Grieving uncle finally gets to hold Baby Sofia

Before his niece Sofia was born, Jose Abarca bought a crib for her and helped assemble it.

Abarca, 32, was so excited that his younger sister was giving birth that he slept on the hospital floor while waiting. He wasn’t going to miss it.

His sister, Laura Abarca-Nogueda – “Laurita” is what he called her – was in labor for 22 hours. She went into labor on Nov. 10.

So much has happened since then. Six days after Sofia was born, someone shot and killed her 27-year-old mother in her apartment near Maple and Ridge and took the baby. After an intensive investigation involving the FBI, a SWAT team found the baby safe in a Dallas residence. The investigation resulted in the arrest of 34-year-old Yesenia Sesmas, a fugitive from a previous aggravated battery/kidnapping case in Wichita.

This week, Abarca heard that Sesmas said in a Dallas jailhouse interview that she had an agreement with his sister to take the baby.

“Those accusations are ridiculous,” Abarca said Wednesday.

“She (Abarca-Nogueda) was really happy from the moment she found out she was pregnant. She was really excited to be a mom.”

Abarca-Nogueda had plans for how to raise her baby. She was going to bring her up to be polite, he said. She was determined to teach her to speak Spanish before she learned English.

It was her first child. About a dozen relatives camped out at the Birthcare Center at Wesley Medical Center awaiting the birth.

“We were so excited,” Abarca said. “We stayed there all day for her.”

Finally, after the long wait, Abarca heard the first cry from his new niece as family members waited behind a curtain and a medical team tended to the delivery. After hearing the baby make her first sound, “everybody cheered up, and everybody was real happy,” Abarca said.

Abarca was proud of his sister. She was a hard worker for Chipotle and other restaurants, and had been since she was 16.

“She grew up with her job,” he said. “She loved to work.”

She graduated from East High School, went to Butler Community College and had been promoted to a leadership job with the Chipotle store near Maple and Ridge, a short drive from her home.

His sister had “those big eyes” and “baby-like skin,” he said. Even after 22 hours of labor, “she looked so beautiful.” His sister’s middle name was Orquidea, Spanish for “orchid.”

Two days before she died, Abarca went to her apartment. Abarca-Nogueda was looking forward to taking her daughter to all the baby check-ups, he said.

“She was so eager,” he said. Abarca-Nogueda was “so meticulous” about her baby. She had everything scheduled, had written down dates. “It was just something she had never done before,” her brother said.

She breast-fed her baby. You could see their bond, he said.

“She always had Sofia in her arms. She was really protective.”

For days after Sofia was born, Abarca didn’t get to hold her because he had a fever and didn’t want to infect his niece.

After his sister’s body was found Thursday afternoon, it was discovered that her baby was missing. The search for Sofia continued all Friday and into early Saturday.

Abarca didn’t get to hold her until “after we got her back from the detectives.”

He had never met Sesmas, the woman arrested and charged in his sister’s death, but learned that Sesmas and his sister had worked together at a restaurant about two years ago.

It seems senseless that someone could kill a mother only six days after she gave birth, he said. “She had done it only six days, but she did it the best she could,” he said of his sister’s motherhood. “She was barely a new mom. It really hurts so much.”

He had been in so much agony after his sister’s death and his niece’s disappearance, he wanted to do something for his sister. He decided he wouldn’t eat until police found Sofia.

Once he learned she had been found, he vowed to continue fasting until he could hold her.

In an interview Wednesday, Abarca sobbed deeply as he talked about how it felt to finally hold the baby.

“It felt like I had my sister with me, that she was still there ... that she was not completely gone.

“I know her name is Sofia, but I told everybody her name for me is going to be Laurita.”

This story was originally published November 23, 2016 at 7:16 PM with the headline "Grieving uncle finally gets to hold Baby Sofia."