Her ‘Extra Love’ Fuels Role as Foster Parent

Several weeks ago, an eager, childless couple knocked on the front door of a rambling frame house on Balboa Peninsula. They were admitted by a blond, matronly woman trailed by a tiny, piquant, curly-haired black child. The visitors didn’t linger. They had been getting acquainted with the child over the past month, and he didn’t resist when they picked him up and carried him out to their car. The blond woman watched from the doorway long after the car was gone.

This scene has played out 96 times for Carol Newett over the past two decades, but it never gets any easier. “Steven,” she says, “was very special. I had him for 14 months. He was such a fighter. He was born at 23 weeks and weighed only 1 pound--and survived. A medical miracle. He had no visible father, and his mother couldn’t care for him, so he became everyone’s child at the UCI Medical Center--and when he was 4 months old, he became mine.

“Of course it was hard to give him up. But his new parents are a terrific couple. I couldn’t even pick him up to hug him before he left because it would just have made things harder for all of us. But I’d gladly go through the agony of separation rather than give up the 14 beautiful months we spent with this little boy. We had the joy of watching him survive and grow and walk and run. So I’ll deal with the pain. You grieve, and then you go on to the next one.”

About 95% of the time (Steven was an exception), the “next one” is a baby that has been born drug-addicted, diseased by its own mother. When these children are born, they go through the same withdrawal symptoms as an adult trying to kick the drug habit. It is a painful and frightening way to come into the world, and Carol Newett has become a specialist in dealing with their difficult early months.

The problem is extensive and growing. The number of drug-addicted babies is buried in the statistics of high-risk infants born in Orange County, so specific numbers are hard to come by. But a spokesman for Children’s Services of the Orange County Social Services Agency--which deals constantly with this problem--estimates that several hundred drug-addicted babies are born every month in the county, and the number is growing. The fact that the mother is an addict causes other problems as well. Most of these babies are premature and are born without prenatal care, which makes them highly susceptible to a whole range of health problems.

When addict parents are identified, the courts can take the infants into protective custody, and a newly formed county medical team that includes social workers as well as doctors investigates the case and recommends both medical treatment and custody of the child once the immediate medical crisis has passed. If no immediate family is considered appropriate or competent, people like Carol Newett come into the picture--foster parents with demonstrated skills and special qualifications to care for such children.

Newett says she got into foster parenting because of an article in The Times 21 years ago. The Newetts were living in Los Angeles then, and Carol had been told by her doctor that she should have no more children after her fifth child was born. She was restive with that decision until she saw a story about the great need for foster parents. “We still had extra love to give, so I took my first foster baby.”

She said it was a family decision. “I couldn’t have done any of this without my husband’s total support,” she says, “or without the support of my children. Everyone in the house has to agree; otherwise, someone will sabotage it.”

Carol and her husband, Ed, grew up in the same Los Angeles neighborhood and have now been married for 34 years. “My husband and I both came from difficult home lives,” she says matter-of-factly. “Maybe that’s why I want to see every baby wanted and loved. But I’ve always been very careful not to impose this need on my own children. I don’t think I ever said to them, ‘I’ll deal with your problem when I finish with the baby.’ ”

From the beginning, Newett took only infants (“After I’m without a baby for a while, my arms ache to hold one”), but she didn’t get into drug-addicted children until the family moved to Orange County 12 years ago. “I never heard of this problem when I started taking foster babies,” she says, “but it’s grown steadily since I’ve been here.”

She had special training that qualifies her to take high-risk infants who require heart monitors or oxygen. The babies sleep in the bedroom beside her so she can pick up instantly on any changes in breathing, and she has become a close friend of the Fire Department emergency team at a nearby fire station.

She hasn’t yet had to call on them, but a fire truck drives by her home regularly “to show the new guys where I live.” She is fiercely protective of her foster children. “I make a lot of demands on the bureaucracy for my babies. They’ve been shortchanged, and I want to see them get the best.”

Newett has gone through the agony of post-drug withdrawal with several dozen infants.

“They sweat and can’t hold food, and sleep for only a few minutes at a time, and cry a high-pitched cry, and are inconsolable. We swaddle them with their arms tight to their sides to make them feel more secure--and because they shake so badly when their arms are free. We have to keep them in a darkened room and avoid any kind of stimulation, especially flashing light. A TV can set them crazy. This can last from days to months, until the nervous system matures enough for the normal functions of the body to kick in.”

Yet, in spite of watching this agony repeatedly, Newett refuses to be judgmental about the adults who brought it on. “I don’t waste time on anger,” she says. “We’re just a lot more mature than these people.”

But she also runs a tight ship. “I keep the kids until they’re moderately stable,” she says. “Then they go to a long-term foster home, to adoption or back to the parents if the court thinks they are competent. I allow parents to visit, but I don’t allow addicts in my home. I meet them at the agency or in the park. I’ve never had to deal with any kind of violence, but I tell them up front that I’m in charge.”

Newett would be a formidable foe. Although her stature is modest, she exudes strength. At 54, she shows no signs of slowing down. “I have a lot of energy for an old broad,” she says. “And I’m still learning. I don’t know all the answers. I read everything I can and attend a lot of seminars.”

She also presides over a free-wheeling, joyous home. Seven years ago, the Newetts moved into the spacious waterfront home they built near the Fun Zone on Balboa Peninsula. There is constant action. Ed Newett, a heavy-set, amiable man who retired as a film studio executive and now operates an export business, appeared briefly.

Adult children wandered in and out; the Newetts’ five children range in age from 22 to 31 and have provided five grandchildren, three of whom live nearby. And then there is Aimee, who was bustling about the kitchen. Aimee, now 14, is the foster child who didn’t get away. The Newetts adopted her. “How could we resist,” Carol Newett says. “She came to us on our 20th wedding anniversary, and she had red hair. Besides, we had three boys and two girls, and we wanted to even it up.”

Almost as an aside, Newett noted that they were also providing a home for a foreign exchange student. She said the Newetts had taken in a number of other foreign students over the years (she couldn’t remember how many). And in her spare time, Newett serves as director of the Adoption Council of Orange County and is active in the County’s Speakers Bureau and the California Children’s Research Institute.

None of this is said with any sense of virtue. Newett quite simply loves what she is doing. “I run my household better when I have a baby,” she says. “A few years ago, I was without one for a while, and the kids went to Ed and said, ‘When’s Mom going to get a baby? She’s climbing walls.’ I just feel fulfilled when I can help a child--and there are so many out there who need help. If you can make a difference in a child’s life, that’s your reward.”

Because she and her husband are frequently on the streets of Balboa with children of assorted colors, the Newetts attract attention--not all of it approving. They have worked up some stock answers to questions with an edge of disapproval, especially when they have a black and a white child in tow. When Carol Newett was asked recently by two older women if the children were both hers, she said, “Oh, yes, my husband’s black, and we got one of each.”

Foster parenting has not prevented the Newetts from a social life, even though Carol Newett can’t leave her children when they are on medical equipment unless she brings in a nurse. They don’t go out to eat a great deal unless they can take the children along, but they entertain frequently in their home and take yearly refresher trips.

This month they headed for Hawaii “for two weeks of R&R.; Then I’ll come home rejuvenated. I’ve already been offered another baby who is critically ill. If she survives, I’ll have the chance to help her get well.”

This was before Steven’s departure, and he wandered in then with a balloon almost as large as he was. Newett looked at him wistfully. “That little boy is mine until 4 o’clock Friday. Then he isn’t mine anymore. And I can’t keep in touch, no matter how much I want to.

“But I think we’re all here for a reason, and I’m one of the lucky few who has discovered mine. I used to want to save all the children in the world. Then I found out I couldn’t do that. Now I just want to save the one that’s put in my care.”