Baby Coo Coo and Bieber Fever…

I cannot believe I forgot to share updated Baby Coo Coo (Rosemond) pictures!

For those of you that do not know who Baby Coo Coo is;

When I was in Haiti back in August there was a 5 week old baby that had just been brought in to clinic. He weighed 2.4 Kgs and was such a wee thing… His mother had given birth to twins the previous year and both babies died. Then she gave birth to Baby Coo Coo and his twin but sadly only Baby Coo Coo survived. After that the mother went mad, literally screaming down the street mad, never to be heard from again. In retrospect I believe this also can be linked to VooDoo. Since then I have seen the results of VooDoo on a persons life and this definitely fits the bill.

So Baby Coo Coo was left alone with his young father. Who had no means to care for him; no milk, no food, no diapers, no time… It is a fight for survival in this country. And caring for a newborn is quite an undertaking, especially for a father who would now need to purchase formula. So he made the decision to drop him off at our clinic, with one of our Haitian nurses.

Immediately I feel in love with him. Immediately. For months when I returned home I would think about him and how I could adopt him. I desperately wanted to give him a life filled with love and family.

I kept in touch with Micheline over the next through months… sometimes through email, sometimes through Western Union… When I planned my return to Haiti in November I did not know that I was going to be in the middle of a cholera epidemic. I was prepared for mobile clinics and orphanages and most of all spending the days with Rosemond.

God had a different plan. Of course when I got there we were in a full on war against cholera and there were no mobile clinics. No  happy trips to the orphanages. No Baby Coo Coo.

Except for one day. The day before I got to see him we lost an infant. Probably to AIDS, maybe cholera but we lost her. I was devastated. We all were. I took it hard because I foolishly thought that getting an IV in her was going to save her. But she was too far gone.

The next morning I woke up to a phone call from Micheline asking if Rosemond could spend the day with me while she went to work. Since I was about to start working nights I thought it would be a great idea… however I did not know how the home base would feel about it. To my delight and surprise nobody said a word, other than how precious he was. So Ian and I played house with Rosemond for the day.

Guess who did most of the work?

I feel like that was a gift from God. Two-fold. Because I also got to see how well cared for he is with Micheline. And how much she loves him. She calls him son. She is a good mother to him and in that day I was able to put to rest my notion of adopting him… and adopted instead the knowledge that he is safe, healthy and happy.

Look at that smile… a truly happy baby. (P.S. Thanks for the clothes Angela!)

Oh those cheeks!

 

In other news… one day while at the clinic in Cite Soleil we came across these young girls who we discovered all suffer from a terrible, terrible fever. It seems that our North American disease has even made it to the island of Haiti… Yes my friends, these girls have BIEBER FEVER! As you can tell… they still need your prayers in Haiti!

 

One Love, ♥