undying love

I woke up this morning and, like usual, stumbled through making coffee and checked my Facebook like a good junkie.  i have quite a few friends from all over the world and will regularly see posts about issues that i, unfortunately, know nothing and have heard nothing about.  whether it's a bus bombing or lack of shoes or water, there are always some new posts about some injustice around the globe that i should feel something about, and sadly, rarely actually do.  yes, those kids in africa are there, they just seem so far away.  of course i know they are real, yes i know they're hungry, yes i know they're dying.  but africa is a little beyond my reach and it just seems to be what it is.  and so i sip my coffee and shake my head, "that's a shame..." and i move on.


this morning i had a story in my status feed that i couldn't just shake off, just a shared photo actually.  but as we all know "a photo's worth a thousand words".    

yes, you saw that right, an abandoned baby in a trash can. *  


although this photo was taken in india, where this is horrifically common, i have seen many news stories of girls/women doing this here in america.  at the prom, at work, in motels.  


my first thought as my stomach turned was 'what the hell?'.  followed by 'people need to know this really happens, they need to see this and feel something too!'  initially i reposted this to Facebook out of the sheer "see this people?? this shit really happens!  this is what this really looks like, not just the faces of the 'confused teenagers' you see when they run the story on the news! THIS is what baby abandonment really looks like!"  as i posted it i even had a comment saying "'no child left behind' needs to be taken into a new direction".  as i read comments on the originating post i saw mostly huge amounts of bashing surrounded the controversy of posting this on a social site and most of the comments were that this is "disgusting" and "my 3 year old almost saw this!" and "what about that baby's dignity??, they don't deserve to have their picture shown like this!".


for the sake of my unsuspecting Facebook friends i took the post on my page down.  not because i don't think they should see this, i think they should, but only for the sake of their potential three year olds who may be playing farmville.  


however, that being said, yes this is disgusting, yes it is horrible, and yes that baby deserves more dignity that having their photo spread around social sites.  HOWEVER, that baby deserved a blanket, a cradle, a home, a family and his MOTHER'S ARMS!!  this baby did not get the life s/he deserved, whether s/he was stillborn or murdered postpartum, either way, they deserved way more than this metal can full of rubbish.  


as i was in labor with sam i had my sister joyously shouting at me "i can see his hair! oh my gosh ash he has hair! i can see him!" and i kept pushing, knowing i was about to hold my baby and see his hair for myself.  at the point where i'd delivered his head i looked down and saw his hair, and was overwhelmed with love just seeing him part way out.  delivering the rest of him and taking him into my arms i was by far the most emotional moment of my life.  i'm pretty sure on the recording all you hear for a while is "oh my god, my baby, i have a baby!" and i continue to babble semi-coherently about how much i love him and he's mine.  he was early so still fuzzy with lanugo hair, and i couldn't stop touching him.  counting his fingers and toes, kissing his face and head.  loving and bonding and whispering promises of undying love.  that is what this baby deserved.  his mother holding him, stroking his dark hair, kissing those fingers, caressing every inch and tenderly cleaning and swaddling him.  like every newborn this baby deserved undying love.  and i'm just judgmental enough to say i hope this mother gets what she deserves.  if karma started in india let's hope it's most effectual there.








*(for those of you about to argue about photoshop, all i can say is, so what if it is?  i'd love to hope this photo wasn't real but that does NOT mean this doesn't happen, that does NOT mean this isn't at the very least an accurate representation of what it does look like.  so that being said, we're going to assume for the sake of argument that this is real and move on.)