'We found a baby on the subway - now he's our son'

Danny Stewart was rushing to meet his boyfriend for dinner when he ran past something lying on the floor of a New York subway station. Soon he would treasure it more than anything else in the world.

It was around eight o'clock on 28 August 2000, just past the frenzy of the New York rush hour when a subway train rattled down the track into 14th Street station, in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. Danny Stewart, 34, was late for dinner with his partner, Pete Mercurio, 32.

The couple had met three years earlier through a friend in Pete's softball team. Later Danny had moved in with Pete and his flatmate, but on this summer evening he had been back to his sublet apartment in Harlem to pick up the post.

As Danny was hurrying out of the station something caught his eye.

"I noticed on the floor tucked up against the wall, what I thought was a baby doll," he says.

He was puzzled - why would a child leave a doll on the ground? - but he continued up the stairs to the exit.

"I glanced back one more time, and that's when I noticed his legs moved."

He ran back down the stairs and realised that the doll was in fact a baby boy, wrapped in a dark sweatshirt, with his tiny legs sticking out.

"He didn't have any clothes on, he was just wrapped up in this sweatshirt. His umbilical cord was still partially intact, so I could tell he was a newborn. I was thinking maybe a day or so old," he says.

The next day, news of the baby found on the subway was all over the headlines.

"Danny Stewart was the Good Samaritan that found the seven-pound baby," said one reporter, as Danny was interviewed for TV news.

"The baby is Hispanic with patches of brown hair on the top of his head," said another.

Danny wanted to find out how the baby was, and so went to the hospital where he had been taken, but was unable to get any news.

So Danny and Pete returned to their daily lives - Danny to his role as a social worker and Pete as a playwright and web designer.

But before too long Danny received an invitation from the Administration for Children's Services to attend a family court hearing, to testify how he had found the baby. When this took place, in December 2000, the judge asked Danny if he could stay for the entire hearing. He waited for the police to give their testimony, and then the judge addressed Danny again.

"She says, 'Mr Stewart, I want to let you know what's happening here, in instances where we have a baby that has been abandoned, we want to place them in pre-adoptive foster care as quickly as possible.'

"In my head, I'm thinking, 'Well that makes sense,'" says Danny. "And then the next thing out of her mouth was, 'Would you be interested in adopting this baby?'"

Danny looked around, all eyes were on him.

"I think most of the mouths dropped in the courtroom, including mine. I said, 'Yes, but I don't think it's that easy,' and the judge smiled and she said, 'Well, it can be.'"

Although the judge's question had come completely out of the blue, friends and acquaintances had already queried why Danny and Pete had not taken the baby boy home to take care of the night he was found. You didn't need to be a social worker, as Danny was, to realise that this wasn't how things worked.

The adoption process took six to nine months and involved background checks and parenting training.

"I had not had thoughts of adopting," says Danny, "but at the same time, I could not stop thinking that… I did feel connected, I felt like this was not even an opportunity, it was a gift, and how can you say no to this gift."

Syl wrote:Maybe some things in life are just meant to be....fate or karma....or something?

Maddog wrote:

Syl wrote:Maybe some things in life are just meant to be....fate or karma....or something?

I was probably meant to be abandoned on a subway.



I don't know if it's fate or karma, but I just think there are still plenty of good people in this world. The useless ones make the most noise and cause the most strife. There is a silent majority just going through life and stepping up when they can.

Maddog wrote:

Syl wrote:Maybe some things in life are just meant to be....fate or karma....or something?

I was probably meant to be abandoned on a subway.



I don't know if it's fate or karma, but I just think there are still plenty of good people in this world. The useless ones make the most noise and cause the most strife. There is a silent majority just going through life and stepping up when they can.

eddie wrote:

Maddog wrote:

I was probably meant to be abandoned on a subway.



I don't know if it's fate or karma, but I just think there are still plenty of good people in this world. The useless ones make the most noise and cause the most strife. There is a silent majority just going through life and stepping up when they can.

I like your last statement...

Quietly,, does it. No need to make a big fuss, why do you need everyone to hear yoyr good thoughts and deeds?

Right?