Seventeen years after she was abandoned in a toilet block, Baby Sophie is looking for her parents.
In, 1998, a newborn baby made national headlines within hours of being born.
Only two hours old, she was found by tourists on the floor of a public bathroom in Swan Hill, Victoria.
Her parents were nowhere to be seen.
The abandoned baby girl was three weeks premature and, had she been discovered any later, may not have lived beyond those first few hours.
She was rushed to a hospital where she was given the name that would be splashed across newspapers around Australia: Baby Sophie.
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Now 17 years old — and going by the name Sarah O’Sullivan — Baby Sophie wants to answer the question police were never able to solve: Who is her mother?
On A Current Affair this week, Sarah said she was ready to delve into her past.
“I feel like everyone is on a journey and part of mine is to figure out what happened… and how to live with what happened,” she said.
After she was rescued from the toilet block, Baby Sophie was placed in hospital care — where she remained for over a month.
At the age of five weeks, police decided to show her face on television in the hope of finding her parents.
Read more: Hero cat saves abandoned baby from certain death.
They didn’t.
However, the Department of Human Services did find Anne and Liam O’Sullivan — Baby Sophie’s new family.
The O’Sullivans renamed the baby girl Sarah, and raised her in a loving home in East Melbourne.
Sarah has known she was adopted since the age of four, but on the verge of adulthood, she is growing more curious about her troubled beginnings.
“I’ve definitely had my moments where I’ve just felt like, why don’t I know anything?” Sarah said on ACA.
“It’s not fair. Why did it happen to me? All these ‘why’ questions.”
She says she holds no grudges against the parents who abandoned her 17 years ago, and says she would give them a hug if she ever found them.
“I’d probably cry a little bit. I’d give her a hug. I’m in a loving family, I really want them to know that. I would really like to form a relationship with them. It’s a chance to make amends,” she said.
“It would fill that hole in my heart. It would make me so happy.”
If you have any information on Sarah’s parents, you can contact Victorian adoption network Vanish.
Do you have a story to share with Mamamia? Email us at news@mamamia.com.au.
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Top Comments
Such a cute baby.