Abandoned infants find a home

Associated Press

SEATTLE — Julie has at least three angels at her house this Christmas. One, over the mantel, is made of wood. Two were abandoned babies that she took in initially as a foster parent and then adopted.

And if you believe angels walk among us, perhaps there are more.

"It just amazes me how lucky I am," said Julie, who didn’t want her last name used to protect the children’s privacy. "Whether it was fate or God’s hand, I believe this was meant to be."

In July 1998, the single foster parent was asked to care for a baby girl found in the woods by three girls near Angle Lake in SeaTac. She adopted the girl, named Emily, in December 1999.

Then, in March 2000, she was asked to take in a second abandoned newborn — a boy found swaddled in a black fleece pullover and left along a sidewalk in the city’s Magnolia neighborhood.

Baby Boy Magnolia, as he was legally known, officially became Julie’s son on Dec.7, her 44th birthday. She named him Nicholas, although 3-year-old Emily calls her brother "Buster."

Julie knows her children — both born healthy, with no signs of drug or alcohol use by their mothers — could have died in those first fragile hours. She has shared their story with state legislators and others, hoping to help prevent unsafe abandonments.

She was thrilled when eight local hospitals agreed last June to let desperate parents leave unwanted newborns in emergency rooms, no questions asked. Prosecutors in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties have promised not to file criminal charges if babies are given up unharmed within three days of birth.

As a result of the Safe Place for Newborns program, two young mothers have already taken babies to local hospitals, said Virginia Pfalzer, one of two retired nurses who organized the nonprofit group.

Nicholas’ arrival was announced with a phone call on March 24, 2000 — one day after 12-year-old Dustin Chavez found the chilly infant as he walked home from school. A Department of Social and Health Services worker explained the situation and asked if Julie could take the baby in.

Julie hesitated. She and Emily, then 21 months old, were living in a one-bedroom bungalow.

But when she called a friend for advice, "She said, ‘Go for it,’ " Julie recalled. "Within a matter of minutes, I had another baby in my life."

Once again, friends, family and co-workers at her King County office, where she supervises clerical staff, rallied in support.

The threesome recently moved from their Ballard bungalow to a bigger house in Shoreline, where life is a happy, busy blur of sticky fingers, diaper changes and hugs.

"Look at me, look at me," Emily shouts as she slides down an indoor plastic slide. Nicholas, a chatterbox, tries to keep up.

The loving clamor is fine with Julie, who dreamed of a big family as a young girl. She tried artificial insemination a few years before Emily came along, and finally signed up to be a foster parent. Emily was her first assignment.

Police never found the mother of either child. Julie says she and the kids look so much alike that strangers assume they’re a biological family.

She’s given up her foster-care license for now. Friends joke that she should "Just say no."

No one knows for sure how many newborns are abandoned each year in Washington. At least 10 are abandoned in the Puget Sound area, and not all survive, according to Safe Place for Newborns.

The legislation Julie testified for would protect parents from criminal prosecution if they leave unwanted babies who are less than three days old at a hospital. They’d have the option of providing medical history anonymously.

State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, said she hopes it will pass during the upcoming session.

Such safe-haven laws have been enacted in at least 14 states. Critics say they fail to provide services that might prevent abandonment in the first place, and tread on the rights of birth fathers, who may not be aware an infant was born.

But Julie believes the women who bore her children might have made safer choices if they’d had that option.

"I hope they are at peace and know that these kids are safe and loved," she said.

She’s been unable to find young Chavez, but the three girls who found Emily have all visited.

"She calls them her special angels," Julie said.

Associated Press