It was a Saturday morning like any other to me and I was going about my normal business. My day was interrupted by a phone call from the head of my Landscaping department, telling me a pregnant woman was in labor in the park, and asked that I come right away.

Some of my landscape workers, former ex-Street boys, were by the highway waiting to flag me down. They led me into the park by foot, since traffic would have put my arrival much later. Two women in the park had taken control of the situation delivering a beautiful baby girl to a laboring young woman. Within seconds, the baby was turning blue and the only thing to wrap the baby in was a head scarf. By this time, I held the baby, covered in blood, as the two women delivered the placenta.

My driver was still stuck in traffic so we had to catch a taxi and take the young woman and her baby to Nairobi Women’s Hospital. She was admitted immediately and I undertook responsibility for the young woman’s hospital bills. With no money, the park must have been the only venue to have her child.

The baby was premature so needed to stay in an incubator for 2 to 3 months. The young mother who gave birth named her beautiful baby girl Evelyn. As I got to know the young woman, she trusted me enough to share that she was a prostitute. Learning this, I asked that she undergo an AIDS HIV test before attempting to breastfeed her new baby. Luckily she was HIV negative and within a week was released from the hospital while baby Evelyn stayed on.

I promised to the young woman that I would help take care of the bills and her transportation so she could visit her baby. Although I was not going to judge her regarding her choice of employment, I hoped to be able to soon provide her with another opportunity to make it easier to be a mother to baby Evelyn. After some discussion with the new mom, she agreed.

I provided not just transport money but also paid for food for an entire week and gave her my cell phone number to contact me. After a second meeting with the mother, I gave her more money with the understanding that she was to manage the money wisely as it was to last at least a week. However, after two days, she called again saying the money had run out.

During this period, the hospital nurses complained that the young mother did not provide enough milk for baby Evelyn each time she visited her. I asked to meet with the young woman again and told her that I was saddened that she had no interest in her baby. I told her that she would not receive any more money from me unless she could show some responsibility to care for herself and the baby.

That meeting was the last time I saw the young woman. Baby Evelyn was cared for by the hospital nurses until she was well enough to be taken to a home and placed for adoption. I believe that she was adopted almost immediately and feel happy that she will grow up with a family that wanted a child. The question that really lingers in my mind was, “Had the young mother really cared about her baby?” If yes, should she not have gone back to the hospital or tried to contact the nurses that cared for her baby? Or, should she not have called me on my cell phone to ask what happened to her baby?

I believe that life’s circumstances were too much for this young woman and the only way out for her was to give up her child rather than try to raise the baby and fail. This brings me to an important question: Should abortion be made accessible to poor women or women unprepared to be parents? Should there be a special program for prostitutes or make birth control free of charge to those who need it? There are too many unwanted children and not enough resources to care for all of them. For some of these children, a hard life of child trafficking or abused, awaits them.

I am a responsible parent and I thank God every day that my own kids are secure. I pray and wish a home could be established for pregnant women with few resources who do not want an abortion but willing to keep their pregnancy to term. They could leave their babies at this home and visit them when they could with no questions asked. This option would likely lower the death rate from young women and girls who seek illegal street abortions because they feel they have no other option. It would also ease the pain of finding these unwanted aborted babies often found along the streets and highways tossed away like garbage. Life is a journey and depending on the path chosen, it is painful for all concerned from mum, child and society!