A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: Choosing Motherhood Transformed Their Futures.
Pregnant and experiencing intense discomfort, Stephanie Rosell visited the hospital emergency room after an infection began spreading up her legs. Jobless and without shelter, cut off from her relatives, she resided in a small structure she had built in a companion's property. She was also addicted to fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she started to feel anxious. Withdrawal was setting in. She slumped forward and became sick.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I need to leave. I have to go home and get high.”
She had used fentanyl before coming to the ER and had only a brief window to get treated before she had to return to get high again. She thought she still had four weeks left to plan her recovery and give birth.
The attending nurse disagreed. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the leg infection was serious, but physicians found she also had an ruptured membrane. The nurse, her nurse, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would face grave danger.
Izzie persuaded the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl periodically, knowing that abstinence might harm her and the baby. Once the baby was born Stephanie would be switched to methadone, a drug that alleviates cravings and is commonly used in rehabilitation.
After five days, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie had a baby girl weighing a small weight – premature, little but surviving.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “no.” She was emotionless. Her pain relief did not work, her final administration of fentanyl had been administered shortly before she gave birth.
She felt ill. Not ready for motherhood. Undeserving.
Stephanie had sought recovery multiple times while expecting, and felt awful each time she relapsed. She felt hopeless, blaming herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An obstetrician told her to “just” stop using. Even her supplier declined to supply to her when she became obviously with child.
“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I needed help.”
The widespread belief that her love for her baby would make her stop using only led to increased guilt and self-abuse, a cause for her to relapse. Yet she could not simply will her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a long-term illness.
The newborn was transferred to the NICU. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was attached to medical equipment, so small she thought she would break her. Embracing her at last, she felt nothing. “I looked at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to call her daughter after her caregiver, after the attendant who showed compassion to her.
Hospital staff told her about a care center, a unique recovery environment where parents and infants affected by substance use are cared for jointly, not apart.
In many parts of America, where a baby is identified with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) regularly, infants are still rushed to special care and given drugs while their mothers face custody evaluations. But a developing system of centers like Maddie’s Place is proving a simple point: when families are kept intact, outcomes improve, foster placements fall and long-term costs decline.
It took Stephanie a period to find strength to call, but she eventually made the call. After ensuring she qualified for the program, a couple of employees came to pick her up.
She stepped out of the hospital still in detox, anxious and doubtful about what would happen next.
At the care center, Stephanie still feared that CPS would come seize her child – even though she was not sure she wanted to keep her. The anxiety remained: that at any point, someone could walk in and remove her child.
For the first two weeks, Stephanie kept to herself. “I didn’t really want anything to do with any of them,” she said. “I lacked confidence at that point.”
Homelessness, she said, was about enduring. Addiction came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had a trusted ally, but even that relationship was delicate. The individuals she cared for always found ways to cause pain. She was unable to care for herself, let alone anyone else.
Every day, staff from the facility drove her to a recovery program, administered in pill form. Over time, she was beginning recovery.
She spent every minute beyond therapy with Izzie, and could see that her baby was obtaining necessary support she needed. Her girl had some trouble feeding at first, with sensitivity to certain foods and obvious stomach troubles. She needed dietary support. She also had sensory challenges and required an professional – all common issues for babies exposed to substances.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I was capable. I could parent.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie was in the common room, where those still using can come for guided meetings with their babies. A support specialist, a peer support specialist, stopped by with her own five kids in tow to bring treats. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was sitting on the floor holding Izzie.
The kids looked amazed in admiration of the tiny infant in Stephanie’s arms. “They had no care in the world,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. None of those things mattered to them.”
She holds a picture of the moment. She is clad in black pants and a hoodie, a beanie with a pompom on her head, seated on the ground with the exit nearby. She is thin. Her face is downcast so you cannot see her face. She is lifting the baby on her leg for the young ones to see and they are standing close, admiring and touching to the baby.
One child, eight, asked the mothers: “Why are there no men?” The moms tried to explain that the dads were busy, called away to other tasks, that they would be there if they could.
“When I have kids,” Jacob said, “I plan to be a great parent. I will teach them about love.”
Stephanie and her companion looked at each other. “I became emotional,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand that these babies deserve to be loved, then I found the courage. I could parent.”
Methods to address babies with exposure have been used for a long time.
The evaluation method was created in 1975|
