Nurse Adopts Forgotten Preemie Baby in NICU, and Their Lives Are Changed Forever

Illustration - Dmitry Kalinovsky/Shutterstock

Liz Smith fulfilled a career milestone when she became the senior director of nursing at Franciscan Children’s Hospital in the Boston area. She hoped to fulfill another goal in her personal life, to become a mother, though it seemed like this would never happen.

Then one day at work, Smith was walking toward the elevator when she spotted a tiny, absolutely adorable baby in a stroller. When Smith found out the story behind this “beautiful angel,” she knew that the answer to her prayers had finally arrived.

Like many young people, Liz Smith had a plan for how things were going to go in her life. “It just seemed natural that I would go to college, get my nursing degree, meet a guy, get married, and have children,” she told TODAY. While the career part was working brilliantly, becoming a mom was not.

By the time she crossed paths with baby Gisele, Smith had just about given up hope on the idea of being a mother. After a long-term relationship ended, she found herself single and approaching 40. She decided to try having a child on her own through various fertility treatments but without any success. “When that door closed quickly and suddenly,” Smith told the Boston Globe, “it was a bad day.’’

Smith definitely went through a period of grieving for her unfulfilled wish but resolved to “put it in the back of my mind and got busy with work as I always do,” as she told TODAY. What she wasn’t counting on was this little preemie who was going to change everything.

The beautiful baby Smith fell in love with had managed to beat the odds just to survive. Her biological parents were suffering from addiction to heroin, methadone, and cocaine, according to the Boston Globe, which continued during the pregnancy. Gisele was born at 29 weeks a meager 1 pound 14 ounces (approx. 850 grams) with seemingly insurmountable challenges ahead.

After several months in the NICU, Gisele’s birth parents made fewer and fewer appearances, unable to break free of their addiction. As for the baby, “she was at a critical point where if she did not get out of the hospital she may not catch up developmentally,” Smith said.

That’s when Smith, who had never really considered fostering or adopting, felt the pull of motherhood. “It’s a desire you can try to push away and fill with other distractions, but it never goes away,” she told Washington Post. She decided to foster Gisele herself to keep her from being taken into state care.

For nine months, Gisele faced difficult moments, on a ventilator and feeding tube, and it looked like she might not make it. Then, she started to show some improvement. Meanwhile, Gisele’s birth parents, who had to meet a series of criteria for rehab in order to retain parental rights, stopped coming to the hospital for their weekly visits.

In October of 2018, a judge granted Smith legal custody over Gisele in an emotional proceeding. Smith shared with the Boston Globe how the judge brought the whole audience to tears. She recalled his words:

“When a judge walks in the room, everyone stands out of respect. But today I stand in respect for you, Liz, because you deserve the respect from this room. A birthing day is a miracle. But adopting a child from miles away is destiny. That’s what brought you two together.”

With the love and medical expertise of her mother, Gisele has grown up to be a healthy and energetic little girl. The mother told TODAY, “The things that made her giggle and laugh randomly, the times that she’ll notice that I’m sad and come up to me and give me a hug just out of the blue, or seeing her running to me from daycare.”

For Smith’s family, who have been heavily involved in helping raise Gisele, and for her co-workers at the hospital, who have been incredibly supportive all the way, she knows this nearly forgotten baby has forever changed their lives. “I don’t think anyone remembers life before Gisele,” she said.