Sick orphan baby finds a family in the hospital

updated 1:01 p.m. ET July 13, 2008

MIAMI - When she was just 2 weeks old, Emma Grace lay on an operating table, scrawny arms and legs spread out, tiny body dwarfed by the giant room full of steel and high-tech gadgetry. Her chest was raised so a surgeon could get to her faulty heart.

No feet were pacing outside on her account, no eyes darting for updates.

Before she learned how to smile or hold a gaze, Emma was given up twice — by her 23-year-old birth mother, a drug-user, smoker and drinker who knew she could never care for the baby, and by a 48-year-old adoptive mother who backed out when she learned of Emma's heart condition and of her own pregnancy by in-vitro fertilization.

Now the baby was having an enormously risky procedure to give her the pulmonary artery she was missing.

She looks so sweet, thought Dr. Redmond Burke as he prepared to operate.

"Someone has to adopt this baby," he said.

Emma Grace was born two weeks early on Monday, March 24 at 6:18 p.m., at Baptist Hospital of Miami. She weighed 4 pounds, 7 ounces, and spanned all of 16 inches. As the delivery staff put a stethoscope to her chest, like they do all newborns, they heard a murmur.

A scan of her heart showed a possible defect. Emma was transferred to the care of specialists at Miami Children's Hospital, where they confirmed she needed heart surgery. They also found out she has DiGeorge syndrome, a genetic disorder whose symptoms include a weak immune system.

As doctors waited for Emma to gain weight before putting her through an operation, the couple who planned to adopt her flew in from California. They spoke to doctors about the baby's health. Nurses noticed the woman was visibly upset and was reluctant to hold the child.

Then, two days before the surgery, Burke walked by Emma's room and saw the adoptive mother weeping at the bedside.

"I can't adopt this baby," she told the surgeon. "She's got too many medical problems, I'll never be able to take care of her."

But she also felt guilty about leaving Emma alone.

"Don't worry," Burke assured her. "We'll touch her every day and make sure she's all right.

"We'll take care of Emma."

'She was worthy to be loved'
Word of the orphan baby had spread quickly among Miami Children's nursing staff.

"This was the first baby where there just wasn't anybody calling. It just really got to us," veteran cardiac nurse Carol Ann Hoehn said. "We thought: 'You know what, we'll fill in the gap here.' "

Teddy bears starting turning up in the newborn's bed. Bright pink bows began adorning her head. Nurses made a point to pop into her room and hold her.

Hoehn sent out a text message: We're having a baby shower for Emma. Are you in?

The replies came back: Yes. Yes. Yes.

"We wanted Emma to always know that she was always wanted, she was always loved and worthy to be loved," Hoehn said.

The night before her surgery, Emma was under the care of nurse Jennifer Peterson, who was instantly smitten.

She snapped Emma's first glamour shots, capturing her yawning and napping. She dressed her in a pale pink hat with tiny flowers that another nurse bought, so the pictures didn't look like they were taken in a hospital.

Peterson spent hours that night cradling and rocking the baby.

"Honestly you don't know what happens during surgery or afterward," Peterson said. She remembers thinking: "I don't want her last memory of people not to be nice ones."

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