HE'S GOT THIS!
"Never stop working
for what you feel your family deserves."
Eddie, a 29-year old dad in the Nurse-Family Partnership program, recommends to expectant dads, “Never stop working for what you feel your family deserves. You got to find a balance, because you don’t want to miss everything your child does. You want to be able to be there when your child does those momentous first things. Set goals and make sure you achieve them. Don’t think everything falls into place for you. You got to work for it.”
Eddie has achieved what he said he would do in the past year, after his family was in crisis. When his wife Cora gave birth to their daughter Emma, they were both in jail for using heroin. They had both relapsed, just weeks before her birth.
Emma was born addicted, and stayed an extra week in the hospital so she could be monitored.
After Eddie was released from jail, he was able to meet his baby girl on the third day of her life in the hospital. When he went to hold her for the first time, he felt overwhelmed, but at his side was his Nurse-Family Partnership nurse Michelle. Eddie stayed at the hospital day and night until it was time to take her home.
His wife Cora could not be there with them. She had given birth two days earlier, and nurse Michelle had pushed hard to get her those first two days in the hospital to bond with her baby before she had to return to jail.
“Ever since Emma was born,” Eddie shared. “Everything turned around.”
Since their relapse in January of 2016, they have stayed clean and have been models of the Sauk County Drug Court and will graduate in September. “I made a commitment and signed a contract to stay clean,” he said. “Others have relapsed, but they don’t have a kid, home and car. They have nothing to lose. If I go to jail, I lose it all.”
When Eddie and Cora were released from jail, they were not allowed to live together because they were considered each other’s enablers of addiction. After several months of proving themselves with nurse Michelle’s support, they were granted permission to live together as a family.
“Eddie is doing it! He is doing everything he said he would do and others said he couldn’t do,” says nurse Michelle.
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