Baby Cut From Mom's Womb Opens Eyes in Dad's Arms

As authorities confirm they are investigating the hospital where infant was first treated
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted May 21, 2019 7:28 PM CDT
Baby Cut From Mom's Womb Opens Eyes for First Time
A memorial of flowers, balloons, a cross and photo of victim Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, are displayed on the lawn, Friday, May 17, 2019 in Chicago, outside the home where Ochoa-Lopez was murdered last month.   (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford)

A small sliver of light in the dark story of a baby cut from his mother's womb: Little Yadiel recently opened his eyes for the first time, according to a student pastor who is assisting the family. "We were just praying and praying and he opened his eyes, and his dad said, 'Oh my God, he opened his eyes,'" Cecilia Garcia tells CNN. The infant's father, Yovany Lopez (variously spelled as Yiovanni), was holding him at the time; Garcia posted photos of the moment on Facebook Sunday. Lopez's wife, 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, was fatally strangled before her abductors removed Yadiel from her body, police say. The family told NBC News Monday that Yadiel is still in critical condition and reliant on a breathing machine. "We plead to God that he gives us our child because that is a blessing that my wife left for us," the baby's father said last week.

Meanwhile, the agency that licenses and inspects health care facilities in Illinois confirmed for the first time Tuesday that it has started an investigation of the suburban Chicago hospital where Clarisa Figueroa, who along with her daughter Desiree is charged with Ochoa-Lopez's murder, brought the baby on April 23. Police and state child welfare agency workers said Monday that nobody at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn alerted authorities when they discovered that Figueroa had no physical signs of having given birth to the infant as she claimed. It was weeks before authorities figured out what had happened to Ochoa-Loepz and the baby she had been nine months pregnant with; they suspect Figueroa lured the teen to her home with an offer of free baby clothes, then killed her for her baby, whom she intended to raise as her own. (More on the gruesome case here.)

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