Hello Everyone,

My name is Arianna Brooks and my husband's name is D'rontae Brooks. On March 15, 2021, at 33 weeks’ gestation, our miracle babies were delivered via emergency c-section. A'mir was born weighing 4lbs 4oz and Aniyah weighed 3lbs 14oz. Because of this, the twins spent the first couple of weeks of their life in the NICU. Even though the first few weeks of our babies lives were spent traveling back and forth to the hospital, we were thrilled to be parents to two beautiful children.

Finally, on April 2nd A'mir was able to come home and not too long after, on April 4th, Aniyah was home as well.  The children attended all scheduled well baby checkups, and an ultrasound appointment. No health concerns were ever raised by any medical professional about the care of our babies. The children were noted to be thriving and reaching all major milestones right on time. We were living our lives and life was perfect. We had planned to move to Florida on June 1st to be closer to family and have more support and love for our twins. 

The Beginning of The Nightmare

On May 31, 2021, I noticed a lump on Aniyah's arm, and when I touched it, Aniyah screamed.  We IMMEDIATELY packed everything up and rushed to Miami Valley North Emergency room in Ohio. This is when the nightmare began for our family.

Aniyah had a full body scan, and it was found that she had over 30 fractures. Aniyah was then transferred to Dayton Children's Hospital and the doctors then asked to perform a full body scan on A’mir. We had nothing to hide and at the time the doctors stated they felt there was a medical condition that was causing the fractures. Since our children are twins, we agreed with A’mir being evaluated to ensure he was healthy. It was found that he had identical fractures to his sister. Things drastically changed at this point because the doctors began to accuse us of abusing our children. We were floored and shocked by these accusations. There were  no bruises, No broken blood vessels in the eyes, no swelling, CT scans were negative for both children, and No subdural hematoma. There were NO other "signs" of abuse. The only concern was for the babies’ bones and no one would stop and take the time to consider an alternative hypothesis. We came to the hospital to seek help but was now being accused of abusing our children. Everything happened so fast and before we knew it Law enforcement had arrived at the hospital and coerced us to come to the police station to be interrogated for hours without legal counsel.

After being interrogated we were allowed to leave the police station and go back up to the hospital to be with our babies. The hospital put a cast on each of the twins arms (which were removed less than 72hrs later) and that was the extent of the care given to treat the fractures. Dr Kelly Liker, a Child Abuse Pediatrician at Dayton Children's gave the opinion that this was abuse, and that opinion was used to medically kidnap our children. On May 31, 2021, our twins, A'mir and Aniyah were removed from our care due to alleged abuse. This was the worst day of our lives. 

We have been adamant with CPS, hospital staff and law enforcement that we had not abused our babies and that we would like for our family members to care for our children during the investigation. Our family is from out of state and the process to place our children in another state has been delayed repeatedly by Ohio CPS. Our children have loving family members that they could be with right now, yet they can’t because of all the red tape created by this system to keep children in foster homes run by the state.

Since our children have been in care, I have continued to breastfeed. We are only allowed to see our children for one hour a week supervised by CPS. We have missed so many precious moments with our children. We have missed their first smile, the first time they rolled over… their first everything… Seeing our children grow up with strangers has been one of the worst feelings in the world. We prayed and prepared to love and nurture our babies but we are now forced to simply exist in life while we wait to be reunified with Aniyah and A'mir.