A teenage girl who was abandoned as a newborn has made a heartfelt plea to the mother who dumped her baby in a complete stranger’s backyard.
It’s been almost two weeks since a family from western Sydney discovered the shocking find of a naked baby girl barely an hour old lying in a chair on their back patio in Blacktown, still covered in birth fluid and with the umbilical cord still attached .
The mother has yet to come forward, despite police assurances that she is not in trouble and that they just want to know that everything is okay, while detectives continue to search CCTV for hours.
The poignant story has struck a chord with Jessica Boatwright, 18 years after she made headlines as a newborn when she was dumped in the emergency department of a Sydney hospital by her own mother.
She begged the woman to find the courage to come forward and not go through life with regrets.
Sydney teen Jessica Boatwright has a heartfelt message for the mother who abandoned her newborn on April 21
“Just knowing a name or even a picture would help this kid get through life,” Jessica said A current situation.
‘I immediately thought of the mother, that’s all I thought, ‘wow, what emotions she must be feeling’.
She deserves all the love in the world. That mother-daughter connection is something you can’t recreate.”
She also made a plea for anyone who had information about the newborn girl before she was dumped in Blacktown’s backyard on April 21.
“Even if you have the smallest, tiniest bit of information, it would help this child’s life and help complete her story,” Jessica said.
The 13-day-old baby remains at Blacktown Hospital, where she is reportedly doing well.
She will be cared for by the Ministry of Communities and Justice after she is released from hospital, unless the mother comes forward.
Jessica is grateful that the mother left the baby in a child-friendly backyard full of playground equipment, children’s bicycles and toys.
The woman who left her baby in the child-friendly backyard (pictured) of a Blacktown family has yet to come forward
Jessica and her adoptive parents Anna and Brad Boatwright (pictured together) hope the woman will find the courage to come forward
“This mother could have left this baby anywhere, but she intuitively thought like a mother,” Jessica said.
“That actually resonates with me when I was left in a hospital, one of the safest places you can leave a newborn.
“So I’m grateful to that mom for having some love left for that baby to leave in a safe place or a place she thought she’d be safe.”
With the full support of her adoptive parents, Jessica, then aged 14, broke hearts across Australia in 2019 when she issued a public appeal to locate her biological mother.
She was devastated when she first looked at CCTV footage when her mother entered the emergency department at Liverpool Hospital in the middle of the night in 2005, cradling her newborn daughter wrapped. in a towel before sneaking out without her baby several hours later.
The incident sparked a five-month police search to track down the mother, but it would take another 14 years for the mystery to be solved.
Jessica Boatwright was just hours old when her own mother (pictured holding baby Jessica) left her in Liverpool Hospital in 2005
Her birth mother came forward as a result and met the daughter she had abandoned 14 years earlier.
She had kept a newspaper photo of baby Jessica in her purse all these years.
“Hearing from my mom and how she felt when she had to leave me really broke my heart and that’s why I can see that this mom is scared and afraid,” Jessica recalled.
Meanwhile, the desperate search for the baby’s mother is about to enter its third week as NSW police again call for the woman to come forward.
“You can’t understand what’s going through someone’s mind at that point to think this is a viable option,” Detective Jason Pietruszka said.
“From our point of view, the mother is not in trouble. It’s all about her well-being. We want to make sure the mother is okay. We don’t want to accuse her of anything.’
The police have turned to DNA in their mission to solve the mystery.
“The DNA is clearly looking at the child’s link through one of our systems where there may be similar DNA,” said Det Insp Pietruszka.
“So we’re looking at it from that point of view to see if there are known connections across the family.”
The desperate search (pictured) for the mother of an abandoned baby in Blacktown enters its third week