A man in Armenia was elated after his wife gave birth to their son last month, but happiness quickly turned to despair when his wife and her physicians wanted to send the baby away.
The baby boy, Leo, has Down syndrome, and the parents were reportedly urged to put him in an orphanage.
"This pediatrician walks out of the room with a little bundle -- that was Leo," Samuel Forrest said. "She had his face covered up and hospital authorities wouldn't let me see him or my wife. When the doctor came out, he said 'there's a real problem with your son.
"When I walked into the room they all turned to me and said 'Leo has Down syndrome.'"
Although initially shocked by the news, Forrest said he had no thoughts of giving up the child.
"They took me in see him and I looked at this guy and I said, he's beautiful - he's perfect and I'm absolutely keeping him."
Forrest, who is from Australia, was shocked by apparent the reaction of his wife and the practitioners, however.
"What happens when a baby like this is born here, they will tell you that you don't have to keep them," he said. "My wife had already decided, so all of this was done behind my back," he claimed.
When he told his wife he wanted to keep the baby, he says he received terrible news.
"I got the ultimatum right then," he recounted. "She told me if I kept him then we would get a divorce." He claims she filed divorce papers a week after the birth.
"It's not what I want," Forrest said. "I didn't even have a chance to speak with her in privately about it."
His wife admitted that she had a child with Down syndrome, and that she had left her husband, but declined to discuss the matter further.
Forrest wants to bring the baby to Australia, but said he needs help caring for the child now that he is a single father.
"This really came out of the blue for me," he said. "I don't have a lot, I have very little in fact. The goal is to raise enough for a year so I can get a part-time job so Leo doesn't have to be in daycare and I can help care for him.
"He's lost a lot in two weeks. It'd be different if he had his mommy."
His GoFundMe page, entitled "Bring Leo home," has raised over $480,000.
Forrest hoped his story would help raise awareness of special needs infants and children around the world.
"After what I've been through with Leo, I'm not going to sit back and watch babies be sent to orphanages," he said. "As a child with Down syndrome, that becomes somewhat of a label. If we can get around this label, we'll see that they're normal. They're a little different from us, but they're still normal.
"They all have niches and I want to work hard to find out where Leo's special. This little guy is great."
