Our Newest Babies

This has been a whirlwind week. Tom left, an employee left, drama followed,  another employee joined our team and new babies arrived. I haven't had a chance to properly introduce you to our newest residents so let me rectify that now.

Monday afternoon Joshua finally moved in. I was so excited to see this happen.

Thursday, little Ephraim came with his auntie to our door.

He is five months old and a little cutie, although malnourished and not so healthy. His mom passed away two weeks ago. Since then, his family was only feeding him porridge made from cassava--the root we get tapioca from--twice a day. He had forgotten how to suck and we had quite a time feeding him. Thankfully, he now gets it and sucks like a champ but is still struggling with a cough.

We're thinking that Ephraim is a huge name for such a little guy. What do you think? We may tack on a smaller name and have him use Ephraim as a middle name.

The same day that Ephraim arrived, little Ana came too. 

Ana comes from a family of nine children. When her mother died two weeks ago, her father was too overwhelmed to deal with a five month old baby. She is six months old today. 

I was surprised to find that she can already sit. Most babies this age that we see can hardly hold their own heads up and sitting is out of the question. Ana is such a content baby that I think she may have been propped up in the vicinity of other siblings and left to fend for herself much of the time. This probably contributed to her good muscle development but I feel badly for her. She loves attention!

Today, the local medical officer came by to check on our latest babies and we found out that Ana and Joshua both had HIV positive mothers. What this means is that they have been exposed to the HIV virus and therefore most likely have compromised immune systems. We will keep them on antibiotics until tests come back to show whether they are infected or not. 

Ephraim's medical records don't show us one way or another whether his mother may have had HIV. Because he is not in the greatest health it is a good possibility. We are treating his cough with antibiotics and those same medicines will help in case he has been exposed. We hope to do all the testing tomorrow and get the results in a couple weeks.

Please pray for all three of these babies. They are not out of the woods by any means. We will do all we can physically and medically, and give them all the love they need. 

If you'd like to help us to care for these darling babies, click on this link or the donate button at the top of the blog page.

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