Summer Pearce only got to be mother a very short time. For part of that time, Pearce, 26, was behind bars at the county jail on a drug charge.

When she was arrested in February, her infant son, Samuel “Sammy” Vitela, was taken from her and placed in foster care in Fairfield. On April 25, three days before little Sammy was to turn six months old and on the very day his mother turned 26, he died while in foster care.

“I’m not a bad mother. I just made some very bad decisions. And I let a lot of people down, including my baby. I wasn’t there to take care of him,” Pearce said in a jail house interview.

“I’m done with drugs. God took my baby away from me to open my eyes,” said Pearce. “All I pray for is just one more chance. I’m so sorry and so remorseful. Because of my addiction, I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t keep my promise to Sammy to be the best mother ever. I want to call my friends who still have their babies and tell them ‘don’t do stupid things that could make you lose your babies.’ I never thought I would bury my Sammy.”

The cause of Sammy’s death is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, according to Solano County Coroner’s Office spokesman David Curl.

“We did an autopsy and found no signs of foul play. There in no indication of any criminal wrongdoing,” Curl said.

Pearce never met her son’s foster parents.

“I had no contact with them ever,” she said. “The last time I saw my son was in Napa three weeks before he died. He was very congested. I think he was sick. I told them that. I don’t think they listened to me.”

Information about the baby’s care while in foster care and other details of his death are not available because of confidentially issues with Child Protective Services.

The day Pearce was told of her baby’s death started out as good day, she said.

“It was my birthday, and I had gone to court. Then that evening they told me I had a special visit. A person from CPS, a mental health officer and correctional officer walked into my room and told me my son had died,” Pearce said. “I told them to get out my room. I was just in shock. I kept telling them to take my son out of foster care. My grandmother said she would care for him. As a matter of fact, my son died on a Wednesday, and that following Tuesday, he was supposed to go live with my grandmother until I got out of jail.”

Officials at the Napa County jail arranged a seven-day pass for Pearce to attend her baby’s funeral.

“Since he died while in foster care, CPS made the arrangements and paid for the services. We had a viewing on Saturday and graveside services on Sunday at Tulocay Cemetery. Everything was closed casket. I wanted to remember him the way he was, not lying in a coffin,” Pearce said.

“When I saw the casket, that’s when it really hit me for the first time he — Sammy — was really gone,” she said. “After they lowered the casket into the grave and everyone threw in teddy bears and flowers, (cemetery staff) told me the service was over, and I had to leave. They didn’t give me any time to grieve over my baby’s grave.”

Drug demons

Pearce has been doing drugs half of her life — since she was 13.

“A friend offered me a line (of methamphetamine) and from there I was hooked. I did drugs almost every day. ... I was clean off and on. The longest I ever was clean was three years. But it seemed like something devastating would happen to me, and I would go back to the drugs.”

Pearce said she remained clean and sober during her pregnancy.

“I waited a long time to have my baby. I wanted him to be healthy,” she said. “But I couldn’t get off the drugs. I started up again when he was a month old.”

The day Pearce was arrested for drug charges, drug agents raided a Pine Street residence where Pearce was at the time with Sammy, her 18-month-old stepdaughter and a 6-year-old boy she was babysitting.

“I had just smoked a joint before they showed up. I hadn’t done meth that day. I was going to, but Sammy started crying and I had to take care of him,” she said.

Pearce was busted for possession of meth to sell and child endangerment. Her son and stepdaughter were taken by CPS and put in a foster home. Her stepdaughter and Sammy have the same father, who she said is in Mexico.

“We took a trip to Mexico after Sammy was born, and Sammy’s dad couldn’t return to the United States because he is illegal. I don’t even know if he knows his son is dead,” she said.

This is not the first brush with the law for Pearce. In 2005, she was arrested and convicted of possession of stolen property.

“That made me a felon, which makes it almost impossible to get a job,” she said. “That’s why I turned to selling drugs. I had to make a living. I don’t have a place of my own, I just bounce around from friend to friend. So without rent to pay, I just needed enough money to buy food and put gas in the car.”

Pearce sees her baby’s death as a wake-up call.

“I would still have my son if I only could have stayed off the drugs, but my addiction was too strong. I think about Sammy every day. I suffer guilt and feel remorse every day of my life. I feel empty inside. Sammy was the only thing that was mine,” Pearce said, wiping tears from her eyes. “He loved me so much and made me feel so good.”

If there could be any positive thing to come from the death of her baby son, it is that Pearce is determine to kick her addiction.

“I am through with drugs once and for all. I don’t want to use my son’s death to ruin my life. I know he would not want that either,” she said. “His death is like someone hit me in stomach with a bat and said ‘Wake up, get off drugs and live your life.’ I really want that. I want more babies. And through all of this I will have my Sammy, my little angel, looking down on me. I will make him proud.”