Birth a happy update to sad story

A Chinese-American family in New York City received a bundle of joy this week that may help relieve some of their sorrow.

Peixia "Sanny" Liu, the widow of slain Detective First Grade Wenjian Liu, gave birth to a 6-pound, 13-ounce girl named Angelina early Tuesday. The baby was born through in vitro fertilization from sperm preserved after the officer's death.

Officer Liu, 32, and fellow New York City policeman Rafael Ramos, 40, were fatally ambushed by a gunman as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn onDec 20, 2014. Their deaths just before Christmas stunned the city.

Detective Liu's parents, Weitang Liu and Xiuyan Li, were at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center to celebrate the birth of their granddaughter.

The young couple had always planned to have children, and on the night of the shooting, Peixia Liu requested that her husband's semen be preserved so that she might one day have his child. The night after he died, she said she had a dream in which he handed her a baby girl.

"I got pregnant through the (in vitro fertilization) procedure," Liu said, "and I told my friend, 'It's going to be a baby girl.' My friend said, 'No, you haven't even checked the sonograms,' but I was right!"

Detective Liu, a native of South China's Guangdong province, came to the US at age 12 with his parents. He decided to become a police officer after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and joined the NYPD in 2007.

The officers' killer, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, had claimed on social media that he was targeting police to avenge the deaths of Michael Garner on Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in incidents involving police in the summer of 2014.

The new mother said she can't wait to tell Angelina that her father was a hero. She is also eager to introduce her daughter to the NYPD that she lovingly refers to as her "big blue family".

In June 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio and then-police commissioner William Bratton attended the unveiling ceremony for "Detective Wenjian Liu Way" in Gravesend, Brooklyn, where he lived.

Both Liu and Ramos, who also has a street named after him, were posthumously promoted to detective.

williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 07/27/2017 page1)