I Learned That Someone Had Left This Baby in a Baby Hatch Next to the Hospital Maternity Ward I Chose to Adopt the Child Who Was Abandoned by Their Parents Three Months After My Husband’s Death—The Baby Was Found in a Safe Haven Cradle Beside the Maternity Ward I Had to Quickly Gather All the Necessary Documents, and I Managed to Do It. There Were Numerous Inspections by Various Authorities and an Assessment of My Home, Which I Passed With Flying Colours. Just a Few Days Later, My Son Was With Me. I Loved Him As If He Were My Own. I Named Him After My Late Husband. It Was a Wonderful Feeling to Say and Hear That Name Again. As My Son Grew Older, He Began Asking About Having a Sibling. Honestly, I Didn’t Mind. I Work Remotely and Can Manage Everything From My Laptop, Which Made This Ideal for Me. When I Returned Home to Care for Our New Child, I Was Overjoyed. I Was Taken to a Room, Where They Showed Me a Baby Girl, Just Three Days Old, in Her Cot. The Moment I Saw Her, I Fell in Love and Knew She Belonged With Us. Knowing Exactly Which Documents and Checks Were Required, I Was Able to Organise Everything Much Faster Than Before. Now There Are Three of Us—Me, My Son, and My Daughter. We Are the Happiest People in the World.

I found out, in the fogged-up blue hush of an early London morning, that an infant had been left inside The Foundling Niche, set into the ancient stone wall beside the maternity wing at Westminster Hospital.

It was three months since my husbands passingthree months of cream teas untouched and rain-splattered walks through Regents Parkwhen I made up my mind to bring that abandoned child into my life. They told me the baby had been left just before dawn, swaddled in tartan, at The Foundling Niche. A strange kind of sadness and hope flickered together in my chest.

Everything became a flurry of papers, bustling visits from quiet-eyed officials with clipboards, and checking that our little house in Kent met all the regulations. I gathered up every certificate and stamped form whilst buttering toast, and somehow it all slid into place. One sleepy afternoon, I was sitting by the window with a cup of Earl Grey when they called; the next, I was carrying my son home in a drizzle, loving him as fiercely as if hed come from my own bones. I christened him after my late husbandDavidjust to feel that name tripping across my tongue, warm and comforting as a worn jumper.

David grew with the sweet strangeness of dreamssometimes asking about brothers or sisters while we strolled along the Thames, the world shimmering around us. It never bothered me, his wondering. My work was scattered as leavesemails and spreadsheets I could gather with my laptop as I sat in our cosy kitchen. Time stretched and folded like thick English fog.

When I brought our next child home, I could hardly contain the thrilla silent drive back, streetlights winking like stars, and in the hospital nursery, a tiny girl blinking up at me, not yet four days old. She looked as if shed slipped out of a storybook, and by the time the nurse had finished explaining her schedule, I already knew she was ours. The dream bureaucracy felt familiar this timea swift patchwork of medical checks and forms, everything swirling along as if the paperwork sorted itself.

Now it is the three of us: myself, David, and Lucy. Life spins by with odd dream-logic; sometimes it rains indoors, or the radio hums nursery rhymes through the kettle, and there will be days when the world outside looks like an impressionist painting. In the strange cocoon of our red-brick home, we are, impossibly, the happiest people on earth.