The day I met Matias's mom, he was only 19 days old. We ran into each other in a hospital hallway. Even though she still had the stitches from her recent C-section, her mind was completely focused on getting answers about what needed to be done for Matías's surgeries.
During our conversation, she shared that she had spent a significant part of her life caring for children. She even had experience looking after a baby with a cleft lip, which made her very familiar with the condition.
As we talked, she lowered her head and silently gazed at Matias. With a tone of deep sadness, she said, "The pain in my soul is that the doctor who handled the delivery didn't allow me to see my baby when he was born. They took him away and only told me that he had a deformity, but they didn't say what it was. They left me there for hours, imagining the worst.
Monica, do you think it's fair that just because someone is poor, they don't have the right to know what's happening to their child?"
While she was telling her story, her other children came running. She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and told me that when she brought Matias home, her other kids asked why their little brother was born that way. She told them it was God's will.
"Do you know what the most beautiful part was, Monica?" She asked me with a smile on her face. "The next day, all my kids stood in front of me and said, 'Mom, if God wants that for our little brother, then we will all take good care of him.'"