15March2025 Night shift, StMarys Maternity, London
Ive spent most of tonight watching the drama unfold in Bay3. The young mother, Emily, sat on the edge of the cot, legs tucked under her, muttering in a hoarse whisper: Hes no good to me. Im turning my back on him. All I want is Andrew, and he said he doesnt want a child. So I dont want yours either. Do what you will with the baby I couldnt care less.
The ward sister, MrsThatcher, leaned in. Child, thats barbaric, abandoning your own child. Even animals wouldnt act like that.
Emily snapped back, I dont care what beasts do. Discharge me now, or Ill make a scene you wont forget. Her voice cracked with fury.
MrsThatcher sighed, Youre a foolish girl, child of God. She knew, as the senior nurse, that medicine could do nothing for a will that was already broken.
Just a week earlier wed moved Emily from the postnatal suite to the neonatal unit because of her obstinate refusal to breastfeed. She would only agree to express milk, yet she had nowhere else to go. DrMegan, the junior paediatrician, tried in vain to reason with her. Emily threw endless tantrums, insisting the baby was a burden. When Megan suggested the childs safety was at risk, Emily declared she would run off. Megan called MrsThatcher, who spent a harried hour pleading with the irrational mother, but Emily insisted she must be with her boyfriend, who, she claimed, would not wait for her.
MrsThatcher, seasoned after twentyfive years, refused to give up. She could keep Emily under observation for three more days, hoping the girl would see sense. The prospect of a threeday limit sent Emily into a frenzy.
Are you mad? she shouted. Andrew is already angry about this cursed baby, and youre tossing me another stone. If I dont go south with him, hell take Katya away. Tears streamed down her face as she ranted about Katya a name she used to justify staying with Andrew, hoping marriage would follow.
MrsThatcher ordered a calming dose of valerian and moved toward the door. DrMegan, who had been silent, followed. In the corridor, MrsThatcher paused and whispered, Do you really think a child can thrive with a mother like this?
Megan replied softly, What can we do? If we dont act, hell end up in a baby home, then perhaps an orphanage. Both families have decent means, yours and his. Perhaps we should speak with the grandparents? Its their first grandchild after all.
Emily vanished that very afternoon. MrsThatcher phoned the boys parents; they refused to speak. Two days later, the babys paternal grandfather arrived a gruff, unfriendly man in a tweed coat. He scoffed at the idea of seeing the child, insisting his daughterinlaw would send a note via her driver. MrsThatcher told him the baby couldnt be discharged without the mothers presence; the rules were clear. The old man huffed, retreated, and promised his wife would handle everything.
The next day, a petite, pallid woman entered, sat on the edge of a chair and began sobbing uncontrollably. She whispered that the boys parents had fled abroad, wealthy and with grand plans, leaving their son behind. Her own daughter wailed for days, swearing she hated the child and would follow the boy overseas to claim him for Andrew. The woman clutched a fresh handkerchief, her cries filling the ward.
MrsThatcher, weary, offered the woman a look at the baby, hoping some grandmotherly affection might surface. The woman cooed over the infant, calling him a little darling, and said she would love to take him home if only her husband allowed. She then collapsed into deeper tears, demanding a stronger dose of the valerian. MrsThatcher sent for the consultant, DrBennett, who, upon seeing the tiny boy, smiled and asked what he was being fed. Hes a little bundle of joy, the consultant chuckled, nicknaming him Biscuit.
Biscuits stay stretched over several months. Emily kept returning, sometimes playing with him, claiming she was saving money for a ticket to find her boyfriend. She seemed to grow attached, but her visits were always punctuated by sobbing apologies for her own erratic behaviour. The boys mother, when she came, would fuss over him, then weep as she left, blaming her own madness for loving a man who was out of her mind. MrsThatcher noted that love was mistaken for lust.
Both mother and grandmother never signed a formal relinquishment, yet they never truly reclaimed the child. MrsThatcher, desperate, confronted them about Biscuits deteriorating health. The baby caught a cold, lost weight, and DrMegan cradled him constantly, joking that he was no longer a biscuit but a crumpet. Yet each time he regained his strength, his grin returned, and he delighted in the coralcoloured beaded necklaces that Megan wore, trying to bite them with glee.
One morning, Emily learned that her boyfriend had married someone else. She erupted, screaming that the universe conspired to keep them apart, that she despised everyone, especially the baby. If he werent here, Id be with Andrew now, happy, she declared, brandishing a written refusal form for the child, intent on sending him to an orphanage. She slipped the paper onto DrBennetts desk and left without a word.
Later, MrsThatcher, pale and angry, called out, Its done then. The chief wants the paperwork filed for the baby home. What can we do? DrMegan burst into tears. MrsThatcher removed her glasses, rubbed them methodically a telltale sign she was trying to steady herself. Everyone knew when the matron polished her lenses, storms were brewing.
Biscuit, meanwhile, frolicked in his cot, his laughter echoing through the wing. A nurse entered, tickling him; he squealed, waving his tiny arms. Suddenly, he fell silent, his eyes fixed on something unseen. The nurse, puzzled, leaned closer. Biscuits gaze met hers, and an inexplicable ache rose in her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks. She later learned that his mother had just signed the refusal form.
MrsThatcher muttered, Stop the nonsense, you lot. These tales are just superstition. Yet the child, even abandoned, seemed to sense the love he was denied, his tiny soul whispering of sorrow.
Abandoned infants know theyve been rejected. Whether they feel it or angels whisper the truth, they become invisible, trying not to trouble anyone. The world, indifferent, shoves them into grim institutions, as if they never mattered. Whether hungry or feverish, no one reads them bedtime stories or offers a blanket.
Nevertheless, hope lingers. Somewhere, kindness persists, faint but present. I must believe, for the childs sake.
Tonight, as I close the ward lights, I realise that sometimes the greatest compassion we can show is to keep fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves. The lesson I carry home: never abandon a life in your care, no matter how tangled the circumstances may be.
