Jaime's homecoming

I'm sad once again. Little premature Jaime has been in the hospital for the last 18 days. We were just informed today by a very frustrated father, that his son Jaime had died. We had been giving him money to visit his son in the city as it is only 14 meticals and 2 hours roundtrip which is about 50 cents, but half a days work when the majority of the population lives off less than a dollar a day. He came by the center yesterday to get more money and then went straight to the hospital where they callously told him Jaime had died. He came to us today wanting to know why we hadn't told him. Of course the most obvious answer was we were oblivious ourselves. We sent the nursery director, one of our clinic administrators, and one of our Mozambican doctors to find out what had happened. Jaime died a little less than 2 hours after our nursery director left his bedside on Monday afternoon. They had our phone number and never informed anyone. The worst part is, because they do not embalm bodies here, after 3 days, if the body is not picked up, the simply dump it into a mass communal grave. Today is Friday. Jaime has already been buried and his father, who lost his wife only 19 days ago, has lost his only son and cannot even bury him properly! My heart is grieving again tonight for the loss of a little one that should have thrived in any other country. My heart is heavy for stupid technicalities that are keeping a father from doing something that is so important in this culture....burying their dead. I am thankful for the time I had with him and the love that I could give him while he was here with us on this earth. I am standing in peace, knowing that Jaime is whole sitting in our Father's lap right now! Please pray for Jaime's father, his family, and our workers as this is the 2nd little one we have lost in less than a month.

I've included a few photos of Jaime in the "Neonatal Intensive Care" below to celebrate his life....and the few medical advancements the country has made since I've been here....

me looking at Jaime in his incubator...you can see the rest of the "NICU" behind us

Mommas waiting to visit their little ones and breastfeed...they have to come up every 4 hrs around the clock daily to breastfeed when their baby is strong enough and ready, but they have no where to stay in between.

Jaime not really up for a photo shoot....looking through his porthole in his incubator (his head's been shaved for IV's)

Tiny baby