We were so thrilled to see Baby Jessica leave the ICU this week to join Hope and Helen on the 5th FLOOR.  Doesn’t she look beautiful?  Maybe we’ll see these darling girls on 5th AVENUE someday.  Isn’t it amazing that they may even have that chance?  Thanks for partnering with us to give them hope for the future.  Please visit the girls in beds 5 (Hope), 15 (Helen) and 23 (Jessica) next week, and bring a piece of fruit for their dedicated ayis too.  We’re grateful for all you do!

This is Baby Jessica who just came out of ICU.  Her ayi seems super sweet….and so does she  The ayi’s were also all so cooperative and helpful in taking the pictures.

This is Baby Hope

This is Baby Helen

Yesterday I received baby Faith’s recent photos and some update from her foster mother. While reading it, my mind kept flashing back to the memory when she first arrived. I still have hard time believing this is the same baby who arrived at critical condition 2 months ago. She’s so healthy and beautiful now! Hope you enjoy the note her foster mother wrote:

“Faith is doing wonderfully. We continue to be blessed by her smile, her warmth and her amazing energy. As I have told you Faith is thriving and getting bigger by the day. She continues to enjoy music time (She loves Tosca) and ‘tummy time’ to strengthen her neck muscles. She loves the outdoors and has frequented many of the Shanghai restaurants. She is also somewhat of  a rock star. Tons of people stop to look at her and tell me how beautiful she is.”

Y is a little girl under Baobei’s “healing home” program. She has gone through 4 major surgeries because of GI issues, therefore, despite of her orphanage’s effort to get her fed up, she still had weak and skinny legs and couldn’t stand when she first arrived in Shanghai. But she has been making huge progress now at her Shanghai healing home under the care by an incredible Chinese couple. They recently sent me Y’s latest photos and they really got me laughing into tears, especially hearing she loves Kongfu movie too!

Baby Faith turned one-month old yesterday. In China, when babies turn to one-month, parents usually have big party by inviting the whole family to celebrate together. Well, for Faith, the best news is that she is discharged today and she gets to go into loving foster family. She is going to get lots of love! And by the way, she got a new haircut today too! Most babies cried during hair shaving, but our Faith seeemed to enjoy it as much as like enjoying a head massage! Look at her little tongue!

Whenever thinking about the first day of learning about Faith, I still have goosebumps all over me. Looking at how healthy, how beautiful, how happy and how precious she is, I still find it hard to believe this baby did work through miracle and survived beautifully!

This is just like happy ending for movies. I am afraid even hollywood’s best writers can’t even come up with such great storyline. I am so grateful to all the people who have been part of little Faith’s life. It is all these people who helped build this happy ending! Once again, thanks to Faith’s orphanage staff, who were so quick and so careful in transfering Faith to Shanghai. Thanks to Dr Wu, Dr Hong and their team for saving this precious baobei’s life. Thanks to the donors who quickly came up with all the funds within 24 hours after they learned about Faith. Thanks to Baobei volunteers who deliver baby supplies and send good wishes. Thanks to Faith’s foster family who will shower Faith with TLC!

Let’s go through some pictures during Faith’s whole hospital stay. I hope you get to experience the joy as much as I do by seeing how this baby is healed.

My job brings me a lot of emotional moments. However, today I experienced such a moment that’s way beyond words could describe.

Faith had her surgery today to close her abdomen. She was taken from NICU straight into OR early in the morning. The whole time she was in OR I was at the hospital too, but busy with a sick fostered baby who had to come back to hospital. Around 1pm, I was still with this other baby but on the same floor where the OR is. That was when I realized “Oh my gosh, I should go check out Faith to see if her surgery was done”. Usually children we help would have their caregivers who company them from the orphanages, they would be sitting outside of the OR and wheel the baby back to the ward together with the nurse. Since we were told that Faith would stay at NICU during her whole hospital stay, we didn’t keep her caregiver in Shanghai. So she had no one waiting for her outside of the OR. Thinking of that, I excused myself away from this other baby and the fostered mother, and ran up to the OR. However, I was told her surgery was done. I was so disappointed at myself then.. feeling terrible that I failed Faith.

While I walked out of the OR waiting area, still feeling sad, I ran into a doctor. He walked so fast past me. I thought “hmm.. maybe some emergency”. By the time I got to the hallway, I saw another doctor wheeled out a gurney with a small baby on it. This doctor quickly ran up to the gurney. When I looked carefully I realized that’s our Faith!! I rushed up and told the doctors happily “hey.. that’s my baby”. The doctors looked a bit confused and asked me “are you the parent? We’ve been looking for you.. where have you been.. How can you leave your baby come out of OR alone?” I was so happy that I saw Faith and didn’t pay much attention to what they asked me.. I just kept saying “yes yes yes”. Then I paused and realized they thought I was the parent.. so i started to shake my head and said “no.. no.. ” All right.. at this point, these two doctors just looked at each other and seemed lost.. they probably wondered where this crazy woman was from. But who cares, I was so happy I got to wheel Faith back to NICU. Faith actually opened her eyes and looked at me, then started to moan. She moved up her little hand and rubbed her face a bit, which looked like she was rubbing away tears and complaining “where have you been”. In the elevator, I pat her gently and tried to talk to her, she quickly went back to sleep again.. I assume she wasn’t mad at me anymore.

After I walked out of NICU, I was feeling quite guilty and sad. I was sad because I saw how other kids have their whole family around when they are sick, but our babies are on their own. But I am also comforted to know that we could learn from situation like this and have Baobei serve our children better, because what I am proud about Baobei is that we have such a strong local volunteer team. We are able to provide the kind of care like other children get from their family when they are sick. We are able to make these children feel they have someone like mother and father around them when they need such love the most!

It was raining so hard in Shanghai last Saturday, I thought I would take it easy and enjoy a quiet stay-home weekend. However, around 5ish in the afternoon, I received a phone call from Kaifeng orphanage. They just found a brand-new born baby abandoned outside of the orphanage, and her intestines and stomach were exposed. They called me right away when they were holding this baby girl walking into the room. First thought I had was that we probably wouldn’t have time to save her, nor could we afford such surgery. I wasn’t sure what to do and told them I would call back asap.

After I hung up the phone, something came to my mind. I recalled an SCMC newsletter I read 2 months ago, where it talked about how SCMC successfully cured a baby who had exposed bowel. It also talked about how Dr Wu (vice director of SCMC, who’s also a surgeon) modified the “silo” bag he brought from Chicago Children’s and how this magical “bag” saved that baby’s life.

I quickly dialed Dr Wu’s cell phone. When he picked up the phone, the reception was so bad because he was on the road in Inner Mongolia. Our conversation was cut off many times like every other minute, but either he called me back or I called back right away. He told me such baby would not survive over 24 hours with their bowel exposed in the air. He also told me such surgery would only cost 20,000 - 30,000RMB. I wouldn’t believe what I heard!! Dr Wu was so kind and he called Kaifeng orphanage directly himself and taught the orphanage doctor how to take care of the exposed bowel during travel. The next thing I learned was that an orphanage doctor with a caregiver were already on the train heading to Shanghai with this new born baby girl. By this time, no one had chance to name this baby yet, so I decided to call her Faith. I guess you can figure why I picked that name.

That evening, both Dr Wu and I made many phone calls to all related people since we knew Faith would arrive around 6ish on a Sunday morning. I am so thankful that all departments related were very kind and supportive. When Faith arrived at 6.30am the next morning, she was taken into NICU right away even before I had chance to start any of her admission paperwork. As Dr Wu was still in Inner Mongolia, Dr Hong was called in real early on her day off. The security guard had picked up the “silo” bag with his backup key to “break” into Dr Wu’s office the night before already. The admission window asked me to forget about paperwork and do it later. Wow, everyone was ready and everything worked out so smoothly! They took in Faith so quickly that I hardly had chance to look at her. So I was waiting outside of ICU with the orphanage doctor and caregiver. That was when I realized they came with no personal luggage at all, but a travel bag full of bottles of sterling water and syringes. They had no time to pick up even a set of clean clothes or any snacks before they left for the train. All they wanted was to make sure that they had what they needed to keep the baby’s exposed bowel under proper care! I was so touched then! I asked them to go get some breakfast, but neither of them wanted to leave the door of ICU.

Around 9am, Dr Hong came out with great news! The “silo” bag was placed for Faith. Everything was stabilized. This bag is made from silastic. It is then suspended from the top of the baby’s bed, allowing gravity to slowly return the intestines to the abdominal cavity, aided by sequentially tying the end of the bag, like a tube of toothpaste. It is closely monitored until almost all the contents have returned to the abdomen. It will be about a week, then the baby will receive the surgery to close it.

Dr Hong took me in to see Faith. That was when I finally got to see carefully - what a beautiful and precious baby she is. She has beautiful skin. She was sleeping sound, like nothing had happened. Dr Hong was so pleased that Faith was sent to the hospital in time. If we were just a little bit late, she would have no chance. Imagine how happy I was when I heard that. I called the orphanage director when I came out of ICU. On the phone, he shared the same excitement and told me he had come up with a Chinese name for Faith. It would be Hai Ju. Hai stands for Shanghai, Ju is the city flower for Kaifeng. That means Shanghai-Kaifeng teamed up and saved her life. What a beautiful name! When I walked out of the hospital that day, the rain that had been going on and on stopped. I saw beautiful sunshine for the first time after several weeks!

I checked on Faith today and most of her bowel has returned to her abdomen. She will have her surgery this Friday to close her open abdomen, then she will recovery into a normal healthy baby. In case you wonder, yes, the surgeon would make a beautiful belly button for her, just like the city flower of Kaifeng.

Also in case you wonder if Baobei has funding to cover her surgery as she was such an emergency case, well, since the news got out on Sunday, donations have come in from all over for her. Some donors couldn’t even wait to do the bank wire and they decided to come with stacks of cash to the hospital. Some donors learned the news a bit late and got upset that they couldn’t contribute to Faith, and had me promise to let them know next time if they could help. I am so thankful! All I wanted to say to our donors is that you are definitely also an important part of this Shanghai-Kaifeng team that have brought such huge difference in this little girl’s life.

I am proud of this Shanghai-Kaifeng team. I am sure everyone will remain an important part in Faith’s life from her 1st day to this world. Let’s continue to keep her in our thoughts that she would thrive and become a healthy happy girl.