All over Facebook today, I’ve seen my friends- parents with young children- posting articles about how Samuel Forrest, a man from New Zealand married to Armenian woman Ruzan Badalyan, was forced to choose between his wife and their new baby son. Samuel Forrest started a gofundme page wherein he blasted the mother of his child, telling the world that she didn’t want a child with Down’s Syndrome because it would “bring shame to her family” and how he rose up against her, took the child, and is taking his son back to New Zealand.

Ruzan Badalyan has been made into a villain. But this is her side of the story:

21 January was the happiest day for me, as I finally gave birth to my long-awaited son. Our son was born at 6.30 in the morning and I remember alarmed faces around and doctors worried looks.

I woke hours after anaesthesia. My first question was about the whereabouts of my child. I remember the sad faces of my relatives and the doctors and the diagnosis that sounded like a verdict: ‘Your child was born with Down’s Syndrome’.

One can never imagine my feelings at that moment. Hardly had I recovered from the first shock, when the doctor approached me and told me to voice my decision whether I was going to keep Leo or not.

I had to make the most ruthless decision in my life within several hours. The first thing that came to my mind after the diagnosis was that I don’t want my child to live in a country where certain stereotypes dominate the lives of people with DS and no opportunities at all.

I want him to be involved and well-received in society, an integration that will require years and years for our society to adjust to. I saw the evasive looks of the doctors, my relatives’ tear-stained faces, received calls of condolences and realised that only a move to a country with such standards as New Zealand would entitle my son to a decent life.

This fact was not disputed by my spouse either, who occasionally claims in his articles that the baby can’t afford the life he deserves in Armenia

Thus, I spent the hours after Leo’s birth trying to collect my will and decide on the best destiny for the kid. Everyone in our family realised that the baby’s interests should be placed first and only his move to another country could remedy the situation, something that Sam himself also accepted.

I understood that in Armenia, where is no extensive social infrastructure to help children with developmental disabilities, no governmental support, with the continuous hard economic situation in the country, with the possibility of renewed war with our hostile neighbour - with whom the fragile cease-fire seems to be deteriorating over time - always looming in the background, with my salary of $180 being partly supported by my sister and living in my mother’s place and having no other income, as my husband did not work, I would not be able to raise my child with specialneeds.

In Armenia every child is loved and respected and family is a high value, but in this country children with special needs do require special attention, huge financial resources and dedication.

In the hardest moment of my life when my husband should be next to me and support and help to take the right decision, I could not find any support from his side.

After that incident, he left the hospital notifying me hours later that he was taking the kid with him, that he is going to leave the country for New Zealand and I do not have anything to do with the situation.

Without giving me any option and trying to find with me any solution in this hardest situation, he started to circulate the story on every possible platform without even trying to give me a voice accusing that I put him an ultimatum marriage or the baby, which is absolutely not true.

I tried several times to communicate but he never tried to listen me and to find common solutions. The only response was the accusation from his part.

Sam has never suggested joining him and bringing up the child together in his country. Neither did he tell me anything on the day we filed for divorce. The only thing he kept saying was that he didn’t want us to separate, whereas my question what we should do always remained unanswered.

As a mother who has faced this severe situation, being in the hospital under stress and depression, experiencing enormous pressure from every side, not finding any support from my husband’s part on any possibilities of giving a child decent life in Armenia, I faced two options: To take care of the child on my own in Armenia, or to abandon my maternal instincts and extend the baby an opportunity to enjoy a decent life with his father in New Zealand.

I went for the second option.

Best regards,

Ruzan Badalyan