You couldn’t make out her face, but the warmth of her bosom and the sound of her soft voice was soothing, the one who called herself Mama

As she held you close to her chest, you felt teardrops fall on you as she cried. You nuzzled in, seeking her warmth, and she held you closer, her chest heaving as she cried harder.

She wrapped you up in her own shawl and held you close, as she carried you out into the street. She walked for a long time before stopping at a large gloomy building. She kissed you on the forehead, before walking through the large iron gates of St Nicholas’ Foundling Home.

You didn’t understand what was happening, why you were here. You didn’t understand why your mother was trembling so. You nuzzled into her as she spoke with some well-to-do gentlemen, too young to understand the weight of the words being exchanged.

Finally your mother kissed you again, as she whispered to you “I love so much my darling……I’m so sorry.”

Strange hands reached for you, and Mama let them take you. This strange woman, who didn’t have the warmth or love of your mother, held you in her arms as she carried you away. It didn’t matter how much you cried for Mama, she did not come for you ever again.

Several days were spent in this strange place, where you were only ever held to be fed….not the right way, the way Mama fed you, but through a rubber teat on a bottle. The rest of the time was spent on your back, in your lonely little cradle. There were others like you, you could hear them crying nearby. Had they all been taken from their Mamas too?

One day you were dressed in a long white gown that itched, and taken to a nearby church, where an old man in robes sprinkled you with water “I Christen Thee [your name], in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”*

After another day, you were bundle up and taken on a very long carriage ride, to the foster home where you would spend the first five years of your life.