Confidentiality

Chloe's parents had not taken for granted their daughter's good health. They had not been able to access any information about whether or not Alissa had drank or did any type of drugs while she was expecting. Penny had told them about the woman's heavy smoking and calorie-counting during pregnancy. To Penny's knowledge, Alissa had stayed away from drinking and drugs because she was afraid the doctor would somewhere detect it in blood or urine tests and possibly notify CPS to look into her life upon the child's birth. The last thing Alissa wanted was social services having any information on her. The physician could not tell Chloe's father anything about any possible past drug use by Alissa because of doctor-patient-confidentiality. She was only bound to tell him if Chloe had been born with drugs or alcohol in her body which she wasn't. Luckily there was no "Alissa-Penny" confidentiality.

Penny had told Eric how Alissa (they all had to get used to that name) had told her how the doctor had "bitched on" her "constantly" about her terrible eating habits, barely gaining weight, her late nights and mostly of all, her heavy smoking.

"Doesn't she get that I don't care if it's born healthy?" Alissa had said. "I just want it out and be someone else's problem!"

With the exception of the usual kid stuff, an occasional cold or ear infection, Chloe was perfectly healthy. Most children born to mothers who smoked heavily had breathing problems, were sick more often, often developed Asthma and were underweight at birth. Chloe had not experienced any of this. She was a bit small in stature for her age but that could contributed to many things. The family's doctor was not concerned about it. The girl's weight fit her height and she was growing at a healthy rate.

Calleigh still couldn't wrap her head around how an expectant mother could be indifferent to the health of her baby, whether or not she planned to raise the child. She was sitting on the couch thinking about this when Chloe came in from the back deck where she was playing with some toy cars. Calleigh and Eric didn't subscribe to the idea that only little boys could play with dinkies. Eric had gone back to work. It was lunchtime and she was hungry.

"Hi mommy!" She said, brightly, a big smile on her face.

"Hi ya, sweetpea," Calleigh said, forcing herself to smile. "Are you hungry?"

Chloe nodded.

"How about a grilled cheese?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, C'mon," she said taking the little girl's hand and walking into the kitchen.

"Is Etan sleeping mommy?" Chloe asked.

"He is."

"How come daddy was here?"

Eric had went out to the deck to say a quick 'hello' to his daughter and kiss her head before he went back to work from his fast trip home. He wasn't going to be rude and not see her.

"Daddy had to get something he forget this morning," Calleigh lied. "He wasn't here very long."

Although Calleigh knew she was Chloe's mommy, not any other woman, the thought of Alissa even getting near her little girl made her ill with both fear and anger. Why would this woman want to harm Chloe? She didn't want her in the first place and Eric had cut every tie between the two possible. There was no way to cut the biological one. If there were a way to do that, Eric would have. It wasn't like Alissa was forced to have anything to do with Chloe, she hadn't even had to pay a cent of child support.

"I don't want that woman to have any reason to have any contact with my daughter. That includes her money," Eric told the social worker when she came to him before Chloe's biological mother had formally petitioned to terminate her parental rights. "I know you're just doing your job, but no thank you."

Chloe was just two weeks old at the time so she was only legally Eric's child, not Calleigh's. State law allowed a parent thirty days to change their after signing off on their parental rights. The termination of then Melissa's rights wouldn't be final for two more weeks, though everyone involved knew that the woman wouldn't change her mind.

"You can still get the court to legally bar her from having any access to the baby but have pay child support. But you would have to do so within two weeks."

Eric knew he could support his child and if he came across a hard time he knew he had the support system to help him out. His daughter wouldn't want for anything.