Friday night we admitted a baby from the jungle. She was born at 7 months, 2 months early. She was the color purple, like a nasty bruise, from the waist down. Her skin was almost glassy smooth, not normal for a full 9 month baby. She weighed a little over 4 pounds.
It is a horrible situation. Her odds of survival here are really poor. Even in Quito, her odds of survival are really poor. Mom is 16 and Dad is 20. How do you explain to two children that their first child will probably die? We told them we will do everything we can, which we will, but that the odds of her leaving the hospital alive are less than 10%. Mom cried.
It's a scene we work through often. A baby with no prenatal care is born early. We work our tails off, they looks good for about 3 to 5 days, then they start spiraling down and die in a couple of days later. The whole process usually takes a week.
I find it heart breaking. One of my first questions to God, at least from this side of Heaven, would be, "Why do innocent little babies suffer and die?" I don't know the answer. I don't have any clue.
Someone smarter than me said it is because people are sinners and the wages of sin is death. He assured me that the baby didn't sin, but that because she is human, and humans sin, she suffers unfairly. It is like the students at Virginia Tech who never hurt the crazy kid who shot them, they were just the caught in the crossfire of his sin or mental illness. This baby is an innocent victim of the crossfire of human sin.
So today the little baby from the jungle with a child for a mother is OK. If she survives even a month it will be a miracle, but we have to work as if the miracle is coming, but not get our hopes up too high, so that when the worst happens, we aren't too broken hearted. The thing is, no matter how pessimistic I am, it still kills me when these babies die.
Children dying is the part of missionary medicine that I absolutely hate.
God be with you,
Jerry and Elizabeth
Koleski
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