A woman who admitted to having abandoned her baby in 2007 was placed under a probation order today after a court noted that she had been reunited with the baby and had a genuine desire to rehabilitate herself.
Karen Grech, 22, of Cospicua, was taken to court today and accused of having abandoned her baby Hayden in a shoebox on April 1, 2008. Ms Grech pleaded guilty.
The court noted that the baby had been found in the street and taken into care. A care order was then issued. Ms Grech eventually recovered from the birth and after treatment under the surveillance of social workers, was quickly reunited with the baby and the care order was lifted.
In view of the developments, the court placed Ms Grech under a probation order for two years. It said its decision was also motivated by Ms Grech's cooperation, her clean police record, her age and her genuine intention to rehabilitate herself.
Ms Grech in an interview to The Sunday Times last year insisted that she never wanted to harm the baby.
MOTHER'S TRAUMA
“People always accused me of throwing the baby away, but it was never the case. I had just wanted to hide him from my mother – it never crossed my mind to throw him away,” she said.
The story started in 2006 when she fell for her neighbour who “was nice, and looked sincere” and they started hanging out. Three months later she became pregnant.
Her mother, who had her as a single mother, was always warning her not to get caught out, so Karen was scared of confiding in anyone. Her weight had always yo-yoed, and she started piling on the pounds to hide the growing bulge.
“I was very scared to speak out. I never summoned the courage. I used to wear bulky jackets with nothing underneath. At one point I had hit 100kg,” she says, stressing abortion was something she never contemplated.
Karen was raised by her grandmother – “she was like a mother to me” – and in December 2006, just before Christmas when she was planning sharing the burden of her secret, her grandmother suffered a stroke and was hospitalised.
“I was waiting for the right moment to tell my grandmother, but when she fell ill all my plans fell apart. I felt all alone. I had no help or support from anyone,” she recalled.
She never even said a word to her boyfriend and her relationship soon fizzled out.
“When I had the baby I went to tell him it was his. I thought he loved me, but instead he told me, ‘see who you went with’. That was it. The man was heartless.”
She plodded through her days in silence, going to the factory where she worked and generally keeping to herself. Two weeks before Karen gave birth, her grandmother, who ran the household, died burying her last chance to speak up.
In the two months leading to her grandma’s death, Karen had lost track of her due date and she continued working until, Friday, March 30, 2007. That evening she started experiencing severe cramps and her waters broke.
“I had not done any ultrasounds or been to prenatal classes – I knew nothing about childbirth except from what I used to watch on the Discovery Channel. All I knew was that there was prima (the baby) and the seconda (the placenta),” she says, blushing at her lack of knowledge.
On Saturday morning, she went to a playground with her younger brother, but she ended up doubling over with the crippling cramps – the contractions had begun.
“I rushed home and went to bed. I cuddled beneath the blankets and said now come what may.”
SLEEPLESS NIGHT
She spent a sleepless night writhing in agony as the contractions became more frequent. On Sunday, April 1, soon after her mother left home, she went into labour.
“Labour lasted 90 minutes and I was trying hard not to shout in pain so people won’t hear me. At 9 a.m., the baby shot out.”
She lay on the bed worn out from her ordeal, with her newborn by her side. But 15 minutes later Karen decided to spring into action for fear her mother would turn up any second.
“When I started to get up I suddenly felt like a string down there. I got the shock of my life, thinking it could possibly be twins. I started pulling slowly and everything came down – it was the seconda. My tummy just went flat.”
She put the baby on the bed, dabbed him a bit to clean him.
"I didn’t have any nappies or clothes, so I wrapped him up in a beach towel to keep him warm.”
“I thought to myself that since nobody knew I was pregnant I could sneak him out and take him to the nuns in Żabbar. But when I peeped out of the window it was a sunny day and there were quite a lot of people outside.”
The plan was to take her son to the nuns’ orphanage, where a former boyfriend had been raised. He had always spoken highly about how well he was treated and she believed they would be able to give her son a good upbringing.
But she had to bide her time. With no cot at hand, she put the baby in the first thing that could provide a safe haven – a shoebox.
She put him inside the box and took it upstairs to the roof, where she placed it inside a big plastic bag, making sure the lid was slightly ajar to allow the baby to breathe.
She placed the box horizontally on a shelf near the plants, in a sheltered spot, assuming it would never draw her mother’s attention. She put the placenta in a bag and also hid it on the roof.
To ensure her mother would have no reason to go upstairs, she removed the clean clothes from the washing line and took them downstairs.
Exhausted and drained of energy she went to rest, “but once things start going wrong, nothing can stop it”, she admits.
“At 3 p.m. my mother came to shake me saying there were the police in our street and they had found a baby out on the street. I thought she was playing an April Fool’s joke,” she said .
When her mother shook her head, Karen froze. She panicked and her mind was racing trying to grasp how her baby could have possibly ended up on the street.
It turned out her mother, who had taken her own mother’s loss very badly and was not thinking straight, had gone upstairs to sweep and was clearing up.
“I don’t know what went through her mind. I wasn’t with her. I guess she never imagined there would be a baby inside.”
She then owed up and was taken to hospital.
"I spent two days in a ‘normal’ ward and one day in a psychiatric ward, but I cried so much I was discharged – I wanted to go home and I wanted my baby back. He’s mine,” she says.
Karen thanks the Lord every day that the teenagers discovered her son in the shoebox before it was too late.
“I still bump into the girl who was the first to run to the police station for help. Every time I see her she tells me, ‘kiss Hayden for me’,” Karen says, her eyes welling up with tears as she dwells on what could have happened.
Looking back, Karen reflected: “The biggest lesson in all this is that if something bad happens it’s useless trying to hide it. Just face it and deal with it. I’m sad about what happened and that my son ended up being the talk of the town.”
“The Lord took the person closest to my heart, my grandmother, and gave me the most beautiful person in return.”