Sunshine on a cloudy day

April 2, 2013 started out as a typical day here in Rwanda. We began our morning with a group breakfast, great discussion of the word of God, and off to work. Every team went their separate ways to discover what this great day had in store. The pediatrics team; Dr. & Mrs. Peevy, Katy, Mary Margaret, and myself began our day in the NICU as always and worked our way through the infants there. Moving on we went to room B which would be known at USACW as the "fat farm." Finally, we moved to the "newborn nursery" area where all the mothers are recovering from vaginal or cesarean deliveries with their newborn infants in the same bed. Around 10:30 the team moved to the pediatrics ward and started making our way through various childhood diseases. The phone rang around 1100 alerting us to an impending delivery of a term infant with a prolapsed umbilical cord. This is a serious medical situation in which the infants umbilical cord is protruding through the vaginal canal. This is an emergency situation because the infant is compromised as pressure occludes the umbilical cord...aka the infants source of life while in utero.

Katy and I arrived in the OR to help Julie (an American working on improving the NICU mortality here in Rwanda) as the c-section was underway.The surgeons began to pull a body part from the abdomen and we realized the infant was breech and preterm. Then they said "There are 2." I began working on infant number 1 who was 1000 grams. As infant 2 was delivered they realized there was another infant. We called for Dr. Peevy and the rest of the peds team to come assist with this triplet delivery of 30 week infants. Everyone worked hard to resuscitate these infants. Sadly, at the end of the day we lost two infants. The limited resources of Kibogora played a major role in the loss of these infants. However, the nurses that staff that NICU worked incredibly hard to give these infants all they needed for a chance to survive. They took the loss hard.

The beauty of the day was found as we finally left the unit at 3 p.m. after sending two sweet angels to heaven. Micki has been knitting hats for the infants in the NICU. She began creating a yellow hat for our newest patient. Leading to her nickname "Sunshine." She is still doing well for today. Here is a little glimpse of how precious she is. Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

-Jamie