When you consider just how many couples are trying so hard to have children, it is heartbreaking to see others abandoning theirs.
And who would abandon a newborn baby in the middle of the road too, of all places? This unidentified mother, apparently.
A newspaper delivery person had been doing his rounds in Madera County on what seemed to be an otherwise ordinary Monday morning, on the 11th of February, when he noticed something strange.
There, in the middle of the road, was an incredibly suspicious bundle.
The natural response most people have about seeing a moving bundle placed on the dividing line of a road is to check it out, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise that the news carrier stopped his van to check it out.
To his shock and horror, it was a newborn baby girl who still had her umbilical cord attached to her, dressed in nothing more than a one-piece pajama set and wrapped up in a blanket.
It seemed that the abandonment of the child was incredibly recent too – recent enough that a woman (presumably the mother) was seen with a baby just minutes before the horrible discovery was made.
A witness claimed that before the newborn was found on the road by the paper carrier, he was flagged down by a woman in a small, white SUV.
She had asked said witness if he could take her child but was directed by him to the Valley Children’s Hospital and the fire station down the street instead.
There, the child could be cared for by the authorities.
It seemed that the woman did not take the witness’s advice, as the baby was abandoned in the middle of the road minutes later.
Many consider it a miracle that the baby had been discovered as soon as she was – with the frigid temperatures in central California at the time, the baby would have quickly frozen to death.
That is, assuming the baby managed to survive either being roadkill or swooped up by a wild animal.
Thankfully, the baby was perfectly ok – it was likely she had been left alone for only a few minutes.
According to the press conference held by the Undersheriff for Madera County, Tyson Pogue, she was later taken to a local hospital and is now recovering well from her ordeal.
In the meantime, the police are on the lookout for the baby’s mother, who could potentially face felony charges of child endangerment, up to and possibly including attempted murder.
Clearly, the mother was in great distress and panic – this could not possibly be a decision that was made lightly. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried, either.
That said, it bears reminding there are plenty of safe surrender sites that will take in a newborn child, no questions asked.
No matter how desperate one is, the endangerment of a newborn child should be the last thing on your mind, especially when there are other options available to a helpless young mother.
