Current Child Count

  • HOGAR DE AMOR I: 11 babies
  • HOGAR DE AMOR II: 6 boys
  • HOGAR DE AMOR III: 8 girls

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Praise the Lord for ornery chickens!

This morning we started the social investigation for our youngest (but not newest) baby, Victoria Salome, who is today 1 month old. Here's part of HDA's June update for the story:

"At the end of the month, we couldn’t resist helping with a baby who was found in a bag on a riverbank. We (and the Alseths at CDA III) said yes without knowing if it was a boy, girl, or even the age, and it turned out to be a tiny 5 ½ pound newborn! When she was found, crying in a plastic bag with the placenta and umbilical cord still attached, doctors estimated she was 4 hours old. It’s a miracle that she survived! The name she was given in the hospital before she came to us seems fitting: Victoria Salomé. It’s heartbreaking to see the bruises, cuts, and the swelled bruise on half her little head, but now she’s in gentle hands and we look forward to watching her grow. May she be as the Salome of the Bible, sister of Mary (mother of Jesus) and mother of two disciples, herself a devoted follower of Christ (see Mark 15:40, 16:1). "

When the hematoma (fancy word for bruise?) on her head started growing, and another popped up, we took an xray and discovered a 8 cm crack in her skull. Sounds awful, but we at least feel better seeing that Victoria usually only cries when she's hungry. Then the doctors started to worry about the strange curvature in her legs, down to her feet. On Tuesday I took her to an orthopedic tramatologist who ordered two more xrays of her lower body. He suspected hip fractures.

Back to the chickens and today... Maria (HDA's social work assistent) and I interviewed staff at Child Defense Sacaba to see what more we could find out about Victoria's rough beginnings. It turns out that the riverbed where she was found is a little remote. "Neighbors" plural did not hear her--just one guy out looking for his lost chickens! He saw a bag moving oddly and got up the courage to take a peek. Seeing a baby there scared him and he just ran home. He called the child/family police to come deal with it but they never came. Finally he got up the courage to return and he carried the bag home, wrapping the baby in a blanket and taking her to the main hospital in town (just a clinic looking place, really) where he recounted the story of his discovery. I don't know if he found the lost chickens that day, and I hope they're not constantly escaping, but praise the Lord for their mischieviousness on June 25, 2008, before it was too late for Victoria!

Note: As an odd twist that have to think of as part of our work here, what if Victoria's "rescuer" was actually the father or someone else involved in the whole terrible situation? We tried to track him down today, with just his name and not much else, but no success yet.

2 comments:

Katrina said...

Jen!
Yay :) a blog is such a super idea!!!
Poor little Victoria! I can't help but wonder about her birth! I just saw a baby with a broken clavicle the other day and he was having a hard enough time of it and had lost 700g in his 2 weeks since birth because he wasn't feeding/able to latch properly :(
Have a great day and keep blogging!
Love,
Katrina :)

Mrs. H in Costa Rica 2023 said...

Personally I couldn't be happier that you decided to start a blog! I will look forward to keeping up with all the babies! I miss them all so much!

Denise