A woman who was abandoned in Odessa at birth has made it her mission to share awareness about Safe Haven Laws, which can make a life or death difference to an unwanted newborn.
Kristin Winchester was abandoned at a 7-Eleven in Odessa in August, 1989, just shortly after being born and was discovered by a clerk in the bed of a truck.
“A woman called the store and told the clerk to go check because she had seen someone place something,” Winchester said who now lives in Orlando, Fla. “Basically, that’s how someone found me. They found me in the back of the truck and after that I was named ‘Baby Girl Doe.’”
Like Odessa’s Baby Girl Doe, a newborn boy was saved over the weekend in Hobbs, N.M., after being found inside a bag of trash in a dumpster by several Hobbs residents who were “dumpster diving.”
Grown up now, Winchester has told her story in her blog titled “Baby Girl Doe” which can be found at https://babygirldoe.wordpress.com/.
She also has a podcast in which her story will be told and also talks to people from similar situations.
Winchester on Tuesday via phone talked about her podcast titled “Born a Secret.”
A foundling is an infant abandoned and raised by someone else besides their mother or father.
Each episode of the podcast covers a foundling’s unique story of how they coped with life as a foundling and their pursuit to find out why their life started the way it did.
So far three episodes of the podcast have come out with a fourth coming out soon.
The podcasts can be accessed at https://bornasecret.buzzsprout.com/.
“I have a blog (where) I’ve been telling the truth of what happened for years now,” Winchester said. “I have a podcast that’s about other foundlings that have been in similar situations in which they were abandoned as infants and went searching for their parents. …. It’s really about finding where they came from and their birth mother.”
Winchester (whose maiden name is Brown) grew up in Springfield, Mo.
After learning of her story growing up, Winchester would eventually learn who her birth parents were through genetic genealogy in a search process that lasted over a year.
“My story is different from others,” Winchester said while talking about her podcast. “My (birth) mother despised me. I was like the bogeyman coming back. I wasn’t going to not get answers. I felt like I was owed them. I couldn’t move on with my life until I learned what happened. I did something that most people may not have done and I don’t know that I did the right thing but I did what I had to.
“The first three episodes are other foundling stories. My episode will come up soon but the moral of it is it didn’t have to be the way that my birth mother made it. It didn’t have to be that terrible situation. If you hear the first three episodes, the mothers don’t have to be the villains. They don’t have to be the bad person. I’m sure that a woman in distress who’s pregnant alone … I’m sure that’s hard to go through. But at the end of the day, I hope my story is to have compassion and hopefully that’s how a birth mother won’t act in the future and won’t treat someone in the future.”
The Safe Haven Law was highlighted Monday by law enforcement in Hobbs, N.M., after they arrested 18-year-old Alexis Avila for attempted murder after police say she threw her newborn son away in a dumpster at the Broadmoor Shopping Center. A video of the teen throwing the infant into the trash has been shared more than a million times.
The baby survived and is recovering at a Lubbock hospital. Hobbs police during a Monday news conference said the teen confessed and that her parents were unaware she was pregnant.
During the emotional press conference police praised the quick work of those who found the newborn and immediately called 911 and kept the baby warm until help arrived.
The baby could have been left at a hospital or fire or police station under the Safe Haven Law.
Part of Winchester’s podcast includes making the Safe-Haven Law better known and understood. The law allows a parent to anonymously surrender their unharmed infant to a designated safe haven provider within a specific time after birth.
“That’s part of the podcast,” Winchester said. “In the show, we raise awareness for the Safe-Haven law. That’s part of the mission. … I’ve always been an advocate for the Safe-Haven Law.”
More information on the National Safe Haven Alliance can be found at https://www.nationalsafehavenalliance.org/.
