Little Warriors

I am not sure why but we have had loads of preemies lately. The incubators are all full and mostly doubled up. These littlies are our warriors, fighting for their very lives.

We couldn't go in today because the awesome Dr White (my paed too) was attending to them. He comes around for a few hours and teaches the young trainee doctors how to care for these small people.

One little boy was just too small to be ventilated and he was explaining that the complications of blindness and possible cerebral palsy was just too great a chance. They were monitoring him and making him as comfortable as possible. Another 3 babes were also micro preemies, poor little sausages!

The bigger babes are all tucked between their moms boobs waiting till they hit the magical 1.8kg mark so they can go home.

The kangamoms were in fairly good spirits, one of the mothers sucked the dummy in her own mouth to clean it off. I know we all do that at some stage but not quite for our preemie or newborn. It is just such a different way of life and shows you how tough babies really are.
One of the biggest frustrations of birth at state hospitals is poor obstetric care due to lack of staff, funding and just plain ignorance. Some staff do know what to do but are not supervised or trained properly. The result is many babies born with problems due to a poorly managed labour and birth. This is such a shocking waste. A child that was 100% fine is now mentally and sometimes physically challenged. A mother now has to care for this child in her straightened circumstances of poverty and poor support. In fact, some we still lose healthy infants at birth. Makes me CRAZY but nothing I can do unfortunately.

We decided yesterday to put a few cloth nappies, snappi and waterproof in some of the bags. I draw a little heart at the back of the card to indicate it's for an extra poor mother. I haven't done it before because of the snappi problem and then I get a mail from Jasmine in Hong Kong who just bought us a box with 900 snappis from China. She is coming down in December and bringing those as well as baby clothes for BB. We are VERY excited! God is good!!

I don't have my thank list with me so will do at a later point.

Last week our church had their end of year ladies do and we asked people to bring things for BB instead of our usual gift swap. Was great and we got many much needed stuff, especially products! Thanks kind ladies !!!

It was exactly a year prior that I got to share my vision of what I hoped BB would be so I did another report back of what has happened in this past year and where we are. God has been so amazing in providing exactly what we need when we need it.

He has taught me so much about giving, loving, having faith and obedience.

I led the previous Saturday's youth visit and I prayed specifically that He would let me see these ladies how he sees them. It was such a cool visit and they were all so beautiful to me. I just touched their faces and really got to bless them and love them. Today my toddler has croup and I had to get to my Doc after the visit so I was distracted a little. Each visit is a little different but each one special.

On the 12th of December we have the Christmas party for the maternity staff. They are looking very forward to it and we have got Woolies & Pick n Pay to sponsor for the snacks. We have been collecting little prezzies to pop in the bag for a while now so hope we have a good stash. They used to be a bit offish in the beginning but now that they see we are here to stay, they seem to accept and welcome us.

The charity organization that assists the hospital have never really forgiven me for stepping on the toes/hearts so they still flatly ignore me. It is a great pity as we could help each other and should be on the same side. Anyway, it seems the charity business is as political as any other.
I will update my thanks list soon, just waiting to get all the concerts and other kid stuff out the way so we can chill and enjoy the holidays.

Can't wait !