She got pregnant when she was 15, sending her life along a stuttering trajectory.

Ms. Hill gave birth to a daughter, Nieama, in 1980 and dropped out of school in the ninth grade. One day, while Ms. Hill was at the store, she said, her mother called the police to turn the baby over to child welfare. It took Ms. Hill months to get her back. Her mother threw them out of the house, and they lived with friends and at a shelter. Looking back, Ms. Hill said, “I started life at too young an age. I was a child taking care of a child.”

For about eight years, she bounced between St. Thomas and St. Croix, living with Nieama’s father and his relatives. They broke up, and she returned to New York in 1988, landing again with Nieama in homeless shelters. Ms. Hill found her way into trouble and had some arrests she is ashamed of. She found sporadic work at a food cart and a bar. She got involved with a shelter security guard and had Matthew and Jmapie with him. Soon, the father moved on. She went on public assistance, her main support for most of her life, and was placed in subsidized housing.

In the early 1990s, she again came to the notice of child welfare. There were a couple of brief foster care removals. A continuing spat involving a neighbor, excessive drinking and leaving her children alone resulted in the neighbor calling the authorities about Ms. Hill in early 1994; her three children were removed for a short period.

Around this time, she met Isaac McDonald. He was a mechanic. Soon, he moved in with her. He had a son in Jamaica but wanted more children. Against her better judgment, Ms. Hill had a son, Darnell, in 1995, and then N. in 1999 and J. in 2001 with Mr. McDonald.

Both Ms. Hill and Mr. McDonald were heavy drinkers, and booze cost him a garage he opened, he said. Ms. Hill acknowledges that it was not easy being a mother. “It was like my hair was being pulled all different ways,” she said.

A succession of episodes built up a deeper history with child-welfare officials.

In 1999, Ms. Hill quarreled with a woman in her building after one of Ms. Hill’s sons said the neighbor cursed at him. She said the woman hit her with a stick. Ms. Hill got a kitchen knife. The police arrested them both, and Matthew, Jmapie, Darnell and N. went into foster care for 22 months. Four months after they returned, a neighbor reported that N. had a bruise on her cheek — Ms. Hill said it resulted from an accident with a bike — and the children were removed again briefly.

In July 2002, Ms. Hill and Mr. McDonald got into a brawl outside their building and were arrested. Jmapie and Matthew were at camp, and Ms. Hill’s mother took the three other young children. After a month, while Ms. Hill was still in jail, her mother notified child welfare that the children were too much for her, and they re-entered foster care. Jmapie and Matthew were allowed to stay with Ms. Hill. Ms. Hill and Mr. McDonald split up.