Would you take in a stranger’s newborn on Christmas Eve? How a tiny baby girl who needed love helped CLARE FOGES overcome the death of her father

  • In December 1990 Clare Foges' mum received a life changing phone call
  • A night before Christmas eve she was asked to take in a new born baby   
  • Molly's arrival was a distraction from the death of Clare's father a year earlier
  • The family adopted Molly in April 1993 after going through a rigorous process 

This is a tale of two Christmases. For me and my family, December 1989 was spent in the tinsel-covered ward of a London hospital. I was eight and my father was being treated for leukaemia.

It was less than six months since he’d started feeling tired and we had watched him grow weaker frighteningly fast, his black curly hair falling out.

Despite this, there was a strange lightness to Christmas in hospital. There were nurses wearing reindeer antlers, surprisingly good turkey and roast potatoes, and Do They Know It’s Christmas? playing repeatedly on the radio.

I had chosen my father’s present with great care: a grey flannel and a bar of Pear’s soap, for he liked useful things.

The doctors and nurses were so cheerful, the atmosphere on the ward so jolly, that it seemed this was just an interlude. It was, in fact, an ending; my father died not long into the new year.

Molly (pictured left with Clare Foges) was sent to live in foster care three days after being born

Molly (pictured left with Clare Foges) was sent to live in foster care three days after being born

On a freezing day in early January, Mum came home to break the news. I stared at the ceiling, my tears turning the lightbulb into a watery yellow star, convinced I would never be happy again.

Fast forward one year to December 1990, when Mum faced her first Christmas as a single parent with four children: Chris, then 16, Natasha, 15, 13-year-old Harry and me.

She has told me since how much she dreaded the festive season: the happy families on television, the moving carols, the reminders that we were a man down. She feared the loss of my father would hang over everything. Christmas was a hurdle to be overcome, not a holiday to be enjoyed.

To guard against the gloom, she threw everything possible at making it a good day. The tree was a seven-footer, groaning with extra baubles; there were enough candles around to light St Paul’s; Sainsbury’s was relieved of several hundred pounds’ worth of comfort food. The presents were unusually extravagant — even a Game Boy!

Friends from the local church provided warmth and laughter, coming round often to play games and ensure the house was lively. Still, Mum says she would go to bed worrying about Christmas and wishing it away.

She pictured us crying or silent at Christmas dinner; my teenage siblings sloping off and wanting to be left alone. It might have happened that way but Fate, or something else, intervened.

The night before Christmas Eve, the phone rang. I remember my mother’s surprise as she took the call. ‘Tomorrow? Christmas Eve?’ Some more murmurings, then: ‘Yes, yes, of course we’ll be there.’ It was a phone call that would change our lives.

On the other end of the line were Social Services. For a few years, Mum had worked on and off as a foster carer. We would take in children who had been removed from their parents, normally for short periods.

Molly's (pictured as a baby in 1991) own mother decided that she was unable to look after her before she was born

Molly's (pictured as a baby in 1991) own mother decided that she was unable to look after her before she was born

At any time of day or night, a call could come through; abuse, neglect or domestic violence sending bewildered children to our door, sometimes with just the pyjamas they stood up in. My mum had a knack of making them feel safe and calm immediately: hugs, beans on toast, cartoons on TV.

We had always had children who were six, seven, eight years old. So hearing Mum on the phone, I thought I might be getting a playmate of my own age for a few days. But this time the foster child turned out to be younger. Just three days old, in fact.

Molly was a tiny baby whose mother was unable to look after her. It had been decided before she was born that she would need to be taken into care almost immediately. Arrangements had not been made, so we were called in a bit of a panic. Would we take in a newborn for Christmas?

The next day my mother and I travelled from our home in Surrey to a hospital on the other side of London — which meant several trains, a bus and a walk, in hail and rain. There, we were given the essentials: a few bottles, some nappies, Mothercare vouchers — and, of course, Molly. She had a very light dusting of blonde hair and beautiful large eyes.

Clare (pictured holding Molly in 1991) says when Molly arrived at their home it took away the battle over what to watch on TV 

Clare (pictured holding Molly in 1991) says when Molly arrived at their home it took away the battle over what to watch on TV 

Given the dreadful weather, Social Services took pity on us and ordered a cab to take us all the way home.

Without a car seat, I was allowed to hold Molly on my lap, and I remember marvelling at her already luscious eyelashes. Baby It’s Cold Outside came on the radio and me, Mum and the cabbie sang along. Back home, Molly’s arrival caused huge excitement. Instead of fighting over what to watch on TV, the constant battle was over who would hold Molly, bathe Molly, change Molly’s nappy. She was as calm as a little Buddha, rarely crying as she was passed around like a parcel and even dressed with a Christmas bow on her head.

On Christmas morning, as usual, we went to the village church. We hadn’t had a chance to buy Molly proper warm clothes, so she was wrapped tightly in blankets; a biblical-looking baby.

The vicar had heard about this new arrival and asked us to bring her to the front for a blessing. It was an extraordinary moment, people gathering to pray over this little being while Molly eyed them serenely. We left to the strains of Away in a Manger ... No Crib for a Bed, which seemed appropriate as we had no proper cot for our baby yet, either.

Back home, I changed my first nappy. I didn’t want to make this tiny thing uncomfortable so tied the tabs far too loosely and the nappy fell down her little frog’s legs as soon as I lifted her up.

Clare (pictured with Molly in 1992) says she was terrified that Molly would have to leave the family as she was being fostered with the intention of adoption

Clare (pictured with Molly in 1992) says she was terrified that Molly would have to leave the family as she was being fostered with the intention of adoption

After Christmas lunch, Molly dozed on my lap as we all watched TV. She woke on the dot of 3pm for the Queen’s speech, paying due attention, then falling asleep again directly after it.

We had expected a Christmas of grief and gloom but we got the complete opposite. The arrival of Molly was a blessed distraction from the fact that my dad was not there.

By the turn of the year I was terrified she would soon have to go, breaking the spell we had all been under. But winter turned to spring and Molly stayed with us. She started smiling early and already had a mischievous glint in her eye. By the autumn she had a mass of blonde curls so unruly we called her ‘scrambled egg’. When sleeping she would rub the back of her head on the mattress, creating ‘fuzzballs’ that needed to be cut out, leaving the poor child half-bald by her first birthday.

All four of us older children doted on Molly. Chris seemed to have her permanently on his shoulders, Natasha helped with the night feeds and Harry would push her around in a wheelbarrow, to her delight. I loved to walk around with Molly on my hip like a little mother.

The decision for Molly (pictured with Clare in 2004) to stay with the family arrived in 1993

The decision for Molly (pictured with Clare in 2004) to stay with the family arrived in 1993

She had us all wrapped around her finger. When her favourite blanket couldn’t be found, we would all dash around the house in a frenzy to locate it before she stirred.

By her second Christmas with us, the idea of Molly leaving became impossible. She was being fostered with a view to someone eventually adopting her — and Mum was determined that would be us. Molly’s birth mother, knowing she could not look after her herself, gave her blessing for her to be adopted.

For months, though, the future was uncertain. The adoption assessment process is rightly rigorous and there were numerous visits from social workers. Although Molly had never known another family, several factors counted against us: my mother was a single parent, already 45, with four older children. Mum tells me now that she was seriously worried Molly would be taken away — a baby she had loved like her own through her first smile, first teeth, first steps.

Our date with destiny arrived in April 1993, when Molly was two, and we all travelled to the High Court in London to find out whether she would officially be ours.

As we climbed the steps to the court, I was frightened something could go wrong and we would have to leave without my little sister. However, the judge said he was delighted to make the adoption order — and even invited Molly into his chambers to try on his wig. Afterwards we celebrated with lunch at McDonald’s, toasting our official sister with banana milkshakes.

Clare (pictured right with Molly) says although there's more than nine years between her and Molly they've remained close

Clare (pictured right with Molly) says although there's more than nine years between her and Molly they've remained close

When it came to naming Molly, we kept the lovely name her birth mother had given her and added a new middle name. In memory of my father we chose Lotte, after his mother.

So the surprise baby was not just for Christmas but for life — and the life we have had since is unimaginable without my sister. For me, it was hugely exciting to go from being the youngest to having a little sibling, mainly because I now had a willing prop for my games.

There was a trend in the early Nineties for pictures of toddlers sleeping in natural environments, made to look like fairies among the flowers. When Molly was two, I draped her in a sheet to make her look like a fairy, stuck her up on a tree branch for a picture and left her there by mistake. It was half an hour before I heard the mewling from the garden and remembered where she was.

She has grown up to be a total gem: quirky, kind, funny and creative. What will come out of Molly’s mouth is entirely unpredictable. She is always learning something new, which is usually fun for me. When she took up hypnotherapy I was put into a trance; when she did a course in the ‘energy healing’ technique Reiki, I was given the full treatment; when she set up a photography business, I was the model for her first shoot.

Molly is also the most soft-hearted person I know. For many years she has worked with profoundly disabled children, feeding them, changing them, taking them swimming. They become very attached to her because for Molly it’s more than a job.

Even though there’s more than nine years between us, we are very close. I am currently pregnant and couldn’t wait to tell her my news. I did so by sticking a bun in the oven, showing it to her and waiting for her to guess what it meant. After ten minutes of her piping up with ‘cooking bread?’ and ‘hot loaf?’, I gave in and just told her.

As soon as my news was out, Molly excitedly downloaded an app on her phone which tells her week by week what size the baby is. She will inform me regularly that I am carrying an olive, or a kumquat, or an avocado.

She also went on the internet and bought a strange gender-predicting pendulum which she regularly dangles over me to find out if she is getting a nephew or a niece.

When I am asked what it’s like to have an adopted sister, I am stumped — she’s just my sister, not my ‘adopted’ sister. To me, your siblings are not defined by the genes you share but by everything else you share: the memories, the jokes, the holidays, the eye-rolls at your parents, the long car journeys, the birthdays and Christmases.

Looking back at that first Christmas, I cannot believe our luck that we were chosen for Molly. Social Services could have called any other family to look after her but something sent her to us. After a horrendous year and so much loss, Molly was just what we all needed. She was the best Christmas present I’ve ever had.

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