Sometimes motherhood finds you in surprising ways. That’s the moral of the story for a nurse in Brighton, Massachusetts, who adopted her daughter after the baby, who was born prematurely, went without a single visitor for five months in the NICU. Gisele is the light of Liz Smith’s life, and the devoted mom is sharing their unique and heartwarming adoption story of her NICU baby with the world.
Love at First Sight
Liz Smith, then the director of nursing at Franciscan Children’s Hospital in Brighton, first saw her daughter’s bright blue eyes in 2016. Gisele was being treated at the hospital for neonatal abstinence syndrome, a condition in which infants withdraw from certain drugs they were exposed to before birth. The moment was serendipitous. Liz was walking to the elevator when she spotted an 8-month-old girl with blue eyes and a brown curl framing her face.
“Who’s this beautiful angel?” she recalled asking a nurse who was wheeling the girl down the hall. “Her name is Gisele,” the nurse replied.
Gisele had been born premature at a different hospital in July 2016, weighing just 1 pound and 14 ounces. She was a ward of the state, having been removed from her mother’s care due to her condition and need for specialized treatment. Despite the excellent care provided by Franciscan Children’s, Gisele had not had a single visitor in the five months she had been there.
A Mother’s Calling
Liz Smith had always known she wanted to be a mom. Inspired by her own mother, a pediatric nurse who always put others first, Liz grew up wanting to follow in her footsteps. Tragically, her mother passed away from liver cancer when Liz was just 19. This loss fueled Liz’s desire to live a selfless life in her mother’s memory.
As Liz entered her 40s, she began to wonder when her own family life would begin. Despite several rounds of intrauterine insemination (IUI) and attempts at in vitro fertilization (IVF), she was unable to conceive. “I never imagined becoming a mom would be a challenge,” Liz said. “It’s a desire you can try to push away and fill with other distractions, but it never goes away.”
When she saw Gisele, Liz felt an immediate connection. “Since the moment I met her, there was something behind her striking blue eyes capturing my attention,” she said. “I felt that I needed to love this child and keep her safe.”
The Journey to Foster and Adopt
Determined to give Gisele the home she deserved, Liz quickly put in a request to foster her. As she waited for the paperwork to process, Liz visited Gisele every day after work, speaking softly to her and sitting by her crib so she would no longer feel alone. “She was behind developmentally, and I wanted to get her out of the hospital and get her thriving,” Liz recalled.
Three weeks later, Liz received the news she had been waiting for: she could take Gisele home, though the state stipulated that efforts would still be made to reunite Gisele with her birth parents. Liz’s friends at work threw her a baby shower, and despite the uncertainty, Liz embraced her role as Gisele’s foster mother with open arms.
