‘My mother left me in the maternity ward, and the nurses looked after me for eight months!’ Anđela longed for her mother

Listen to the story

“My mother left me in the maternity ward. She simply turned around and walked away. I was left alone within the hospital walls. The nurses changed me, fed me, came to see me, stroked me... but then they would leave. I remained alone, waiting for someone of my own – someone who would love me and who would never abandon me again.”

This is how Anđela Milojević (25), a teacher from Despotovac, tells her story to Kurir; her mother left her in the maternity ward of the hospital in Užice. She spent the first eight months of her life in that hospital, before finally getting a family.

Most babies, when they come into the world, first see their mother’s eyes.

In them are warmth, pride and security. Most immediately receive an embrace that calms and protects. Anđela, however, did not receive one.

She was born on 26 April 2000. Her mother was only 19 years old.

“She wanted nothing to do with me. She did not stroke me, she did not even want to breastfeed me. She did not reveal my father’s name either. She gave several names, and later I heard that people from the hospital tried to find those men and ask them about me. They all said the same thing – that they had nothing whatsoever to do with me,” Anđela says.

Before she left, her mother said only one thing – that the child could be called Ana. However, the nurses who cared for the baby every day named her Milica.

Months passed, and the little girl was developing well. She was healthy and calm, but the nurses noticed that she was different from the other babies. She did not cry much and rarely made a sound. Most often she would lie quietly, curled up in her cot.

And then one day the newspapers published a story about the baby who was still in hospital. The headline read: “Abandoned Milica longs for her mother”.

That morning, one man, as usual, bought a newspaper before work. His name was Miladin. As he turned the pages, he stopped at that article.

He and his wife Radica had spent years trying to have a child. They had also undergone fertility treatment, but without success.

Miladin did not make the decision immediately. He put the newspaper away in a cupboard and thought about it for a long time. After some time, he gathered the courage and told his wife about the baby he had seen in the newspaper – and that he would like them to try to adopt her.

“They came to the hospital to see me. The nurses later said that that was the first time I reached out my little arms and moved towards him. At that moment, both he and my mother knew that that was it,” Anđela says.

When they adopted her, they gave her the name Anđela. She says she could not have got better parents even if she had chosen them herself.

Her childhood was filled with play, laughter and care. Even so, her parents tried on several occasions to tell her that she was adopted, but she was little and did not understand.

She learned the truth when she was seven years old – in a rather brutal way.

“I was playing at the neighbour’s house with her granddaughter when she told me that Radica and Miladin were not my real parents. I came home and asked them. They started to cry. After that I did not ask anything more. I could see that it was hard for them to talk about it, and I also felt guilty for even thinking about the people who had left me, while beside me were those who had given me everything,” says Anđela.

That day, she admits, something in her changed for ever:

“It was as though I had grown up overnight. I realised that not all people are good and that not every mother is a mother.”

And yet, deep inside, all those years she hoped and expected that her mother would look for her. That, however, never happened. Shortly before Anđela’s 18th birthday, she decided to look for the woman who had given birth to her. She found her in Ivanjica. In the meantime, her mother had married and had two children.

At first she denied that Anđela could be her child, but then she admitted it after all.

“We saw each other for only five minutes. I asked her just one thing: ‘Why?’ She had no answer. She only said: ‘That is the past and I cannot go back to it.’”

Anđela moved on, although some wounds never heal. She found comfort in children, whom she had always loved. At the age of 21, she herself became the mother of a little girl:

“The night I gave birth to my daughter, I cried the whole night. I looked at her and asked myself: My God, how can someone leave their own child?! Only then did I truly understand how much babies need closeness and warmth. I could hardly wait to hold my baby close to me, while my mother turned her back on her own child.”

Today she lives in Despotovac and works in a primary school as a teacher. Her pupils adore her, and she hopes that one day she will be in a position to help children growing up without parents.

“I would love to help little ones who are in children’s homes. I know what it is like to ask yourself: Why me, what did I do to deserve this, did I do something wrong?! I want to tell them that they are not to blame, that everything will be all right, and that somewhere there is someone waiting who will love them,” says this young woman.

What was written in the newspapers

The article published 25 years ago about little Milica, that is, Anđela, said that the baby was receiving special attention from the medical staff and was developing well.

“Her mother is beautiful, and the child too is, thank God, healthy and thriving. And developing well. We shall keep the baby here for the time being, although she still has no name. We named her Milica as a term of endearment and because it is a Serbian name,” one nurse said at the time.