Cherish Coates, now a 29-year-old mother of three living in Arizona, and Jeannie Joseph, a neonatal nurse at Swedish American Hospital in Rockford, were invited to the nationally syndicated daytime talk show in November, after their story was featured in the Tribune.
Allen, once the tiny infant who arrived at the hospital wearing a baby doll’s onesie and wrapped in a dish towel, was also invited to be on the show.
When Joseph saw Allen, a teenager looking grown up, healthy and happy, she could hardly believe her eyes.
“It was amazing. I looked into his face, and he had the same face as his mom,” Joseph said. “I was trying to get ahold of myself, and then I’d look at the audience, and they were all crying, and then I’d start crying again.”
Although the mom, son and nurse had reconnected through social media and had been in regular contact since Coates found her on Facebook more than a year ago, the appearance on “The Doctors” marked the first time all three were in the same room since their bond began in April 2004.
Back then, Coates was a 15-year-old who hid her pregnancy from her grandparents, with whom she lived, and delivered the baby in her own bedroom.
“I remember just looking at how beautiful he was and how tiny he was. I had never held a baby before; I had never baby-sat or anything,” Coates told the Tribune last year. “I remember being scared that I was going to break him.”
She and the baby’s father, Coates’ boyfriend, decided to leave the baby at the hospital – where staff could tend to him – using the state’s Safe Haven law, which allows parents to leave a newborn at a hospital, fire station or police station without fear of criminal or civil liability.
The teen parents tucked the baby into an old boot box Coates found in her closet and included a note written in the mother’s penmanship on notebook paper. “It said, ‘We love you, we are just not able to raise you. We want his name to be Allen Corey and we will hope to be able to see you again. God will be watching over you,’ ” Coates recalled.
The following morning, when the baby was stable, Joseph noticed Coates walking with her head down toward the nursery doors. The girl just wanted a look at the baby she was preparing to relinquish.
“I put my hand on her shoulder and said, ‘I’m taking care of this cute little guy,’ ” Joseph recalled of the day in 2004 when she led the teen mom to the baby in his incubator. “I said, ‘You know that you saved his life, right? I don’t want you to hang your head. You gave him the best chance you could,’ ” Joseph recalled. “All of a sudden, she went from looking down to up at me, and we just connected.”
The connection kept Coates coming back to the nursery each day to visit the baby and drop off breast milk. With Joseph’s support, Coates ultimately decided to tell her family – who had no idea she had given birth – about the baby and to keep him.
Although the nurse and mother eventually lost touch, Coates reached out to Joseph on Facebook to tell her she was her inspiration to become a nurse and eventually enter law school, with hopes of becoming a mental health attorney.
Both women said they were surprised by the attention they received after sharing their story in the Tribune.
After agreeing to appear on “The Doctors,” which films in LA, the show’s producers told Coates that only she and Allen would be on the program, and be interviewed by the show’s four doctor hosts.
So when Joseph surprised her on the stage in front of a live studio audience, Coates was almost too choked up to speak.
“Immediately, I stood up, and we hugged,” Coates said. ” ‘I said, ‘Thank you so much for encouraging me, and for being motivation to me and not judging me.”
After the show finished taping, Joseph, Coates and Allen were able to spend a few hours together walking along Hollywood Boulevard. They ate lunch at Hard Rock Cafe and took selfies in souvenir shops.
Coates, who said only a handful of friends knew her story before last year, added that she is glad people are inspired by it.
“She made such a huge impression on my life,” Coates said of Joseph.
Joseph, meanwhile, said all the credit belongs to her former patient, who went on to make her proud.
“This is really what nurses do all the time,” Joseph said. “This story just went public because of Cherish and because she did so well in her life.
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