A Nurse Adopted a Sick Girl Who Was Abandoned in the Hospital, and Showered Her With Motherly Love

Every kid needs parents in their life to help them grow into happy and successful people. One little girl named Gisele didn’t receive motherly love or care in her earliest months of life, but her story does have a happy ending. A lucky chance brought the baby and her adoptive mom, Liz Smith, together, and here’s how the girl’s life changed since.

One day literally changed the whole world for the baby and her future mom.

Nurse Liz Smith believed that being almost 40, she had an extremely small chance to have a baby. She tried IVF (in vitro fertilization) and other methods of getting pregnant, but found out that her lab results prevented her from being a candidate. “That was a bad day,” Smith said in an interview.

Then, one day, she met a tiny baby at Franciscan Children’s Hospital, where she worked as a senior director of nursing. The baby girl was born prematurely at 29 weeks and her weight was just 1 pound and 14 ounces. The baby named Gisele came into the world with a severe diagnosis as a result of the bad habits her biological mom had throughout her pregnancy.

The tiny girl had already been in the hospital for 5 months by the time Liz Smith spotted her being wheeled down the hall by a nurse. And that was the moment when the woman started feeling overwhelming love for the baby.

“Who’s this beautiful angel?” Liz asked the nurse who was wheeling the baby. “Her name is Gisele,” the nurse replied. Then she learned that the baby was brought to her hospital because her lungs needed specialized care, and the child had been using a feeding tube. Gisele was all alone and did not have a single visitor during the entire months she had stayed at the hospital.

Since their paths crossed, the 2 became inseparable.

Liz was told many times by the staff of the hospital that she and the baby were the perfect pair. Before meeting Gisele, the woman had never considered fostering or adoption, but the tiny girl literally turned her inner world upside down.

The duo instantly bonded, and Smith began visiting Gisele very often. The little girl had suffered from some complications, and Liz was always by her side. “I went to see her every day,” the woman said. “It was kind of my reward after a long workday.”

Initially, Liz fostered Gisele and wanted to reunite the girl with her birth parents. At first, the parents visited their biological daughter, but these visits became fewer and fewer and then stopped completely. Liz’s aim then changed to adopting Gisele.

“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,” the woman said. “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.”

Adoption was psychologically hard for the woman.

The adoption process started, and the woman had to face some hesitations. The girl’s biological parents did not claim the rights to their baby, and there were no other biological relatives fit to take care of her. While Liz was relieved to realize Gisele would be well cared for, she was sad about the baby’s parents.

“I was gaining her, but they were losing her. And to try to battle addiction and being a mom, that’s impossible,” Liz said.

Gisele was 2 years old when she and her adopted mom finally shared a last name. Liz quickly adapted from being a nurse to being a mom — and Gisele went from a weak preemie to a shining little star. And now, they’ll have each other’s love for the rest of their lives.

How do you feel about this adoption story? Would you ever consider adopting a child?

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