The Hospital Had Never Seen Anything Like This Baby, But One Woman Was Desperate To Fight For Him

Chelsea Zeleny Floro saw a post on Facebook that made her stop scrolling. A hospital was struggling to find a home for an infant with a particular set of problems. He’d been in their care for over two months, and if a suitable home couldn’t be found soon, the hospital would be forced to discharge him.

Zeleny Floro had no plans to adopt an extra child—up until then, that is.

Hailing from The Woodlands, Texas, Chelsea Zeleny Floro never wanted to become a foster mom for an extended period. Instead, she and her husband hoped to take in one baby whom they’d eventually adopt and raise alongside their biological kids. Thanks to a little girl arriving on the scene, that dream came true in 2016.

By the time Zeleny Floro’s adopted daughter was ten months old, the parent had seen another long-term foster child move on to a new home. At that point, she told Love What Matters:

“We had told everyone that what we really wanted was to step down from being foster parents, go back to our normal life, and quit.”

Yet Zeleny Floro went online, and a glance at her Facebook feed gave her pause. As a member of a fostering group on the site, she regularly saw posts about children in need of homes.

“I normally scrolled right by those kinds of posts, but this one I couldn’t ignore,” she said.

According to Zeleny Floro, the post read:

“Child waiting in hospital for two and a half months, can’t find placement, has no femur bones, and is considered medically fragile. The hospital says he has just a few more days until they have to discharge him due to space.”

The plea was enough to pique Zeleny Floro’s interest. She commented on the post, but her request for more information yielded a daunting response.

“After hearing the extent of his medical needs, we decided it was just too much for us to take on in addition to the three other children we already have in our home,” she wrote.

Then Zeleny Floro saw two more posts imploring someone to consider taking the baby in. With that, she couldn’t scroll by anymore. She called the hospital to find out the truth about the tiny tot.

“I wanted details—the good, the bad, the ugly,” she said.

What Zeleny Floro found out was that the hospital staff had never seen anyone quite like him. The baby suffered from a serious condition: bilateral proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), Class D. In general, PFFD causes the femur bone to be malformed or missing, but Class D is the most severe variation, and the baby had it in both legs. Not only was he missing both thigh bones, but he had no hip bones either.

If that weren’t enough, doctors believed he might have fetal alcohol syndrome as well. This condition occurs when a mother drinks alcohol while pregnant, which can lead to brain damage and developmental delays.

As Zeleny Floro spoke with the child’s nurse, she assumed the staff would push hard.

“I assumed she would try to talk us into taking this baby whether it was the right choice for our family or not,” the mother of three said.

Instead, the nurse simply provided plenty of information and quiet encouragement. She had, after all, adopted three children of her own, and her perspective was exactly what Zeleny Floro needed to hear.

“The nurse talked me into saying yes that day, but she didn’t have an agenda. It wasn’t just because it was what he needed; it was because she took the time to make us feel comfortable and capable of being what he needed,” she explained.

Before Zeleny Floro knew it, her foster baby arrived on her doorstep.

“Upon first glance he was adorable, but many things stood out about him,” she said.

First off, the infant had a misshapen head from lying flat in a hospital bed for the first months of his life. Second, he was minuscule. Third, his legs completely lacked bone structure in their upper half. The infant appeared so fragile that Zeleny Floro second-guessed every move.

“Was I holding him right? Was he in pain? Could I really do this?” she recalled.

Still, there seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel. One of the baby’s biological relatives was in the middle of a home study and expected to take him in upon approval. Even so, the road proved arduous.

“In the meantime, the baby was the hardest baby we ever had. He cried a lot, he was sick all the time, never slept, had constant appointments and limited resources,” she said.

In the midst of the exhaustion, something unexpected happened: Zeleny Floro and her family fell completely in love with him.

“Our commitment grew, our hearts opened,” she said. “He was our son, and we made the decision that we would give all we could physically, mentally, and financially for however long he was with us.”

Zeleny Floro didn’t hesitate for a second when word arrived that the relative’s home study had fallen through. She recalled her caseworker asking:

“Would you and your husband be willing to adopt him?”

“Yes,” Zeleny Floro replied.

On November 15, 2017—which happened to fall on National Adoption Day—Zeleny Floro and her husband made it official. They formalized his moniker as well, choosing Charles as a tribute to a late family member.

Adopting Charlie didn’t mark the end of the journey; Zeleny Floro still had to fight for his daily care and physical development. There was, however, one major silver lining: doctors re-evaluated Charlie and determined he did not have fetal alcohol syndrome after all.

Soon after the adoption went through, Charlie began to move in ways no one had anticipated. He invented his own unique style of crawling before pulling himself up to stand entirely on his own. He learned to ride a scooter, took deliberate steps with a walker, and tackled the stairs. Then came the day he managed six independent steps without any assistance at all.

Watching each milestone unfold gave Zeleny Floro boundless hope for her son’s future.

“I know there will be more hurdles to cross in the future,” she said. “But for now, he’s my sweet, sensitive boy who walks on his hands, who rides a scooter better than other kids his age, who loves his mama, and who will defy every single odd given to him.”