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really hoping the mother would come forward. She made it clear that they would be lenient on a woman who had left her child that way. She didn’t need to be afraid of prosecution, because what was important now was looking toward the future, and they would offer her whatever help she might need.
    â€œIf the mother comes forward now, will she be allowed to take the child home with her?” Camilla asked when she finally got ahold of a social worker who could advise her how the system usually worked.
    â€œNo,” Tanya Jensen replied without hesitation. “First there will be a period for the two of them to get to know each other, and the child will remain with the orphanage during that time. Of course we must be convinced that the mother can take care of the little girl now.”
    â€œAnd what if she can’t?”
    â€œWell, then obviously we couldn’t allow her to take the child home,” she replied after a moment’s contemplation.
    Camilla wondered how they evaluated that. The story of a mentally disabled woman who received assistance from the Danish government to be artificially inseminated, only to have the same government authorities turn around and take her child away the minute it was born was still fresh in her mind. Who decided who was suitable, and what was the decision based on?
    Camilla took a deep breath and decided not to ask that question.
    â€œLet’s say the mother doesn’t show up,” she said instead. “Then the child will be put up for adoption. When will that happen?”
    Camilla had the sense that Tanya Jensen suddenly became a little less forthcoming.
    â€œHard to say. The biological mother should always have the chance to change her mind. She might be suffering from postpartum depression and she might need a while to come out of that.”
    Camilla interrupted her. “Well, surely there must be a limit to how long the little girl has to wait in limbo to see if her mother is going to change her mind?”
    â€œOf course. We’re not talking about limbo, as you call it. There’s always a waiting period for any adoption, even ones that have been planned for the whole pregnancy, and that’s true in this case, too.”
    â€œHow long is it?” Camilla wanted to know.
    â€œWe figure it will take a couple of months before the child can be placed into her new family,” the social worker explained.

    After that, Camilla talked to a psychologist who strongly rejected the notion that a child who had been abandoned by its mother would suffer any permanent sense of loss.
    â€œOf course a newborn is affected when something is missing—eye contact for example,” Camilla wrote and further quoted the psychologist: “This is why it is essential for other people to start caring for an abandoned child quickly. But the most important thing is for the child to establish fundamental, basic trust either in her biological parents or in other people. The vast majority of children—four-fifths—will do well so long as that trust is there early on. The last fifth will have some problems, and a very small number will suffer serious harm. In those cases, a good outcome will depend on finding a family that can create a secure enough environment for the child.”
    Camilla’s own writing suddenly struck her as too impersonal. She pictured the little girl in her mind. What about that last fifth? Oh, she wished she knew if the baby would end up in that group; she thought she would end the article with the psychologist’s statement that there is really only one researcher out there who claimed people could recall their own births—so this little girl’s loss should by no means cause irreparable harm.
    Earlier she had stopped by the church with the paper’s photographer in tow and watched police using K-9 tracking dogs in the area. But when she called Rasmus Hem about the dogs, he said the police still