While officials are looking for the mother of a newborn who is in London, Ontario, Porche, the woman in whose inclination the baby was found is telling her story.
“I have empathy for the mother, surely,” said Bria Vanier, who lives in Sterling Street, near Oxford Street, in the East End of the city. She says the newborn was wrapped in a flannel blanket.
“I think it was someone who had a lot of pain to give up his son. He was someone who was desperate.”
An passerby heard the shouts of the newborn on Wednesday afternoon and called 911, police said.
Two officers knocked on the door of Vanier, asking if the baby belonged to someone at home.
“I opened the door and there are two policemen standing there and a baby in the felpudo, wrapped in a blanket. It was a bit surprising,” he said.
London police. Insp. Sean Travis approaches the mother and family of a baby found on a porch in East London on Wednesday afternoon.
“They didn’t know how to pick up a baby, so I brought it inside to heat it. It was the most beautiful. He was just looking around, very alert. He should have been a little confused, but it was something sweet.”
Vanier says that a note that is left with the baby included a plea.
“The note essentially said: ‘Give my baby a good home, I can’t take care of it.’ He said it was a home delivery that he didn’t like bright lights, and she wanted someone to take care of him,” he said.
The baby was a day of age according to the note, says Vanier. She picked it up, brought it inside and hugged it, keeping it hot until the paramedics arrived.
Police want to assure the baby’s parents that it costs him good health and that his main concern is to obtain adequate medical care for the mother, said Det. Insp. Sean Travis of the London Police Service.
Police are “very concerned about mother’s security,” Travis told CBC News. “The baby seems well careful, but gathering the family so that we can have the right process, such as adoption or reunification as a family unit, is the main priority.”
Such instances are very rare and pull the heads of officers and other lifeguards, he added.
“As a father, I understand the attachment and the need for a father to want to take care of his son,” he said. “Our primary concern is everyone’s safety and then let a community support process take its place from there.”
A team of investigators is trying to find the mother, and the police are asking anyone with video surveillance images in Sterling Street north of Oxford Street between 10:30 am and 1 PM et to contact them at 519-661-5670. Reports can also be made anonymously through Crimeppers.
