web analytics

Baby No. 59 – Abandoned

Eric Mills

It is hard to fathom what goes through the mind of a mother who has just carried a child in her belly for nine months, given birth to the child and then with the help of the father or on her own abandons the child in the toilet of a public restroom. This newborn baby with the placenta still attached was shoved down a traditional Chinese squatty potty and left to die. Thankfully, someone heard his cry and he was rescued. A section of the sewer pipe was cut out with this little boy stuck inside and delivered to the hospital. As I watched the video of this unfolding, there it was, a section of the pipe carefully removed exposing the face of this beautiful baby boy. Baby No. 59. The name he was given based on the incubator he now occupies in the hospital. Every face has a name. Sadly, some are simply a number, because those who should care the most have abandoned their role in giving a name with true meaning and purpose. Here is a link to the video to watch for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As3VY7gEPnQ

This incident was hard enough to watch on it’s own, but it also stirred up emotions I felt very strongly when we were in China picking up Hope. Here is something I wrote while we were in China last year:

“We also received all of our notarized official documentation on Thursday. One of the forms was the certificate of abandonment which really brought about a range of emotions for me. I was sad for her biological parents because they missed out on such a wonderful, bright little girl who is so full of life. Sad for Hope knowing that dealing with being abandoned by her biological parents is something she will deal with through out her life. In the midst of those sad feelings, happy for us that she gets to be a part of our family and we get to be her parents. With those feelings comes a sense of guilt of being happy that she is with us when the best thing would have been loving biological parents. Emotions we will all have to wrestle with over time.”

Like Hope, this little boy will someday be asking the question, why did my parents not want me? The sad reality is, these parents are giving up a future of happiness and joy of knowing their child in the moment of abandonment. You so often hear children who have been abandoned say, do they ever think about me? Do they even care what I have become? There is a sense of emptiness I feel even writing about this and knowing Hope will be asking us these questions someday.

With all the happiness and joy Hope has brought into our family, with a personality that lights up the room and an intellect that will allow her to accomplish great things someday, I will have to try and answer her question of why she was not wanted. In those moments, my heart will break for her and the parents who chose to leave her in front of a hospital at three months of age. No matter how much love we have given her, no matter how successful she might become, long after her heart has been physically repaired, she will carry a wound, an emotional hole in her heart that will always wonder, why was I not wanted? Why was I not good enough?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

Copyright 2022, Faces With Names.  /  All rights reserved.