything about DHS until they knock on their door. They don't know how they're supposed to react. So now looking back, I would have said you can wait outside.

I'm going to call our lawyer or I'm going to call a lawyer before I let them in. But, you know, we didn't know that at that point. So they came into your house. I'm sure that you were just desperate to prove that this was a mistake. Yeah. Because you said that you've never done cocaine in your life, right? Never. Okay.

And I mean, so how did they, and maybe this is what you're about to say, but they said he tested positive for cocaine. How, what did they test? Yes. So they took an 8 to 10 inch sample from my his umbilical cord. Right. And they tested it. They send it to, I don't believe they do the testing at the hospital. They actually send it to a lab.

And so then they tested at the lab and received the result. They say this is for continuation of care. So they say if a baby is exposed to cocaine, we need to know, or not just cocaine, but drugs in utero. We need to know what that is so that we can continue to care for the child through their withdrawal if they're having it. They say that this is the purpose of this drug test. However, we did not ever receive any continuation of care for our child. So there was no call from the hospital following up. They didn't even receive, in our case, they didn't receive the test until seven days after the birth anyway.

And so. And the hospital, you didn't get a call from the hospital saying you got this positive test. And I need to make sure that your child is okay. You just got the knock on the door from DHS. And that's all they said. They said, tested positive for cocaine. We found it in the umbilical cord. and you, I'm sure, as I said, desperate to prove your innocence, you just invited them in, right?

Yes. And so tell us what happened from there. Yeah. So we had faith that they were going to, obviously, you know, we have nothing to hide. So we're going to let them in. We're going to tell them the story. And obviously they're going to see that I didn't do cocaine, that this isn't what happened, you know. And so we trusted that, that they were going to see that.

they came in, we sat down at our table, our dining table, we told her the whole story of the birth and all that and, you know, well, could there be a false positive, you know, could there be a mislabel, could there be all of these things? And, you know, we're a very holistic family, so we, you know, there are several things that we are concerned about ingredients in our food, things that, you know, medications were taking. I don't even take ibuprofen if I have a headache. I don't give our son's Tylenol, things like that. So we explained all of this to her to try to just let her know who we are and how upsetting this is. And we were also very concerned about the potential baby that was exposed cocaine.

If it wasn't my son and it was a mix up, you know, what happened with that baby? Right. And if it is my son, if my son was exposed to cocaine, you know, that's a huge problem for us. Right. And there is no possibility that there was any cocaine in your home. No. No. And so as you were telling them all of this, what was their reaction? Did it seem like they were like, oh, yeah, okay. Did it seem like they were kind of responsive to what you were saying? Yeah, she seemed pretty responsive. You could tell, you know, she didn't really know what to think. I've, you know, later on I heard that like they get this all the time. obviously, if somebody tests positive, they say, well, I didn't do it, you know, or it's, it's a false positive. So we had that playing against us, right? Because many, most people in this situation, if they were actually caught doing drugs, they're not going to say, well, this is true, probably the first time. So I think she was kind of confused. But, you know, she looked at our

home. She asked to see the kids. And, you know, obviously there were no safety concerns. And typically they would create a safety plan after that, to my knowledge, but she never created a safety plan. She told us, you know, we don't have any behavioral indicators, so she wasn't concerned about, you know, the situation. She didn't see any signs of drug use, obviously, in our home or anything. So, yeah, I think she was confused by this situation. Hey, this is Steve Deast.

If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen

wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. So you had denied newborn vaccines, which lots of parents do, vitamin K, hep B, the eye ointment. I think I read something about D-TAP too, but they don't give that right at birth. I don't think so. No, I think it's the hep B is what they do. Yeah.

So did they, did the hospital push back on that? Like, did you feel like they were kind of questioning your abilities as a mother because of your holistic approach? Like, was that playing through your mind when all of this was happening? You know, it's really interesting because I thought that's how it would be because of, you know, the things you hear like when you are wanting to do alternative choices like that for your children. But I actually felt I did feel like they were respectful of all of our choices. we did our prenatal care with, they have a really great midwife department at this hospital,

which is why we chose this hospital. And there, you know, a lot of them come from the home birth space, like a more holistic approach. And even the nurses that weren't ones that I had interacted with before, I really did feel like I was respected of my choices. I don't know if that's actually. true. I mean, it sounds like they, they saw a reason to do a drug test on my cord. So maybe it was just a forward facing, like make me feel good, make you feel like you're respected. But, but really, we're going to check a box that you are, you know, somebody we need to test. Yeah. So let's talk about

that for a second because you kind of were told, I remember in your story, you kind of were told conflicting things that, oh, we test everyone to see if their babies have been exposed. And so, we're to drugs for the continuity of care purpose, as you said. But then you also heard, well, no, we only check babies if we feel like there is cause, if we have a reason to believe that their parents might be on drugs. So did you find out the truth about that? Which one it was? And do you know why they decided to test you? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't think I really know yet exactly what happened or what they typically do. I have heard that, yes, they test everybody. This is a county hospital also. So keep that in mind, it's government funded. It's also in a very, you know,

lower income neighborhood. So yes, I've heard that they test everyone, but then I have also spoken with my midwife and she said that they have indicators, which if you have indicators, you're not testing everyone because why would you have indicators? Yeah. I don't know. That's just a question that I had. The indicators are there's, I believe there's five indicators. I don't know all of them, but I know that in my case.

So I was told by the nurse that anybody that has a baby outside of the hospital, they check it as precipitous labor. So precipitous labor is defined as one to two hours, right? It's a very quick labor. So I was told this by my nurse that, um, you know, that's what they're labeling my birth as is precipitous. And I said, well, you know, it wasn't precipitous. Yeah. I labored at 6 p.m. to from 6 p.m. the evening before to 6 a.m. about and my son was born around like 630, 640 around there. So I told her this and then she said, well, we don't have any other way to label it. So, so then I was labeled labeled as precipitous.

And precipitous labor is an indicator that you should. should test an umbilical cord or a baby. I didn't know that. I feel like I know a lot of women who have had precipitous labors and I didn't know that that could be an indication of abuse. I don't know if it's every hospital's policy. I'm not sure. But that's from my experience with this, at least in what I've been told.

So precipitous labor is one. And then none or no no prenatal or late prenatal care is also an indicator. And so I know for sure the precipitous labor one was something that they had marked me as. Okay. So that's possibly why they tested. And so what happened after the DHS personnel talked to you? How did that conversation end? And then what happened after that?

So this whole conversation was so confusing because we kept asking like what the next steps are. and like how many times are you going to come here? Are we going to be super? Like she told us we will go through, we will undergo a 20-day investigation. And during which she would then, you know, whatever, they always say, she said so many times we're going to create a plan.

And we kept asking, what is that plan? Yeah. And why do we need it? Yeah. And then she would kind of say, well, it could be this or it could be this. She would give us like all of these vague options. And we would just keep saying like, well, I'm confused. Are you coming every week or not?

Or what's going on here? And then she said, well, let's create your plan because I'm not creating a safety plan for the children. So let's create your plan. And we're like, okay, well, well, what does that mean? And then we eventually just decided that my mother, we live in my mom's home. And so we decided that my mother would supervise me with the kids when she was home and then my husband would supervise me with the kids. And they were telling you that that's what had to happen or else what? Honestly, I think at this point we didn't know what the or else was.

We kind of just were so fearful that we just said, you know, okay, well, I guess that's the way forward. which looking back, it sounds, I'm like I would have done so many things differently now. Yeah. But in that moment, you know, I mean, we should have recorded the whole meeting. DHS doesn't have to give you any, any documentation of your visits or what's said or what plan is created. Wow. Nothing. And so I, you know, and so we had this, it was probably 30 minutes that we sat down with her and we told her, you know, everything that I've said.

And she looked at the house, saw the kids, you know, all of these things. things created the plan and told us about the investigation. And, you know, she said, oh, you know, we would do a random drug test. And yeah, I mean, we felt we didn't have any other choice. We just accepted, accepted that. We also, at this point, we had faith that, you know, the truth will come out, right? Like, I didn't, I obviously didn't do this. And so somebody's going to see that. And so we, we, we, we really weren't fearful of this investigation. Okay, so what happened then from there after they left your home? So she left. She supposedly did further investigating. She called my midwife and asked, you know, is this, is it possible there could be a negative drug test? My midwife, of course,

said, no, it's impossible. I don't know if the, if the social worker was told my midwife about me or if she was just asking, you know, like, well, do any of these tests, you know, come up false positive? So she was told by the hospital that it's impossible for there to be a false positive. And then she, I guess, ran a background check on me and, you know, made a few other calls or something. And then probably a couple weeks later, she scheduled a three-month hair test, which I went in and did, and it came back negative. And what is that exactly? How do they test? So they take a sample of your hair and they test for, you know, I think it's a five panel or something. So they're testing for all of these drugs and one of them is cocaine and they send it to a lab. And yeah, so I was negative for all of them, of course. And then my husband at that point and I, we were like, okay, we're good, right? We have a three-month hair test. Like, of course, this will prove that there's some discrepancy here between the tests.

Right. And that was not the case. were then told that, well, actually, the three-month hair test had nothing to do with the positive test and proving my innocence. It had everything to do with a second allegation, which we weren't told about. The second allegation was that there were drugs in our home. Nobody has been in our home except for the social worker at that point. So we were thoroughly confused why there would be a second allegation. I asked her, you know, where did this allegation come from? She said, well, you know, sometimes they just attach it to the positive test.

Sometimes they don't. I don't know. Okay. So it's kind of arbitrary. So they said it had nothing to do with the original accusation that you were taking drugs. And that's why it showed up in the umbilical cord. But it had something to do with that, right? Like I think, like it seems like they were making the assumption that the reason that it showed up on the umbilical cord, they say, was because you had drugs in the

home. This wasn't an allegation that they made afterward. Right. Okay. So it was at the same time. Yeah. They had no proof of that. It was just kind of an assumption that you must have drugs in your home. Yeah. Like it is, yeah, it is assumed if you're taking drugs, you know, and it shows up on the test that there would be drugs in your home at that point. Yeah. Okay. And so they just decided to attach that allegation. So they say, they're saying, while the three-month hair test doesn't prove that you don't have drugs in your home. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Or I'm sorry. Sorry. No, it's saying that actually does prove that we don't have drugs in the home. Oh, the three month. Okay. So, oh, got it. Do you get what I'm saying? Yes. Okay. So it disproves that, but yeah, not the original accusation that you were taking drugs at the time that he was being born. Okay. Sorry,

it's confusing. No, no. You said it clearly. I just, I think I got it mixed up. So continue. After that, they were like, nope, sorry. You're still on the hook for. for this allegation that we made back here. Yes, yeah. So they said, well, actually this isn't doing anything to, like, prove the innocence. We can't argue with the doctor. They said several times to me. We can't argue with the doctor.

This random doctor that has probably never seen us. Yeah. That's crazy. So the doctor can say anything and the government can't argue with them. That's wild. Apparently. I don't know. That's a good question.

But so, so yeah. So she said, well, this has nothing to do with the original podcast. positive, but it does, you know, combat the other allegation of drugs in the home. And so you're not founded for the drugs in the home, but I have to found this case based on the positive test. So essentially, it was automatically founded from the beginning. And, and, and so DHS uses all of this language that regular people don't understand and they fail to define it. So we ask this. We asked, you know, what is this, what is founded mean? And we were given this very confusing description of the different levels of, you know, there's not confirmed, then there's confirmed, and then there's founded.

So not confirmed would be the best case scenario that, oh, neither of these are confirmed. We can go about our lives. I believe there's, you know, I don't think they hold on to anything. They probably save the report or something, but, you know, we're free. were good. Confirmed means, oh, it was, it was confirmed, but, you know, you're not placed on a registry. I believe that's the difference. So they established the case because of the original allegation. So after that three-month hair test, what was your plan? So after the three-month hair test, we, we then, that concludes the 20 day investigation. And then we were told that this case

will be founded. Again, we still didn't really know what that meant. But then probably about a week later, we received in the mail the founded report saying, I am founded for a case of child abuse and I am now on the child abuse registry. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I mean, we lost our minds. never they have never brought any evidence against you except that they say that they got a positive test from the umbilical cord but beyond that yeah that's it yeah wow so what what did you do when you got that letter uh we we were just like extremely upset obviously we're like this is wrong this is crazy uh how did it even go this far i mean we we really had faith that dhs was going to understand the situation but our social worker just seemed to be like you know well i

I haven't made a mistake. I can't argue with the doctor, you know, making all of these excuses. I'm just trying to do my job. You know, obviously, or she said, this is an interesting case, but, you know, I don't know what to do. She said that several times. Okay. Yeah, I know. And so anyway, so we were founded. And then we were told because of the founded report, now we, now the next step would be to do voluntary services is what they call it. So these voluntary services are an actually. voluntary. They're, you know, you can volunteer or else I'm going to go to the court and court order you to do these services. So, I mean, they like to make you feel good and, and, and, you know, everything's all fine and good. But if you don't do what we say, what we tell you to do, we're going to take you to court. So we had some back and forth with our social worker about these voluntary services. And what were they? That was our question. Oh, what are they? and she would not, she could not and would not tell us what these services are.

She said, you have to agree to these before, you know, I can order them for you. Well, okay, well, what do they look like? Can you give us an example? Can you give us what? We don't know what these services are. We're utterly confused. What is this service? And my husband kept asking her or saying, you know, I can't agree to something that I don't

know what it is. And she said, well, you have to because there's not, you know, the payment has to. to go through. We have to check the box of agreeing before we can send somebody out here. Somebody needs to get paid. So we couldn't get past this with her. We kept saying, you know, well, well, this doesn't make any sense at all. So I don't even know what, do you have any idea, like what services mean? Like when they say we're going to send someone out there, like, does it mean an investigation? Does it mean like something you have to prove? Is it like, an interview with the social worker or what?

I'm just totally ignorant when it comes to that. So our speculation at this point is that, you know, a plan could be a wide range of things. It could be weekly visits. It could be daily visits. It could be a safety plan. It could be more drug tests. It could be a substance abuse evaluation.

So that's what they meant by services. To my understanding now. Okay. Yeah. But, I mean, she. told us things like, well, we have to bring out the next social worker so that they can get to know you. And at this point, we lost all faith in DHS. We're like, no, we're not, we're not trying to get to know someone. I'm not interested in getting to know a social worker. And, and they,

they weren't even here from the beginning. And so they're just going to take what you said as fact with our case. And I don't know what you're saying. Yeah. To validate this founded report. I mean, you got to have some, you probably have to have some. You probably have to have some explanation. Yeah. On the back end to found a report. Is that right? And, and I don't know what that is. I don't know what she's telling her supervisor, which, why she, why this is okay to found a report. So we were just totally like, you know, no, you got to tell us what these are before we can agree to them. And then she said, well, it sounds like you're declining services. When you decline services and you go to China. What? A China case. So it's a child in need of assistance. Oh, okay. So sorry, I know that

sounded yeah whoa that's a that's not to say that's crazy you go to that before but this is awful too no you don't travel to china okay so child in need of assistance yeah so that is an escalation from where it was just a founded report so she said you've got to do these services I don't know if what you want to keep your child if you don't want to go to jail or if you don't want this to get worse just vague kind of yeah and you didn't you just wanted to know what the services were, she said, well, we got to send someone out there so someone can get paid before we can actually define what these services are so you can agree to them. Yeah. And so when you just ask for clarity and said, I'm not going to agree to those until you tell us what they are.

She said, you're going to decline this. And then that's where China, the child in need of assistance case came in. So tell us what is different about the child in need of assistance case versus what you had, which was just the founded case with the services. So the difference is when you go to a China case, you're moved into the judicial system. So now you're moved into the legal court. DHS is able to circumvent the court. This is how they're able to remove a child without a criminal conviction or anything like that. So they like to keep it outside because they like to, in my opinion, they like to be in control of the situation. And they actually, I believe, would prefer to not go to a China case because then they can control everything that happens. Because when you go to a China case,

obviously there's a judge that, you know, oversees everything. So. So, but when you go to a China case, there's this term. It's called adjudication. I'm not, I'm not super clear on what this is. To the best of my knowledge, adjudication is DHS involvement as ordered by the court. And so DHS will come in with recommendations for the family and then the court will order if the court agrees will order those recommendations. So that could be child removal. That could be, you know, other requirements from DHS, things like that. And so, yeah, it's an escalation out of this world of DHS into the court. Okay, gotcha. So after that happened, and when she told you that, I'm sure that that worried you, just not knowing what that meant. And it sounds like, okay,

this is getting more serious, what the heck is going to happen? So first, before we move on to what happened next, during this time, how many weeks have passed at this point? So when, so I believe it was probably five weeks when we received the founded report. And were you having to have like supervision with your, when you were with your kids. I mean, your mom and husband. Yeah, that's all we have. Okay. So there was no threat at that point of them taking your child or anything like that. You didn't know, but you were able to stay home. He was able to stay with you. Yeah. And all of that. Right. But I can't even imagine the added anxiety during that postpartum period, especially a traumatic one where you almost, where you were hemorrhaging at the hospital. Yeah. Dealing with all.

of this too. Oh my gosh. It was just so so much chaos, you know, and. It's scary. Yeah. And when you don't, again, like nobody knows about DHS until they knock on their door. And so you just don't really know. I mean, we also didn't, couldn't financially, like, get a, get a lawyer initially. Yeah. And so we just, you know, we said, okay, well, we're going to, you know, obviously I'm not doing drugs, so we think we're going to be okay, you know, we'll keep testing and it's going to come up. I'm not using, you know, all of this stuff. So we did have faith that, you know, it would work out. But in hindsight, yeah, we should have had a lawyer immediately. Yeah. So, okay, after it escalated, then what happened from there?

So it escalated to a child in need of assistance. And then at that point, we received court appointed lawyers, both my husband and I. And at that point, that our children received a guardian ad litem. And the guardian ad litem is a lawyer that represents our children's best interest in the court. And so then we had our first hearing and it was decided, you know, you don't go into adjudication until all parties agree that this is necessary. And we obviously weren't in agree with anything up at this point. So we contested the China. My husband and I went into it thinking we were going to be able to like go on the stand and tell our story and present our evidence, but that's not what happened. We went into the court and there was some

discussion. We submitted 25 pieces of evidence before the court date so that everyone could see it. This included a 12-month hair test that we did on our own out of pocket. And when it says 12 months, does that mean it's able to detect in the previous 12 months whether you had taken the drugs that it's testing for? Okay. Yeah. And we did that. so that it would cover the entirety of my pregnancy. Right, right. Because we were told when we did the three-month hair test, oh, well, you could have used in month zero through six.

You could have still used. And what's interesting is... So why wouldn't they have just ordered a 12-month test themselves? Exactly. That's our point. And it's also the one that we did, the 12-month is with the same lab, Omega Labs, same lab. And so really, it would have been so simple for them to do the exact same test

to actually like do that. You know, my, my lawyers like presents the question, you know, this took eight months. Who's paying for this? The taxpayers. Yeah. All the lawyers, all the court hearings, like all of the time. You know, we could have saved all of this taxpayer, payer money if we would have just done a 12-month test or from the beginning. If we would have just retested the sample from the beginning. So all of this is wasted. And, you know, my family has suffered eight months of abuse. Right. Right. And we'll get to, we'll definitely get into all that. So you did the 12 month test. That came back negative. You submitted that as evidence before you actually went to court after it escalated to China. You would think that that would have just been it. That's done. Okay,

you took the 12 month test. It came back negative. That's it. Hospital must have made a mistake. But that's, it wasn't that simple. No, we think, we think that, you know, why we speculate it went went this far is because we stopped, we started holding accountability to DHS after the founded report because we lost, again, we lost all faith that we would be dealt with properly. We were already extremely like wrongly dealt with, missed out with. So yeah, we lost all faith at that point. And then my husband, you know, he's like, no, I'm not going to allow this. Like somebody needs to tell us what's actually going on here. Somebody needs to actually like have accountability. Because if nobody's holding accountability to DHS that can remove children from homes, what's going on here?

Yeah. They don't have any documentation for us. Mm-hmm. You know, like the easiest thing, like, I don't know. Any business would be concerned about, like, if my employees are on the phone calls, I want to see those phone calls, make sure quality, make sure the quality is good, make sure things are being dealt with properly. there's none of that here. Like a DHS worker could literally say whatever they want and do whatever they want

and nobody would know. Yeah, because there's no requirement for any kind of transparency or paper trail or things like that. Okay, so you went to court, submitted this evidence, what happened? We went to court. We thought, you know, of course,

they would dismiss it then because we felt like it was overwhelming the evidence. And this was how many weeks post- How old was he at this point? Oh, gosh. I think, I believe it was in June or July. So a few months in. Yeah. At this point. Okay. So and during that time, it was just a lot of back and forth trying to figure out what was going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that. We didn't have any, any, um, uh, social workers in our home between the filing of the China case or between the founded report and the filing of the China case and our actual hearing. We didn't have any involvement

in our home during that period. And so that was nice to like have we were able to try to, you know, lead a somewhat normal life as we were as we were preparing. But yeah, so we went in in court. Then it was decided that we're going to have a continuance. We received a court order then to do a resample, a retest on the original sample, the original umbilical cord and a DNA test on it as well to make sure it's actually mine. We received that court order in this hearing.

We also, it was determined that we would participate in voluntary services at this point. And that included two monthly visits with DHS and then a random drug test. And we said, okay, we're going to take it. We'll just do it. I know that I think, you know, I think any parent would do the same thing, just hoping that it would go away. But it's so unfair that you even had to do that. Yeah, it's, it's so crazy, Ali. Like, there's so many of these things. And there was no due process at all in any of this. And even when we got into the China case, we felt like, oh, we'll be able to prove our innocence. But at that point, it's already agreed for, it's already agreed that DHS is pushing for adjudication, you know, involvement. And so you're, you're not starting from the beginning when you go into a China case. You know, nobody's asking, well, how do we get here? Everyone's saying, well, okay, everything from here on out or everything from here from up until this point is true you know they're

taking that as as you know this founded report is true so so yeah we agreed to those two visits the random drug test and in court this is kind of interesting in court DHS was also recommending that I do a substance abuse evaluation and we didn't we don't want to do this because it's not just an evaluation, it's a treatment plan by the professionals is what they call them. We go to a third party, the professionals, they do a substance abuse evaluation and create a treatment plan, which we would then be recommended to follow, right? So, but what treatment plan could they possibly give you if you weren't on drugs? Like, wouldn't they just, did you not want to do it because you thought that they would just give you a treatment plan even if it was obvious that you

weren't on drugs? Yeah, that or, you know, I don't do any drugs. So I don't know. There's all these concerns. Like, are they going to think I'm like, I have a mental problem? Like I'm a liar. Because you're so holistic. Yeah, yeah. It could be, yeah, all of these, there could be so many things. And then they could also, I mean, we just haven't had no trust that it would. So they wanted to do weekly visits, right? And, but your lawyer thankfully pushed back on that. Yes. Yeah, that's a good, I'm glad you brought that up. So DHS actually came in wanting us to do weekly visits with them. Into court, yes. Wanting to do weekly visits with them. And we were just like shocked. Like, you haven't even seen our family for a month and a half at this point. And you didn't even create a safety plan for our kids.

Why are you asking for weekly visits? Yeah. I mean, and you even told us, well, this is an interesting case, but like, I'm, I don't know what, I'm not sure what to do here. Yeah. Why would you need to come to our house every week? Yeah. It does. It just makes me wonder if there's some kind of financial or employment instead of just to prove themselves useful, the busier they are. I don't, I should fact check this, but I've heard that there is, they receive, there's obviously payment the longer that families are in conflict. So the longer they keep families in conflict with DHS, there is a monetary incentive. And when there is a child removed from a home, there's also a payout. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's true because I don't know, maybe this is the best time to insert this. And like my issue with CPS, I talked to someone, I think it was last year.

She wrote a book, Naomi Riley called No Way to Treat a Child. Through her extensive research, she found that actually children are not taken out of the home as often as they should in most cases, that there is a social justice, like, equity incentive, kind of to not remove children from, like, very abusive homes, like actual abusive homes based on like the ethnicity or socioeconomic status of the family. And so they will leave kids actually in dangerous situations, unfortunately when they should be removed. But then in other cases, for whatever reason they have,

they will be way too hasty to get involved and to remove a child. So I only say that because I'm not sure where the financial incentives lie, but there's obviously strange motivations, it seems like, behind what CPS, DHS does. Not in every case. I'm sure that there are a lot of really good social workers out there, but there certainly seems to be kind of perverse incentives in a lot of these cases going on, whether it's, whether it goes one way or another, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good point. I don't want to make it sound like I think that every DHS worker is like evil. No, it doesn't sound like that. It doesn't. Because they're not. I mean, you know, but when you have processes that can do this. Yeah. When it's an, you know, it's, I'm an innocent person.

Yeah. I mean, that's very scary. Of course. And they also don't have the discernment to be making these decisions. They really don't. I mean, it's all bureaucratic checking of the boxes. Yeah. It doesn't sound like they really care personally.

Yeah. And it's really interesting because, you know, every, no, no DHS worker. I would imagine has been on the other side, right? Because if you've been on the other side, why would you work for DHS? Yeah. But also, yeah, I mean, people on the inside, they don't see the effect of what they're doing on the outside. So at our previous hearing, our first China hearing, they said that we would do these two visits. We would have this random drug test. And a substance abuse evaluation was not necessary at this point unless I tested positive on a drug test. All of this was agreed by the judge, the ad litem, you know, DHS wanted to do it, but obviously the judge is the

one. So this was decided. And then we went into our first visit with DHS and they said, well, we recommend a drug abuse evaluation. And we said, well, we just had this conversation that this is not necessary unless I test positive. My social worker said, oh, I don't remember what was said. So I'm going to go talk to your lawyers and I'll talk to the guardian ad litem and I'll, talk to my supervisor and I'll get back to you. I don't know what she did, but my understanding is that she just went to her supervisor and said, you know, this. And her supervisor came back to us and said, well, this is what we're recommending.

They didn't care what was said previously. And we have to tread very carefully because, you know, if we don't comply, it is seen as a negative choice by the judge. And the judge even told us, if you do not participate, I am allowed to see that as a negative choice. The judge said this. And so we, we are very aware of this, right? So we had some discussion and we said, you know what? No, let's get the manuscript from the trial. Like, we're not going to do this. We weren't able to get the manuscript. But we would like to get that at some point. But we ended up declining the service, the evaluation. We did the drug test, another three-month

hair test. It was negative. We did the two visits. We also did a visit with the kids. ad litem. We go into our hearing, well, a few days before our hearing, we received DHS's filing before the hearing. And DHS's, they gave us, DHS gave us eight recommendations. So these include, um, the custody of our children moved under the department. What? And further, uh, under the department. does that mean given to the state? They, DHS at this point, after all of the negative tests, after you went to court already, right? They recommended that the government remove your kids from your home.

Wow. Yeah. At this point, I had seven tests, seven negative tests, a negative 12-month hair test, two negative three-month hair tests, four negative urine tests. and we had fulfilled all of the requirements besides the substance abuse evaluation. And the recommendation was based just on the drugs. They didn't add anything else like, oh, she's not giving them vaccines or anything else? I'm not sure. I don't know what conversation happened behind.

But at least publicly, that's what they were telling you that this is just because of the drug suspicion. Yes, yeah. Wow. That's what was, yeah. that was what was said to us that you know because of this drug abuse evaluation and whatever so we were blindsided by these recommendations I have to tell you a couple more of them so the first one is custody of our children would be moved under the department custody of the children would be placed into foster care or you know they use they use the term fictive kin or family you know

relative, but we live with my mom. And, you know, I'm just not confident that they would actually choose. I don't know. I don't know what they're going to choose. Right. But foster care is an option, right. So those are the first two. And then it's, you know, Emily, Emily submits to all and any further drug testing. Emily and Michael participate in family centered services. Emily and Michael sign all of all all documents, all releases necessary, you know, things like that. And I think there were a couple other ones. Obviously, there were eight. But those were the main ones. And this is the day before Thanksgiving, this happens. We received this filing. And, you know, we are, I was physically sick that day. I mean, of course. We don't know why this is happening. I tested negative again.

And, you know, again, you know, DHS keeps throwing out these, like, they'll make you feel really good. And then, oh, here's a sub, here's a founded report of child abuse. Oh, here's a China case. Oh, but, you know, everything's okay. What's a filing? Like, how do you define that? A filing would just be the document that they file for court so that everyone can view it beforehand. Okay.

To my knowledge. I'm not a legal person, but this is what I learned. You're doing great. remembering all of the acronyms and explaining them. So I just wanted to get your definition of that. Okay. So that was the day before Thanksgiving. Yeah.

So we are just like, I mean, you can imagine like all the emotions we're going through. Of course. I was, this might be too much, but I'm like vomiting. I'm sick that day. Of course. We, and you, we hear all these horror stories too about DHS and things like that. And so, and, you know, we've lost all trust at this point, too. And so we just really just don't know what's happening.

I mean, you're thinking they're going to take your kids. Yeah. Worst nightmare for a parent. I mean, what if it gets accepted? We don't know what the judge is going to say. We don't know if they're going to accept their recommendations. And what does your lawyer say? I'm sure that you called.

Yeah. So my lawyer said, well, this is particularly asinine, is what she said. My husband's lawyer said this seems outrageously stupid and irresponsible. So you have two lawyers? Yeah. Okay. That was another thing too is, you know, my husband and I, our family is one unit. And we, my lawyer couldn't talk to my husband.

Oh. His lawyer couldn't talk to me. And so it just felt very, yeah. It was hard. Yeah. Because we, you know, my husband is leading our family. He's, you know, the protector of our family. Yeah.

And he's the one leading us out of this. And then my lawyer's trying to talk to me and get, you know, I have to talk to my lawyer without the, without my husband, you know, being there. So it just was very difficult for me because I trust my husband to, you know, understand how to try to navigate this. I'm, I'm very emotional. And so it was hard for me to not be able to like lean on him in those conversations. Yeah. So. So then tell me what happened after that. So that was the day before Thanksgiving, not very long ago. Yeah. Yeah. So we prepared for the worst, honestly. And I'll be honest with you, I said, well, am I going to be a criminal now?

Like, I mean, I can't, I can't allow them to take our kids. I can't allow that for that to happen. So we considered, I mean, all the variety of our kids. options, what would that mean? Because once they take the child, once they remove the child, and I don't know what it is in every case, but I mean, it could be a year before you receive your child back. Wow. I mean, worse, well, not not worst case, but that could potentially be the outcome. Yeah. So we're weighing all these options, you know, like what really, yeah, what's possible here. Yeah. And what happened with, because the court did order the hospital to retest, right? Yes, yeah. And the hospital

wouldn't do that? No. Retest the umbilical cord, right? Yeah, retest the umbilical cord. Yeah. So we went to the hospital and we said, here's the court order. We need to get this testing done. And they said, we don't, we actually don't do the testing. You have to go to the lab. And we went to the lab and then the lab says, well, you have to go through the hospital. And so we went around the circle. And so we went around the circle. I mean, it's, I could have told you this probably four months ago. This is what was going to happen because I had called the lab, you know, several times trying to get information on this sample. They hold it for a year. But that I found out through my pediatrician. And so I'm not their client. I'm not the lab's client. The hospital is. Right. So I'll just be clear here. So the,

the hospital took a piece of my umbilical cord, my body, my organ that my body created, and did a test on it. How's, houses it at this lab. And I have no access to it. Yeah. Meanwhile, DHS can accuse me of child abuse and found me in a report of child abuse. Yeah. And take my kids away. Yeah. And you really had like very little due process. Yeah. Throughout this whole thing. And you did everything that you possibly could to prove your innocence. Yeah. You took a 12-month test that showed that you hadn't taken any of these drugs that they accused you of taking for the past year throughout your entire pregnancy, and they still said,

no, you're subject to all of our recommendations. Yeah. Wow. We submitted 25 pieces of evidence in our China case. We showed up in court, and none of the DHS staff had looked at any of our pieces of evidence. They didn't even know that I did this 12-month hair test. Wow. It's like they didn't care. Yeah. So, okay, so this was last week that this happened. Yeah, it was last week. So what has happened since? So we prepared for the worst that, you know, this is the potential. They're recommending removal of the custody of our children from our care. We started to pray. We tried to get, we told people our story that, you know,

hopefully they would pray for us and we had this outpour of support from our communities and it was really like moving and touching that that people would be doing this. Somebody commented on my video that they she said please know like people that you don't even know are praying for you and I just was really moved by that and we went into court this Monday and we we felt it was very unlikely that it would get dismissed because of the level of recommendations. We only had 30 minutes too. This was this was aimed for a dismissal. This was the, you know, our last court date, we said, okay, we'll follow these recommendations

and then this will likely be a dismissal. And so then when they filed that, we were like, is a dismissal even possible? Like, would a judge even take that? the judge going to remember the previous conversation that this substance abuse evaluation wasn't necessary? So we had all these questions. We went in and we were very, I mean, we were just really blessed. They dismissed our case and we felt like that wasn't even possible. We thought they were going to like compromise likely. Yeah. What did the judge say? The judge said, well, first she, asked the county attorney who represents DHS, would they like to do a contested hearing? If they do a

contested hearing, that means they'll present pieces of evidence to support their recommendation. Yeah. Which they don't have. No. Wow. Well, to which they replied no. Yeah. So they didn't want to do a contested hearing. Because they know that they didn't have evidence. Yeah. And so we, I mean, that was like upsetting to me too because I'm like, well, yes, I want this dismissal, of course, but why make the recommendation. Yeah. You just sent us through this entire like crazy chaotic rollercoaster of emotion. Like we're going to, you're going to remove our kids. Yeah. And you have no, you don't want to, you don't want to like prove that. Yeah. They think that you're so dangerous that they need to remove your kids from your home, put them into foster care. Yeah. But not so

dangerous that they're willing to even push back at all. Yeah. On the dismissal. It makes no sense. it just like yeah it's it's just like so frustrating that that they can throw that out there and this is what I mean when I say all nobody in DHS understands the effect of DHS the exterior effect right because why would they file this it's like they weren't even thinking like oh well let's just check this box let's recommend removal of the custody of these children from their parents and they don't think it's going to like send us into a spiral yeah It just felt cruel. Yeah.

It felt very cruel. And, but thank God we, it was dismissed. The judge said, you know, we were hoping that DHS would be reprimanded by the judge. But the judge just said, you know, thank you everyone for your hard work. She was very kind and polite. She said, you know, DHS did the right thing, which I disagree with. But she said that. And she said,

But there's no evidence that the children need to be adjudicated. And so, yeah. Praise God. Yeah. Wow. So are you still on the registry of child abusers? I am. Will you be forever?

We don't know. Like if you want to have future children, is that going to be some kind of obstacle? Well, that's what we're concerned about is because we also have, we also are very holistic, you know, DHS follows recommendations of the hospital, right, for child care. We don't for everything. So, you know, we don't vaccinate. We, you know, declined all of these things. You know, we prefer as natural, non-interventive as possible.

And so we have that, you know, now that presents challenges. And so, but then we also have this child, this founded report of child abuse. We want to homeschool. So. And you're in Iowa, which is a pretty conservative state. Yeah. It's not like you're in California or. Oregon. Yeah. Wow. It's very scary that, that it seems like we're not allowed to like make our own

choices for our children. If we do, your life's going to be very hard. Right. Like you can. It's kind of like the voluntary services. They're voluntary. But if you do or don't do, yeah, you know, then we're going to punish you, which is not really voluntary. It's not really a choice. It's very concerning. Yeah. And so, well, praise God, it got dismissed. I mean, that is a huge blessing. And I just have to believe that somehow the Lord is using this for his glory and somehow to help other people.

Maybe it's even just like your recommendation that someone gets a lawyer immediately, the things that you kind of learned in hindsight. Who knows? Who knows what it is? We're actually going to have the governor of Iowa on pretty soon, right? And so maybe she'll hear this. Maybe she'll hear this story. That's awesome.

Yeah. And there will be some reform. Gosh, there's got to be so much widespread reform. But what is your plan going forward? Like, I would still be, I know you probably want to just get out of the whole thing, because I would too. But I'm like want to know, what happened, hospital? What happened, lab? Is there a baby out there whose parents are doing drugs and you mixed up the test somehow?

You mixed up the results? Like, what in the world happened? And I would obviously want my name cleared from that list, which it should be. Even so, you got months of your life and your rights trampled upon. Yeah. The biggest thing I think that it has affected me the most is from the minute that they did a non-consensual drug test on my son, my motherhood was removed. Yeah. Compromised.

Because who's the legal guard? I'm the legal guardian. I'm the mother of my son. And nobody asked me about this test. They identify the court as the babies to get around the consent, right? But who's the guardian here? Is it the hospital? It must be. That's what that tells me is that the hospital is the guardian of my child. I've gone to them for a service. I've paid them to care for me. If you do something like that without consent, and I mean, now we have eight months of the repercussion of this action. So, I don't know, that needs to be looked at. And so what's unfortunate is, you know, my motherhood was then removed and it continued to be removed. You know, DHS needed to supervise me. I needed to be supervised with my children, you know, and then, oh, now we have to go before a judge and my children have a guardian ad litem that represents their best interests. in court. I'm not the person who represents my children's best interests in court.

And so the fact that they're able to do this to a mother, to a family, it's just like so wrong. Yeah. I don't know. It's just so wrong. So yeah, I'm, I guess our next steps are, we're going to go through the appeal process now, which is interesting because we actually have to go to DHS, the party that founded this report to ask them for an appeal, which is just interesting to me. I don't know if that's how it normally works, but just this concept of, you know, DHS, you founded me for child abuse. Please, can I have an appeal? Yeah.

So we're going to do that, of course. Even if I do have my name removed, I believe there's a report still in DHS's system. I'll be on the registry for five years if we don't get it removed. And yeah, so we will, if we do want compensation, like if we do decide to file a suit of some kind, DHS is pretty protected. So we're not sure if, you know, that's even possible. But we will have to actually prove my innocence with due process, right? I mean, obviously we can't just go and like sue and like,

everyone just believes us. Yeah. We have to then present our evidence. Yeah. I mean, the whole thing just went the exact opposite of how it's supposed to go. You're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. And you were guilty until proven innocent. And you weren't even like even your innocence that you proved wasn't taken as evidence. Wow. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story. I just have to believe that there is going to be some redemption from it. And so thank you for having the courage also and the strength to tell your story. Not everyone does. So thank you so much. Thank you, Allie. And thank you for the opportunity. It's just I'm so grateful to you for listening. Of course. Well, I'm glad to do it. It'll help someone. I believe that.

So thank you. Thanks. Hey, this is Steve Deist. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

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