When a baby is born, we celebrate. It’s a miracle and a time for family to gather and dote on the tiny child. But that wasn’t what happened for Gisele Smith, who was born in a hospital in the Boston, Massachusetts area. When nurse, Liz Smith met this baby, she was surprised to hear the baby hadn’t had visitors in months. But that’s just the beginning of the story of how this nurse adopted a baby that had been abandoned at the hospital.
How a Nurse Adopted a Baby From the Hospital Where She Worked
In July of 2016, baby girl Gisele was born prematurely. Having been born at 29 weeks to a mother who had used narcotics while pregnant, Gisele weighed only 1 pound, 14 ounces at birth.
Diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), Gisele was eventually transferred to Franciscan Children’s Hospital in Brighton, Massachusetts where she received treatment for a lung issue in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
Unfortunately, after Gisele’s birth, her birth mother and birth father didn’t visit her, and neither did anyone else. All the love and care Gisele received in the first several months of her life came from the hospital staff.
That is, until the senior director of nursing at the hospital, Liz Simth, met Gisele.
Liz was just walking down a hallway when she saw 8-month-old Gisele being wheeled toward her. At that point, Gisele had been at Franciscan Children’s Hospital for five months without a single visitor.
According to Liz, Gisele’s curl of brown hair and blue eyes caught her attention, and she asked the nurse, “Who’s this beautiful angel?
From that day, Liz visited Gisele every day. She learned that the baby girl’s mother had used meth, cocaine, and heroin while she was pregnant.
This time for Liz was special and important. “It was my reward after a long workday,” she explained.
While reunification with the birth parents was the goal, the birth parents did not want to keep their baby. As a result, Gisele was put into the custody of the state of Massachusetts, and social workers had been trying to find a home for the baby when she met Liz.
With Gisele in foster care, Liz was able to become her foster parent. As Gisele’s foster mom, Liz helped with feeding the baby through a gastrostomy tube and with weaning her off of the drugs her birth mother had taken.
“I remember certain nights, one in particular, when she was hooked up to the feed and I was walking by the mirror and the thought went into my head of losing her,” Liz shared about her time of fostering Gisele. “I had to go there in my mind because it was still a reality, but it made me sick to my stomach. You can’t just love a certain percentage. You have to give it your all.”
That’s when Liz decided she wanted to adopt Gisele.
Liz, now in her early 40s had not been able to have a child. She’d dreamed of being a mother, but her career had postponed her trying.
Liz told the Boston Globe, “My definition of family was always: In my 20s I’ll get married, have kids, and have a big family like the one I grew up with.”
Unfortunately, the various methods she tried, such as IVF, didn’t take. She was dismayed, thinking she wouldn’t be able to have children.
“That was a bad day,” Liz shared about when she found out the IVF wasn’t going to work for her, which is partially what’s so special about how this nurse adopted a baby who needed her as much as she wanted to protect and love a child.