Maria has worked as a child carer for 21 years at the St Sofia home for medical and social care. She has a soft spot for the children. She says she is a happy person who is now enjoying her retirement.  A year ago she took in a five-year-old girl with a 100-percent disability. She takes care of the little girl 24 hours a day.

Many people would ask: Why? But if they heard the kind voice of this woman when she talks about the little girl, they would answer their own question.

Coming Into the World

First City Hospital in Sofia. The date was September 7, 2007. In the maternity ward, a little girl gave her first cry. They later named her Simona. The name means “answered prayer”.  A day later, on September 8, Simona no longer has a mother. The woman who gave birth to her had fled the maternity ward, leaving her child behind at fate’s mercy.

A possible reason for this decision was the fact that the baby was born with complications. At that point, tests had not been run yet, and there was no diagnosis, however, you could tell from looking at the baby that her condition was not good.  Perhaps her birth mother, a healthy woman, pregnant for the second time, who had had regular check-ups during the pregnancy, got scared.  However, no one knows for sure because she never tried to provide an explanation.
Julia Angelova, a social worker at the For Our Children Foundation, observed that the number of parents who abandon sick children is still significant.

After thorough medical checks, little Simona received a diagnosis: cerebral palsy, osteoporosis, scoliosis, blindness, and epilepsy. A hundred percent disability.

Welcome to the Home for Children Deprived of Parental care!

Simona was not even a month old when she arrived at the St. Sofia Home for medical and social care for children.   

“The child was bent like a little snail or an embryo. After the birth, she looked like an embryo still in her mother’s womb.  Her head was tiny.  We were afraid to touch her in case we caused more damage. If anyone touched her she would curl up even more” remembers Maria from her first encounter with Simona.  

Back then, five years ago, Maria was still a child carer at the St Sofia home and was taking care of the newborn.  For security reasons, all children with severe disabilities also stayed in that ward. It was to protect them from getting accidentally hurt by their peers.  

“She was seen by all kinds of doctors; she was had been given all kinds of medical tests by neurologists, neurosurgeons, physiotherapists. All of them agreed – there could be no improvement to little Simona’s health condition.", says social worker Julia Angelova, who has been handling the case for years.

The child carer Maria quite unconsciously started to dedicate more time to little Simona - she dressed her in the morning, carried her in her arms, played music for her, and told her stories. When Maria was on vacation, the little girl’s condition would deteriorate.  “I remember I was on leave and I hadn't seen her for a few days. I got a call from my colleagues: the child was having a lot of seizures. When I came back, I saw that she didn't look good. But when she heard my voice, she sighed with relief, she knew I was back. And she was happy.”  

Maria felt that the little girl was getting attached to her – Simona was instantly soothed by her presence. And in turn – the woman who had many years of experience with professional childcare had grown attached to a blind girl with a disabled body.