Newborn Found In The Subway In 2000, 26 Years Later
In the summer of 2000, Danny Stewart was rushing through Union Square subway station in New York City to meet his partner Pete for dinner when he noticed a bundle of clothes in the corner of the platform. He stopped, walked over, peeled back a dark sweatshirt, and found a newborn baby with the umbilical cord still attached. He sprinted to the street to call 911 from a payphone, ran back down to the platform, crouched beside the infant, and stroked his head. The baby pulled a face. "OK, you don't like that," Danny said, and the two of them just stared at each other while his heart raced and the city moved above them. He and Pete talked all night about why someone would leave a baby there, in the heart of what was then the center of gay New York.
Twelve weeks later, Danny was called back to testify at a hearing after the mother could not be found, and the judge, to his complete surprise, asked whether he had any interest in adopting the baby. In his own mind, he had decided instantly. Pete was furious at first, they had never discussed children, they were in debt, none of the practical math made sense, but when Pete held the baby for the first time during a foster care visit, every morsel of resistance, as Pete later put it, instantly evaporated. They were granted custody on December 20th, bought every parenting book they could find, read them cover to cover in 24 hours, and brought the baby home. They named him Kevin, after Pete's older brother who had died before Pete was born, a guardian angel whose name felt right. Kevin is now 26 years old, works as a software developer, and still makes time for his dads. Danny says they can still barely believe that by some miracle, it was them.
