What was supposed to be a blessed day turned into one of utter shock and disbelief as two parents first glanced at their newborn daughter. They decided to abandon her because of her looks, but it was what happened afterward that was worth remembering.
As she lay in her bed at the midwife’s house, Gretchen Abbott racked her brain trying to find answers to her questions. What had gone wrong? And why had it happened to her? She had been honest and hardworking all her life and didn’t think she deserved this kind of heartbreak and humiliation.
Gretchen worked a basic factory job to put food on the table, while her husband worked on a farm as a common laborer. Although she often wondered if there wasn’t a little more to life than what she was experiencing, she was generally happy. But when she found out that she was pregnant, she felt torn between two strong emotions. Deep down, she had always wanted to be a mother and was overjoyed at the thought of having a child of her own.
But a new baby would bring new challenges for the family, especially in a financial way. After the birth, she would have the additional challenge of finding good care for her child so that she could keep on working. The pressure of the baby was weighing heavily on her husband’s heart as well. Perhaps, she thought as she listened to the cries of a newborn rooms away from her, this doubt had been the reason why fate had given her a deformed baby. Or perhaps she had overexerted herself in the months before the birth.
Gretchen had been happy to see that her belly wasn’t expanding too rapidly. It was clear that she would give birth to a small baby even if she carried the pregnancy to full term. She decided to work for as long as she possibly could, so she was still at the factory the morning she realized that she had gone into labor. Her husband was working in a rice field a distance away, and she knew that she would certainly deliver the baby without him being present. It was, in any case, not customary for the husband in this rural community to be present at birth.
Given the circumstances, Gretchen never had any kind of medical care during the pregnancy. Medical conditions in the area were basic, and something as sophisticated as an ultrasound was a luxury very few of these people ever saw. The expectant parents didn’t know if their baby was a boy or girl, let alone if it was healthy.
When Gretchen had fallen pregnant, she had done everything in her power to keep her baby healthy. She did not have any access to fancy supplements or medical facilities, but she tried not to lift heavy things and to eat the best food she was able to afford. She also did not drink any alcohol or smoke. Although she was only able to afford basic food items, she was healthy and strong.
The fact that Gretchen was young made it almost a default practice in her province to give birth at home. The Masbate province in the Philippines was known for its high incidents of poverty, and very few women were lucky enough to have access to a hospital. Despite the baby being very small, she was in labor for hours. The delivery progressed slowly, a kind-hearted nurse named Angela kept an eye on this first-time mother who had nobody to support her during this difficult birth. After hours of intense labor, the baby was finally born. But when the doctor delivered it, he and the nurses were in complete shock and immediately hid it from the mother.
“Can I please see my child?” Gretchen cried as she saw the nurse wrap the baby in a blanket and run out of the birthing room. The new mom didn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. “What was wrong with her baby?” she wondered. Her heart was breaking as her motherly instincts told her that something awful was up with her child. The secrecy was making things worse. It was hours later when the doctor finally came back. Gretchen could see that he was deeply troubled. He did not know how to break the news to this young mother. The next few minutes were a bunch of medical jargon until Gretchen simply could not take it anymore. “Just show me my baby, please!” she shouted.
When the nurse brought in the little baby wrapped in the blanket, she was crying with pity. Then she bent down to reveal the baby to her mother for the first time. Gretchen could not help but utter a shout of total shock and disbelief. In the arms of the nurse was a baby with no mouth and no nose, and in the middle of the face, a single eye like that of a cyclops. “This cannot be my child!” she screamed in horror. “Take it away!”
The nurse tried to comfort her, but Gretchen was hysterical. So, she cuddled the baby in her arms and left the traumatized and distraught mother behind. Other nurses and midwives came and went to check on her, but Gretchen wasn’t present in the moment anymore. Although they wanted her to at least hold the baby for a few seconds, she bluntly refused. She was adamant that she never again wanted to see the creature that was shown to her previously.
A few hours later, the father of the baby appeared at the midwife’s center. He had only found out that his wife had gone into labor after finishing his working day. When he asked for Gretchen, the nurses told him to wait for the doctor before he could see his wife. He was quite puzzled at their secretive behavior, but he was too tired after a long day’s work to argue. The conversation with the doctor was a difficult one. The father was informed that his child was severely deformed facially and that the baby was still alive, but that there was little chance of survival. Then he also had to process the fact that his wife was in a complete state of shock and did not even want to hold their newborn child. He was given the option to go and see the baby where she was cared for in a private room by a dedicated nurse.
The father could not have imagined the sight he was about to encounter. When he saw the face of his child, he was shocked into silence. How could this be the child he had been looking forward to meeting? Then he asked the doctor if they knew what had caused their baby to be born this way. After a long while, the doctor told them that they suspected that radiation might have caused a disability in their child. Gretchen had worked at the factory until the very moment she had gone into labor, and perhaps the child had suffered because of exposure to harmful radiation. It seemed like most of the organs were intact, but the baby had no mouth to be fed with. Doctors were still trying to determine a course of action to see if they could save her and if there was anything to be done to increase the chances of survival.
The distraught father walked down the long corridor of the hospital trying to gather his thoughts. He had no idea how to comfort his wife or what to even think, let alone what to do. The hospital staff directed him to the room where Gretchen was sleeping. As he entered the room, there was no one in the bed. He thought she might have gone to the bathroom, but after 10 minutes of waiting, she was still nowhere to be found. So, he asked the hospital staff to help him locate Gretchen.
After frantically searching for her all over, the staff concluded that she must have checked herself out of
the hospital. Unbeknownst to her husband, Gretchen had made up her mind while she lay in bed, and despite the pain she still felt in her entire body, she had gotten up and sneaked out of the center without looking back.
The doctor asked the father to stay and take responsibility for the child, but at that moment, the situation was simply too much for him. In the end, both Gretchen and her husband decided to abandon their severely deformed child in a private room. A dedicated nurse was sitting with the child; she was relieved from all her other duties and asked to closely monitor the baby while doctors tried to determine a course of action.
Although Nurse Angela had years of experience and had been exposed to many situations, caring for this child was traumatic even for her. The difference between her and the baby’s mother was that she could not help but feel a deep compassion for the newborn girl in her arms. The hospital had inserted an intravenous feeding tube in an attempt to get some sustenance into her body, and she was looking all the stranger. With her years of experience, Angela knew that human touch was one of the most important things she could give this baby.
The doctors told her that the chances of survival were extremely low, but Angela wasn’t willing to give up that easily. She also reminded herself of the Hippocratic Oath she had taken to fight for every life to her last breath. She would not treat this baby any other way. Despite the extremely low odds of survival, Angela held the baby in her arms, cuddling the little body close to her chest. The only thing she could do was to give her all the love she possibly could in an attempt to deal with the child’s cries as well as her own overwhelming emotions. Angela sang lullaby songs to the little helpless infant.
Doctors expected the baby to die within the first few hours after birth. However, the deformed girl made it through the first 12 hours. Then they became 18, and then 24. Nobody had expected a miracle like this to happen, except maybe for Angela, who had held on to hope beyond hope. She refused to go to sleep and leave the child with the other nurses and endured the longest shift of her life just to be next to the little girl until her very last breath.
Her parents might have abandoned her because of her looks, but she wasn’t as easily deterred, and she wouldn’t let the poor baby spend that little time she had on Earth all by herself. Finally, the head doctor came to speak to her, and after looking at the scans, he had concluded there was absolutely nothing they could do for the baby. The only thing that Angela could do was to nurture her with love until she eventually died. Although deep in her heart, Angela knew that this was the reality she had to face, she could not help but feel a deep sense of loss.
The dedicated nurse sat with the abandoned baby until, after only 44 hours of being alive, she died in her arms. It was a bittersweet moment for this incredible medical professional, knowing that she had done all she could to give the baby the much-needed love she needed for the few precious hours she had on Earth. When the baby was buried, there were no parents or family present. Angela placed a single flower on the little coffin of the special child that almost lived for 2 days but that would forever live in our hearts.
What a heartbreaking ending. Do you think the cause of the baby’s deformities could indeed be the radiation her mother was exposed to at work? What would you do if you gave birth to a child like this? Tell us in the comments below.
