2/23/2007

Dear Linda,
I just went yesterday with a friend of mine to the Children's hospital to hold AIDS babies for about 3 hours.  Since there were more of us, the babies barely had a chance to whimper.  It was like one on one with five babies in the room.  There was a Catholic sister there also who comes everyday and she just radiates love for these little ones. 

  Love, Kristina

 

Holding Castaway Babies
in a Children’s Hospital

May 15, 2006, By Kristina Gray

 

If you love holding babies who have fresh, new skin so recently knit together, then a children’s hospital might be the place for you. The babies I comforted the other day have been cast aside by a needy mother who cannot support herself or is not responsible enough to take on a tiny bundle of needs. Five babies in varying degrees of age and fitness were behind a glass panel in a 15 x 15 foot room similar to what you would see in a maternity ward of a hospital. However, these were not newborn basinets; some were in wooden railed cribs big enough for a one year old toddler. Names and birthdates were posted at the end of each baby’s bed along with their prescribed formula by the doctor. A one month old boy only had “no name” to identify him. My friend, Marianna, who has done this ministry for several years, suggested this could be pronounced backwards “Emanon.” I yearned to call this tiny castaway who just “celebrated” his one month old birthday, “Nathan.” We were there to console Nathan as well as hold Kostya, Nicholai, Sergey and Dimitry.

After we entered the hospital premises, we donned white capes with much too big shoulders that would fit amply over a man’s suit coat. However, no matter how silly we looked in our oversized gowns, it made us look official as if we belonged to the hospital staff. I later found when holding the burping babies, that it was useful as a mop up cloth since none would be found in the little room where the discarded babies are “stored.” As we entered the room with our white, starched uniforms, two out of five babies slept while the others cried at various decibels. Marianna went for the loudest first to change his diaper. I pulled out of the crib the next wailing child and soon the room was filled with clucks and sounds adults make to soothe tearful eyes and ears who can not adequately express what their problem is.

First problem to solve was administered by Marianna who changed all five diapers. While doing disposable diaper duty, she told me what she knew of the short histories of our little charges. The one I held the most was five month old Kostya who had some bruise that was healing on the back of his head. I thought it was cradle cap or a purple birthmark but it may have been the reddish suave the nurses put on his bruises on the back of his head. Apparently, Kostya had been taken from his mother’s home because she was unable to care for him herself. Kostya had sleepy, blue eyes and an occasional smile for me which helped to reward my efforts to calm him. I mostly alternated between holding Nathan and Kostya throughout the two hours we were there. Marianna, the professional surrogate mom, at times balanced two babies, one in each arm.

However, for the first half hour, Marianna was stationed at the changing table. It has been suspected the nurses know when Marianna comes with her “comfort ministry,” because they now have glad smiles of relief when she arrives that have replaced their former post-Soviet, glowering look. Imagine being in those hospital wards 24/7, caring for infants who crave holding? There are simply NOT enough adult arms to take on this battle of succor. 

Little Nicholai, the only brown eyed baby of the five, walked back and forth in his crib to get his exercise. He smiled mischievously just at getting some adult attention and walked backwards in his 3 foot crib that had no sheets or blankets. The room is kept heated so even his clothes seemed superfluous. We had the window opened up to let fresh spring air in, which was probably against hospital regulations, but how long would we last holding little bodies if some fresh air wasn’t allowed in the room with us?

Second problem to solve was these little ones were hungry!!! Sergey is a beautiful little boy with big blue eyes and dark lashes who came to the hospital somewhat tubby. Apparently his mother was living off the street and could not take care of him, someone else must have been feeding him. Marianna commented that Sergey had noticeably lost weight since the hospital feeding times are farther and fewer than what he was used to. Exercise outside of Sergey’s crib happens all too infrequently because that would mean constant supervision. Endless paperwork keeps Sergey in a holding pattern at the hospital before he is either put in an orphanage or adopted. Sergey is about nine months old and just took his first steps toward a banana that Marianna bought at the market. She knows this helps stave off hunger of the older babies who can digest this while they wait and wait for the nurses to come with their prescribed food.

As I held one month old Nicholai, he made sucking gestures with his mouth in anticipation of getting his bottle feeding. Five month old Kostya also appeared hungry but contented when I held him. Perhaps Kostya is already smart enough to know that being held and fed are simultaneous since his tiny fingers and hands are not yet strong enough to hold up his own bottle. Food is on the way!!!

Help WAS on the way with the food cart that had rattled up and down the hospital corridor finally stopped with different concoctions at our door. After Nicholai had worn himself out with the walking stroller that bumped around willy nilly in the closed quarters of the room, he was satisfied to go back into his crib with a big glass bottle full of soup with formula in it. To me, glass bottles and toddlers do not seem to be a good mix but then glass can be sanitized better than plastic so there are tradeoffs the children’s hospitals have thought through long ago. I can only imagine any other toddler in a normal, home environment would declare “Done with lunch-in-a-bottle.” Out the crib it flies! Crash!!! Glass and formula splintering everywhere, my imagination wandered.

The most fragile baby in the room I have saved for last and that is Dimitry, one of Marianna’s favorite. He is really five months old but was as big as one month old “No Name, Nathan.” What struck me about Dimitry’s complexion was that it was ghostly gray and that his forehead had two, old man wrinkles when he would peer at you with his transparent, almost skeleton looking eyes. Actually, Dimitry’s plaintive eyes pierced your heart because you knew this baby might not last to his first birthday. You see, Dimitry is an AIDS baby and whatever formula he is getting in his bottle is not being held down, he burped everything up on a regular basis. Marianna thought if only she could take this victim of AIDS home with her for two weeks, she could feed him small doses of food in shorter intervals. Dimitry does not have the capacity to take the prescribed bottle feedings and he continues to lose weight.

What all five of these babies need is more than a clean environment, change of diaper or food at more regular intervals, they need arms to hold them. This is the third problem that still needs solving. Many of these babies in the hospital have a “no name” mother who has AIDS. These wee ones with the proper medication can, perhaps after a year, hopefully test negative from having the AIDS virus themselves. In Ukrainian hospitals when a child is admitted, so too the mother! Therefore, the work Marianna and her friends do is typically done by the mother. Only catch is, the babies we held the other day do not have involved mothers! The reason the hospital staff is so small is that parents do all the extras such as playing, fruit or juice, holding, pacifying, etc. That's part of the reason it is so crucial for willing adults to go where the babies are.

What can I do about this problem that seemingly will not go away in Ukraine? I hope to continue to accompany Marianna to the hospital whenever my teaching schedule permits. To my mind, four of the five castaways did not fit the description of AIDS babies but rather, normal babies who need aid!!!