It is nap time for the little patients. If I don’t visit them one last time before they fall asleep, I will get restless. The nurse and I are taking our last tour in the clinic hallways. We check some patients without entering the rooms, just by glancing through the door, and some of them closely. At that moment, everyone’s fortunes will be clear. This is sickness. How it affects whom is unknown without experiencing it. Older relatives of patients say, “Dear doctor, go to sleep, you have been standing up all day. Even though we are taking care of a single child, we are out of energy. And you have dealt with so many patients, you’re still up.” As if they were hugging us without touching, and pleasing our hearts.
“Alright, my sister, we are doing this to sleep comfortably, thanks a lot, you should sleep now,” I responded.
The visit to the last patient’s room was over. When we were done, we would go to the nurses’ room for a cup of coffee and dive into deep conversations.
Since then, I never believed the idea that “Coffee makes you lose sleep.” For someone who is sleepy, who is tired, coffee feels like warm milk before sleep. I experienced this so many times! Of course, the effects of coffee changes from person to person. If there were some cookies and cakes left over from the day, and with coffee, we would get energized and motivate ourselves saying, “Another 24-hour shift would be fine; no problem!”
Around 11:00 at night… I was in a little city in Anatolia that was forced to move on a night watch. After hearing the sirens of the ambulances that come to the emergency, the phone would ring. Sometimes there were exceptions, but mostly this routine did not change. That night, we experienced one of those exceptions.
During the coffee break following the final appointment in the clinic corridor, we were startled from a dream-like state by the sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs, interrupting our conversation abruptly:
“Welcome, officer.”
“We are not very welcomed, doctor!” he said and put a baby which was wrapped in a thick blanket on my lap. It was as if there was a hole under my feet and my whole energy and mood flew away from there. All of a sudden, I came to myself with a 7-pound weight in my hand feeling like 70 pounds.
“The baby was found about an hour ago, next to a garbage container which is 500 meters away. It was taken to the police center, the forensic records have been made. Until it has a medical check and a place to live, it is in your care, doctor. Be careful, it is a forensic case!”
“Of course we will take care of him well, but I had no experience. How does the process work in such cases?”
“First, you have to identify if he has a health issue. Due to the challenging nature of illnesses some babies have, it is often presumed that the state will provide appropriate care and treatment for them. Some, on the other hand, because of family disputes… The important thing is that after the baby is handed over to us, he or she should not be entrusted to anyone other than a state official to prevent a kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping?”
“Yes. For organ traders, these babies are invaluable! Please keep an eye out.”
All I could say was “Ah!” The situation of the baby has already afflicted me a lot. And the possibility of the baby getting kidnapped… God, what kind of night was this? Above all, how would it end?
“We’ll do whatever we have to do, officer, don’t worry, but let’s get a contact number.”
“Of course, but we will be waiting at the entrance of the hospital anyways. Don’t worry.”
The little prince was taken to an empty bathtub for a detailed examination because he might be cold. All the lights of the bathtub have been turned on so that nothing can be evaluated without missing out. In fact, I cannot deny that I have the feeling that it might give some light to his bad fortune. He was not cold at all; he even didn’t cry.
“Babies cry on your day, you don’t have to behave because your mother is not with you, we will take care of you, my little one.” As soon as I said that I started crying before the baby. My tears, which I could not prevent and did not want to prevent, suddenly turned into a flood.
“Why are you crying, doctor?” asked the nurse.
“To our situation, to our humanity!”
The words of the Sage Bediüzzaman came to my mind: “The first master and influential teacher of a human being is his or her mother.” Who was going to be the first teacher of this little hero, who stood alone on the street in the frost of the night without fear. Who would stay by him when he was sick? There would be someone, of course, but could the person take the place of a mother?
“A lot came to my mind, anyway, let’s do our work, I can cry later.” I said that and we tried to complete the preparations for the little hero. Fortunately, he hasn’t got any diseases.
“The hero hasn’t got a name, what are we going to do?”
When babies are admitted to the hospital for the first month, they are registered with their last names and referred to. Like “Baby Aksoy”, “Baby Keser.”
“There is no last name anyway! Oh, my God, should we ask the police?”
At 2 am in the night, a woman’s howl, crying and running into the clinic broke the silence: a situation we weren’t used to. Almost all the patients we checked through the door to avoid waking them up woke up one by one and started crying in fear. I left the bathtub and ran into the hallway to find out who this woman was who broke off this noise, threw herself to the floor and beat herself up. The young woman, the owner of the screams said, “God, what did I do, how did I leave my baby on the street? I beg you to give me my child back. I dropped my baby off on the street two hours ago. Please, doctor, give my baby back to me.” Her cries suddenly brought my force that ran out due to today’s tiredness. I was alert, remembering the police officer’s words, “Oh, attention, organ traffickers, stolen, found baby…”
“Ma’am, please sit down, let us talk. Calm down first, please! Our patients should be asleep at this time. I ask you to pay attention to this.” I tried to take control by saying that.
“I also have a 3.5-month-old daughter. I understand you very well. But there is no way I can deliver this baby to you!”
“Why? What needs to be done for this?”
“The baby’s medical checkups are done here. After that, the baby will be given to the state officials. You can get your baby after a legal process including a DNA test, but now it is not possible!”
A voice I couldn’t tell if it was from the devil or from my conscience said, “Give this woman her child. And you can erase the last three hours from your memory, let this trauma end.” But there is a rule; it is also possible that the cries of the woman could even be fake. As I was trying to convince myself by thinking that I should not listen to those voices, the idea of asking some questions came to my mind.
The young woman, who never calmed down, was accompanied by two men.
“What is your relation to this lady?”
“Her father and her brother.”
As I was thinking that it was clear that the baby was left in the streets because of family problems, I asked “What was the name of your baby?”
“Ayşe!”
We met eye to eye with the nurse and almost agreed with the speed of light. I was going to distract these unpleasant guests, and the nurse was going to inform the policemen standing guard at the door about the situation. It was a baby boy who was entrusted to us. Finally, the security team came and caught the gang, took them to the place they deserved.
While I was crying where I left off, the happiness of being able to give a few drops of breast milk to the little hero partially took my sadness away. I can anticipate the blessings that the All-Merciful One may bestow because of these hardships, and how He will protect him.
