Liz Smith, a 40-year-old nurse at Franciscan Children’s Hospital in Brighton, MA, had always wanted to be a mother. She had tried several different methods of getting pregnant, including sperm donation and IVF (in vitro fertilization) procedure. But nothing worked.

In 2016 she met little Gisele, who was a baby at the time. She was born prematurely at 29 weeks and had neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) due to narcotics exposure during the pregnancy. Gisele weighed only 1 pound and 14 ounces (850g). Liz visited the baby every day, but no one else came to see her for five months.

The state took away custody of Gisele from her birth parents, so Liz decided to start fostering her. Her love for the little girl grew even more. On October 18, 2018, she legally adopted Gisele, giving her the surname Smith.