Foster Couple Seek Help of Courts to Keep Baby

Saying they can best offer the daily care and love that their foster baby needs, an Orange County couple are fighting in court to stop a local foster care agency from removing the baby from their home.

Patrick D. Wranik and Patricia C. Fanno contend that the fragile, 3-month-old baby they took into their home the day after his birth Jan. 12 was exposed to drugs in the womb and as a result panics, suffers from high blood pressure and hyperventilates when he is separated from them for even brief periods.

The couple won an emergency order Friday that allows the baby to remain in their home until an April 19 hearing in Orange County Superior Court.

Wranik and Fanno want a judge to order the agency, Holy Family Services, Counseling and Adoption of Santa Ana, to get approval from the baby’s doctor and physical therapist before the agency takes him, said their attorney, Robert R. Walmsley.

“They don’t want to see him subjected to any complications,” Walmsley said. “They love this child. When you sit for hours upon hours, days actually, trying to console a child, it’s inevitable that there’s going to be certain feelings flowing between them and the child.”

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The executive director of Holy Family Services, David Ballard, declined Tuesday to elaborate on why the agency wants to remove the boy or where the agency wants to place him.

“This case involves a child in our care and a birth mother with rights,” Ballard said in a prepared statement. “Our primary concern is ensuring adequate care and the best interests of this child.”

Ballard also wrote that the agency is acting properly and with the approval of the Community Care Licensing Division of the state’s Department of Social Services, which licenses foster care agencies. He declined to comment further about any other aspect of the case, including whether the baby was exposed to drugs.

The 50-year-old state-licensed, nonprofit agency has offices in Santa Ana, Pasadena, Los Angeles and Riverside. It is the second-largest private adoption agency in the state.

Robert Gomez, division district manager of the state agency, said he is reviewing the case with attorneys and has not yet made a decision about whether to support Holy Family Services’ attempts to remove the baby.

“This is a new issue for us,” said Gomez, who is based in Santa Ana. “It appears they have taken appropriate steps.”

The couple, who live in South County, declined to comment through their attorney, but in court documents stated: “Since (he) was placed with us, we have provided him our daily care, love, affection and concern. We are committed to meeting his special needs, and understand we have effectively done so.”

The couple are not interested for now in adopting the boy, Walmsley said, but in making sure that the baby’s gradual recovery is not hurt by an unnecessary move.

In their court petition, Wranik and Fanno say the agency did not tell them that the baby had been exposed to drugs, and at first denied he was, but the couple quickly observed that the baby was not acting normally.

The signs, which they say have been confirmed by at least one doctor and a physical therapist who examined the infant, include muscle arching, frantic sucking, sores, inconsolable screaming and difficulty with feeding and sometimes with breathing, according to court documents.

Walmsley said doctors do not know what drug the baby might have been exposed to before birth. He said that Fanno, who has a masters degree in clinical psychology with specialties in substance abuse, has had to provide the baby with almost 24-hour care.

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The reasons for the agency’s April 6 decision to remove the boy are also unclear to the couple, he said.

But the attorney said disputes have arisen between the agency and the couple during the past three months over the baby’s care.

In one instance, an agency case worker challenged the couple when, on the advice of the baby’s physical therapist, they decided to attach the baby’s pacifier to his cheek with surgical tape, he said. The therapist suggested the taping because the baby sometimes lapses into “frantic sucking” episodes and can hyperventilate if he can’t get hold of a pacifier, Walmsley said.

Another time, the baby’s doctor prescribed medications without the agency’s permission, he said.

“But whatever the reasons (for the dispute), it shouldn’t be taken out on the child,” Walmsley said. “If you have a good caretaker and a good relationship, then you don’t yank the kid.”