Man rushing to a date saw 'baby doll' lying on the floor—he didn't know he would end up adopting the baby months later
A brief pause in the middle of a rushed day might turn a person's life around. A man, Danny Stewart, is a shining example of that. Danny was rushing to his date with his partner, Pete Mercurio, when he came across something lying on a New York City subway platform. It looked like a little baby doll from afar and Danny was already late for dinner. But he was curious about why someone would leave a doll on the subway floor and decided to take a closer look. That one moment changed his life, per the BBC.
"I noticed on the floor tucked up against the wall, what I thought was a baby doll," Danny recounted. With a closer look, he realized that it was an actual baby. "I glanced back one more time and that's when I noticed his legs moved." It turned out to be a baby boy wrapped in a sweatshirt with his legs sticking out. "He didn't have any clothes on; he was just wrapped up in this sweatshirt. His umbilical cord was still partially intact, so I could tell he was a newborn. I was thinking maybe a day or so old." The man was really confused why someone would leave a baby like that and immediately started screaming for help. As the incident happened back in 2000, Danny didn't have a cell phone like many other people. He asked the passersby to call the police, but everyone ignored him.
He eventually ran up to the pay phone himself and called 911. Although he was worried that the police might not believe him because of the strange situation. Danny came back to check on the baby, but then decided to run back and call Pete, so he could make the same call to the police and increase their chances of being heard. He was scared to touch the baby as he thought that he might be hurt. "Because Danny doesn't joke, he wouldn't say something if it wasn't true," Pete remembered thinking. He ran to the subway station as the police took the baby for a checkup. Pete told his partner that he would be linked to the baby for life and they might want to send a gift for him every year, but there was more in store for them.
The couple went about their lives, but then Danny eventually had to attend a court hearing in December 2000 to give his testimony about the incident. The judge told him that the baby would be put in pre-adoptive foster care and asked him if he would be interested in adopting. Although he had not thought of it before, he decided to say yes to it. But when he told Pete about it and the man was not happy. Their relationship went through a really rough patch as they didn't agree on the decision. They also considered breaking up, but Danny convinced his partner to come and see the baby in foster care. Both of them knew that the place was not ideal for the baby, as he had a large diaper rash on his body.
The moment Pete held the baby, things changed. "The baby squeezed my finger with his entire hand so hard. He was just staring up at me and I was just looking at him and it was almost like he found a pressure point in my finger that just opened up my heart to my head and showed me in that moment that I could be one of his parents, one of his dads." They decided to adopt the baby and the process began. They also got a chance to take the baby home for the holidays. "I said we're going to name him Kevin and my mum just started bawling, because she had had a baby before me that died at birth and they were naming that baby Kevin," Pete revealed. The baby eventually went on to study mathematics and computer science at college. About their decision, 20 years later, Pete remarked, "I did not know this deep level of love existed until my son came into my life."
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