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Reporter: Amanda Goodman

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Burying a child, especially a baby is heartbreaking. Sometimes so much so that parents cannot bring themselves to do it.  That is when the Metropolitan Community Church of Albuquerque steps in.

“The medical examiner’s office calls us and lets us know that they have a baby and asks us if we’ll take it in and bury it,” said Reverend Judith Maynard of MCC.  The church buries abandoned and unclaimed babies through its ‘littlest angels’ program.

A member named George Rombold felt compelled to the start the program nearly a decade ago after reading a similar program in California.
Since then the congregation has buried about 20 babies in Albuquerque, each time holding a simple memorial and funeral service, attended by church members.

Earlier this week four babies were laid to rest at Sunset Memorial Park.  “That was the most that we’ve done at one time, we’ve done two together, but this was the most we’ve done,” Reverend Maynard said.  Everything is donated for the funerals except for the monuments, that is when the congregation steps up again, donating the $300-$400 needed for the monuments.  “The congregation, even though many of them don’t have children, they’ve embraced these babies as their own they come to the services, they sit there, they weep as if it was their very own,” Maynard said.  Claiming the babies that no one wanted in life by being there for them after their death to make sure they receive a proper farewell.?