Little Baby Hector

We have been blessed to be able to help this little baby boy Hector Daniel. He was born to a mother who, because of some health conditions, was unable to nurse and take proper care of him. So Hector’s aunt tried to take care of him, feeding him rice water and other stuff that doesn’t carry really any nutrients a baby so desperately needs. So after 3 1/2 months, this baby was barely alive, skin was turning gray and he pretty much not an ounce of fat on him. His stomach was sunken in and you could see his ribs quite well. After hearing about the condition of this baby, Jenni offered to take the baby to the hospital for care. Sunday, the family brought him over and Jenni and I took him to the hospital late Sunday evening. All the nurses and doctors were shocked and in horror at the little baby in Jenni’s arms. 3 months?? Are you serious?
The doctor who helped us in emergency was Dr. Mendoza, a friend of Jenni’s from years ago. He had been the doctor in charge of Pancho, a baby helped last year. Ever so kind and helpful, he saw to it that baby Hector and both Jenni and I were taken care of. The health-care system in Peru is quite different than that in the States. First, I am learning a new definition of sterile. I’m pretty sure they have never heard of gloves here in Peru, or at least in the hospitals. Everything is done with the bare hands, including drawing blood, sticking needles, and other such “clean” activities. Secondly, all medications, syringes, and other such items must be purchased by the patient (or family) before any sort of treatment can be done. After the doctor’s rounds each morning, involved a trip to the pharmacy on the hospital premises to purchase the day’s supply of medicines and syringes. There is insurance and so if bought at the hospital pharmacy, there is a discount, but if bought outside, no such luck. So, if you happen to have an emergency, I hope you brought a family member to go buy your IV set up and medications, otherwise, you’ll have to wait until someone can purchase the stuff. And hopefully during that time, you won’t bleed to death.


Back to the baby. Hector has improved 100% over the last few days. Each day, he has a marked improvement in energy and movement. Sunday night, I was running around town buying medications for the baby. Finally after everything, we were admitted to the hospital. The baby laid on the bed and Jenni and I looked at him and looked at each other and were like, NOW WHAT?? Since, it was after 11pm, we both decided to spend the night in the hospital bed with the baby. Quite cozy. Well, since neither of us have experience being moms to a 3 month old, the first night was quite the experience. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep the first night. The baby kept us both awake the entire night. He really liked the whole idea of sleeping maybe 15 minutes, followed up with a cry of hunger until we fed him some PediaSure milk through a syringe because he didn’t know how to suck on a nipple. This was his first time getting some nutritious food and he was hungry. By the next morning, we realized this taking-care-of-baby-thing was gonna be a handful. And to add to that, all the moms in the pediatric ward thought the sight of two white gringas taking care of a 3 month-old Peruvian baby as the craziest sight ever. Needless to say, over the next few days, we had quite the steady stream of visitors, all wondering how in the world we ended up with this baby and why we weren’t nursing the poor little guy. Well, those explanations were always fun!! So, over the next few days, I truly felt like a mom, spending day and night with the baby. My whole life seemed to revolve around the baby, nothing else. My days and nights were spent rocking the baby, feeding him, and sometimes being able to watch him sleep. Sleep. For the first few days, Hector didn’t know what that word mean’t, therefore, he didn’t practice it. Up until Thursday night, he didn’t sleep more than 30minutes straight. Day or night. Meaning, Jenni or I didn’t sleep more than 20 minutes straight. So after a while, we got into a system of watching him. Switching off nights taking care of him. Finally on Thursday night, realizing the baby wasn’t going to be released anytime soon, we called up our backup moms from km.38 to help out, especially for nights. So now, little baby Hector has many mommies.

Hector has improved soo incredibly much over the last days. When I first saw him, he just laid motionless, with no energy or color in his skin. Now, his eyes are wide open, very curious to the world around him. He especially is fixated with a painting of Pinocchio on the wall. He has color in his skin again. His tummy is full and looks like it’s about to pop each time he is fed. He loves scratching his head behind his ears and just tries to kick and move, though he is still unable to move his head. He is able to sleep for hours now, which is amazing and makes nights so much easier to deal with. Pretty much, he’s doing amazing! Praise God!! Little Hector has been released from the hospital today and so is being taken back to km. 38 for a little more strengthening before heading back to his family. I have had such a great time with this little bundle of joy, now realizing how much of a responsibility and sacrifice it is to have a baby. Please continue to pray for little Hector as he is soon to return to his family, where it will be harder to receive the nutritious milk he needs.