This is a heartbreaker — but also evidence of the human spirit and the fierce will to live among some of our most vulnerable.
A baby is fighting for his life in a Chicago hospital. The child is in intensive care and said to be in grave condition after he was cut from his mother’s womb in a senseless attack on her last month, as Fox 8 Cleveland reported.
But this little one is giving it all he’s got.
A photo of the tiny baby taken with his father, Yovani Lopez, this past Sunday shows the compromised infant resting in the arms of his dad.
Father whose unborn baby was cut from his murdered wife's womb cuddles his son in hospital as he clings to life-opens his eyes
Yovani Lopez is grieving husband of murdered wife. Baby has no brain function.https://t.co/LA7YsyLBs8— Blanche V. Mercaldi (@tammytabby) May 20, 2019
Right around the time the picture was taken, the baby opened his eyes, this outlet and others reported.
“We were just praying and praying and he opened his eyes, and his dad said, “Oh my God, he opened his eyes!’” Cecilia Garcia, a student pastor who is assisting the family, told CNN.
Garcia is a member of Chicago’s Lincoln United Methodist church.
“We’ve been blessed, although this is a really bad tragedy. They’re such a loving and humble family and it’s just so wrong what happened to them,” she also told the network.
The child’s mother, Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 19, was killed in April after she was apparently lured to the home of an older woman who was offering free baby clothes.
Police say someone strangled the expectant mother — and that her unborn baby was forcibly removed from her womb.
The mother’s body was found in a garbage can in the home’s backyard. Police arrested and charged three people in the killing.
Prosecutors are saying that 46-year-old Clarisa Figueroa, who is charged with murder, brought the baby to the hospital claiming she had given birth, Fox 13 News reported.
Related: How a Mother’s Stroke Changed Her Daughter Forever
The woman had instead, however, murdered the pregnant teen, they say — and taken the baby.
The Chicago Tribune is reporting the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) was not contacted by the hospital for more than two weeks after the baby was brought in.
A GoFundMe account has been set up the family — access it here. “I want to help, even if it’s not much,” one person wrote. “Every bit helps. God bless.”
See more on this story in the tweet below:
HEARTBREAKING AND HORRIFIC: "Why did these bad people do this, she did nothing to them," said husband Yovani Lopez. Missing teen Marlen Ochoa-Lopez's baby boy had been cut out of her body after she was killed on the Southwest side. https://t.co/rOzSWRsJC4 pic.twitter.com/JkzSdlNplg
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) May 16, 2019
"We plead to God that he give us our child because that is a blessing that my wife left for us," said Yovani Lopez, Marlen Ochoa-Lopez's husband & father of their son, Yovani Yadiel Lopez, who suffered brain damage when he was ripped from his mother's womb https://t.co/e5S0dY67Ag pic.twitter.com/iBELJgcAiU
— Ashlee Rezin (@Ashlee_Rezin) May 16, 2019
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