North Texas foster family says goodbye to baby after Baby Moses law dispute: "There has to be a better way"

There was lots of laughter when the I-Team visited Vincent and Lisa Blow in early May, but the laughter was tinged with dread.

"I've been trying to soak up every moment I can with him before he leaves," Vincent Blow said. 

The dread, Lisa Blow added was an impending date on the calendar: May 15. That is when the Blows had to hand the baby they have cared for since November back to his biological family. The baby's mother and father legally abandoned him the day after he was born at a local hospital. 

Under Texas's safe haven statute, better known as the Baby Moses law, parents can anonymously surrender infants at a hospital, fire station or freestanding emergency room as long as the baby is less than 2 month old and there are no signs of abuse,

In most cases, without names or relatives, the state can move quickly to terminate parental rights and start the adoption process.

The Blows have fostered children before, and said they are familiar with the difference between fostering until family reunification and fostering to adopt. 

"I talked to three different workers in the system," Vincent Blow said. "I was like, 'can family just show up one day and take him from us?' and they were like, 'No, this is different. Rights were surrendered at birth.'"

But that wasn't exactly true. In February, more than three months after she gave birth, the mother returned and told the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that she wanted the baby back.

That was when the Blows began to learn more about what the safe haven law says, and what it does not say. 

"We're dealing with people, with real people, babies, kids," Lisa Blow said. "There should just be no gray area."

The gray area lies in what the law does not include. 

The safe haven statute was designed to prevent parents from facing criminal charges for the abandonment. It says nothing about what happens if a parent comes back.

In Texas, if that happens, the Baby Moses case becomes a typical foster care case, which follows the state's family code and typically favors keeping children with biological relatives. 

Baby Moses laws in the U.S.

Texas is far from unique. The I-Team researched Baby Moses laws in all 50 states and found that most allow parents to request custody up until a judge terminates their rights, a process that can take several months.

Only 13 states include deadlines in their laws, with most of those allowing between 30 and 90 days for parents to change their minds. California and South Dakota have the shortest deadlines, giving parents just two weeks before they lose the right to ask to regain custody.

This patchwork is part of the problem, according to the National Safe Haven Alliance, a national nonprofit that provides assistance to women with unplanned pregnancies and to providers who take in abandoned infants. Liisa Speaker, the alliance's board president, says the Blows' case exposes a nationwide problem.

"The safe haven law really just says, 'okay, once the baby's been surrendered, then the baby is placed through the department," she said. "And that's where the statute stops. Well, where do you go from there?"

The Blows say that in their case, the biological mother did not ask for custody until after she told her own parents what she had done.

"I think the hard part we're having with it is, the grandparents really want to raise him for a little bit, and then their hope is that then mom comes in," Lisa Blow said. "And I can't help but to worry a little bit about that. You know, what if mom doesn't want to parent him?"

Unexpected and unwelcome news

As of the end of April, The Blows were still hoping to keep custody and waiting until their next court hearing, scheduled for May 21. But three weeks before the hearing, they received an unexpected email: A judge ruled that the baby would be leaving on May 15th. 

The couple took issue with the way they were given the devastating news. 

"I mean, at least a heads up, a text, a call, 'hey, I've got some news,'" Lisa Blow said. "There has to be a better way to treat families like us. There has to be."

The Blows said they asked the biological family to maintain contact so they can be updated on the boy's medical treatments and milestones. Without knowing the biological relatives' identities, the I-Team could not reach out to them for comment.

The I-Team also tried to contact the authors of the original Baby Moses law to ask if they thought it was working as intended. Both former state Rep. Geanie Morrison and Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson, a former state senator, declined to speak with us. 

DFPS officials declined to answer specific questions, instead sending the following statement: "Our policies and procedures align with state statute. Anyone with concerns about the way their case has been handled can contact the Office of Consumer Affairs."