Baby girl finally finds her real mother

JAKARTA (JP): A baby girl finally found her biological mother Wednesday after a five month wait.

The girl, who was called Tita by nurses who cared for her, was abandoned by her parents at the city-owned Pasar Rebo hospital in East Jakarta because the hospital misidentified the baby's gender.

The mother, Nustita Siahaan, 30, was sure that on Aug. 20 she gave birth to a boy as the midwife told her.

Reports on the day said only three girls and one boy were born at the hospital. The boy was born to another woman, Siti Rohani.

Nustita, from Cilangkap subdistrict, East Jakarta, left the hospital three days after giving birth and left her baby there. She told police hospital staff had swapped her baby.

After investigating the police said there had been no swap. "What happened was misinformation by the midwife and nurses about the baby's sex," they said.

To end the dispute, the police cross checked the baby's footprints and blood groups with those of Nustita and Mathius Siahaan, her husband.

But the police's finding did not end the dispute because Nustita still rejected the baby.

However, both parents came to pick the baby up. The baby was handed over to Siahaan's lawyer Ronald T. Simanjuntak by the hospital's director, Dr. Achmad Harijadi.

Siahaan's oldest daughter was also at the ceremony where parents and hospital staff cried.

After the ceremony, Martina, the two-year-old first daughter of the Siahaans immediately began calling the baby "sister" while stroking the baby's cheeks.

Their mother wept as she watched.

"For a long time I was stressed thinking about my daughter... But now I feel my burden has been relieved from me," she said.

"We had no intention to trouble any party, we just wanted to have our real baby. Now it has been proven that she is our very own," Siahaan said.

According to reports the first identification of the baby was made by police after the national headquarters criminology laboratory found her blood samples matched the Siahaans.

Until yesterday the parents said they had not named their baby.

"We have to wait for the family gathering before giving her the first name," Mathius said.

Upon the baby's departure, some nurses seemed to miss her so much that they posed to photographers with the baby.

"We will miss her, Tita is a pleasing baby, she is like a daughter to us all," one nurse said.

Dr. Harijadi said that many parents had been willing to adopt the baby.

"Many people have come here to give her clothes or foods," he said. (05)