A Baby At The Gate!

These 3 pictures have a story behind them! This little baby girl was found outside of our gate at 8:30 at night when a neighbor boy called some of our boys and said, "There's a baby outside your gate!" Amanda came calling me and I thought she was playing a joke on me and it wasn't really true, but I went out and looked behind the gate, underneath the writing on our wall, there was a tiny baby wrapped in a torn blanket with a jacket wrapped around her. There were ants crawling on her and at first I thought she was dead, but I saw her feet move. I gently picked her up and brushed the ants off her head, and took her inside for Melinda to consult. Before we did anything, we took her to the police station to make a declaration that she was in our orphanage. It took about 2 hours to do that. After that we brought her home, fed her, cleaned her up, and put her to bed. She had an infection in her embilical cord from it being cut and not tied and it was a wonder she didn't bleed to death. We still do not know whose baby she is so she has been declared orphaned. I named her Hannah. She is doing fine. The first picture is the cardboard outside the gate that she was found on.

This is me taking a look at her before we cleaned her up.
This is Hannah once she had been examined by Melinda and was given a bath and food!

Another set of twins!!

Well this morning, we had another set of twins arrive! We have twin boys here already and today, we got cute little twin girls! They arrived shortly after 9:00. Baby A weighed in at 1.4kg and Baby B was just a little bigger, with a weight of 1.75kg. They are drinking about an ounce every 2-3 hours. The mother of the babies died on Saturday from childbirth. We are not sure yet if we are keeping them or just helping the family out. It seems like every time Melinda leaves to go to Port Au Prince on business, another baby arrives! I told Melissa, a volunteer who is here helping us, that I hoped a baby would come during her stay here. Well, we have had 4 babies arrive since she came, which has been just over a month now!

Power

Dear Friends and Family,

We just wanted to let you know that we do not have any power and haven't for a few days. We only have it for a few minutes while it's directly connected to the generator; but we can't run it like this for very long. We are letting you know this so you will understand why we haven't responded to any emails. Please pass this information along to everyone.

Pat

A Day of Life as a Volunteer @ HCH

Many folks have asked what it is like living here in Haiti and working at HCH. As a volunteer here at HCH I feel that I have a pretty good idea of what day to day life is like in our home. I arrived in at 10:30 am on yesterday. We got some lunch and then went grocery shopping. During our pretty relaxed shopping we got a call that one of the local pastors who had been sent home to die; needed an iv. Our relaxed shopping turned into a very quick run through the store to ensure we had dinner for our family, volunteers, and 41 orphan children. We then took our 1 1/2 hour journey up the mountain, dodging reckless drivers, and driving acrossed questionable bridges. I was simply thankful that we didn't have to go acrossed in the boats as I did last time. We arrived home to grab medical supplies and then on to the pastor's house. Melinda got the iv in and tried to make him as comfortable as possible amidst the scorching temp with only a fan blowing on him. We visited for a few minutes and then left.

Once arriving home we had lunch and then I slept as I was exhausted from only a few hours sleep the night before. Upon waking; I helped hold a baby down while getting an iv as she was quite dehydrated. I then made my rounds loving and playing with the kids. Our houseboy then came in with a cut running down his leg. Pat then had to send for and administer a tetanus shot to him. Shortly after that one of our two year olds was brought up with labored breathing. I administered a breathing treatment to help his breathing. We then finally sit down to have our dinner and yes by now it is 10:30 at night.

Is it busy; yes it is so busy. Just when you think you might have a break; somebody comes in whether it be one of our children or somebody from the community needing medical care or just attention. It is rewarding; but very busy all at the same time.

What's new

My grandaughter Julie is here for a month to visit. She was here two years ago and so it's great to have her back. She loves the babies but Ester is her favorite and she is royally spoiling her.

Here I am on my 73 birthday. We had a good time at the pool celebrating both my birthday and Julie's in the month of June. Then we came back and had a nice supper and cake.

The party goers

Long overdue blog

Dieuridson came to us at 14 days old. He was very tiny and it was obvious that he was not completely healthy as his stool was incredibly(and we have seen a LOT of smelly and green, and he cried consistently of tummy aches. He seemed to be coming along, but then Saturday he started to take turn for the worse. By Sunday morning he was on IV's and oxygen and it became apparent that his bowel had perforated as he began vomiting feces and blood. We tried and he really fought to live, but he was very very sick. By Monday morning he gave up the fight and went gently and quietly into the arms of Jesus. We had a small funeral service for Dieuridson yesterday afternoon. It is always sad to lose a little one but we know that he is in the best place he could be.
Sara came Sunday morning. She was born to a young 20 year old girl who died during childbirth and had no one able or interested in caring for her child. Sara's father is 60 and cannot care for her. Some of the details of her birth and history are a little muddy. There is some investigation being done to ensure that we have all the correct information before she is permanently taken into our care. She is quite small and as far as we know spent first 8 days of her life drinking sugar water, so she has some weight to gain! Please pray that she gains weight well and adjust to formula well as she has diarrhea due to not drinking milk previously.

Pray for Adlens

Good afternoon. Adlens, the baby of the blind lady from the last blog, is doing very poorly and may have meningitis. This is an urgent request for you to please pray for him. We are working diligently around the clock to help him all we can.

This is the position that he is most comfortable in. He seems to need to arch his back and put his head back in order to settle down.

We have several children who are sick in the house and we ask that you pray for them and for all of as for strength and wisdom to care for all of them.