Bowel surgery for Brandina

Brandina and her twin sister Brenda were born on the third of November 2014. Their mother is only 18 years old and mentally unsound. The babies were born pre-term at 32 weeks. The father left the mother when she was 4 months pregnant. After the birth, I assisted the grandmother in taking care of the babies. Because the mother was refusing to breastfeed, I was supplying Lactogen formula. Brenda was doing well and quickly gained weight. Brandina however didn't gain because of frequent vomiting. After 6 weeks of Kangaroo care in Nkhoma hospital the family went home. But soon after discharge the grandmother came back to my house with Brandina because she couldn't manage to care for her. She now had to take care of two babies, look after her daughter, work on the field and do all the work of cooking and washing. Brandina was vomiting and crying very frequently which made the situation difficult. I decided to take Brandina into the Africare house.

I experienced the same problems as the grandmother, frequent vomiting and frequent crying. We started to observe her weight and she wasn't gaining much. We visited the pediatric doctor at Nkhoma Hospital several times and soon there was a diagnose: pyloric stenosis.
Now a surgeon had to be found who could do this operation on a very young baby. On Sunday February 22th there was a positive answer from a surgeon of Kamuzu central hospital in Lilongwe. The next day we were admitted in the peds department to be operated on Wednesday. Kamuzu Central Hospital is a government hospital, which means the resources are very limited. The pediatric emergency department is very small with only a few beds, the number of patients however is high. It is very difficult for the few nurses and doctors to oversee all patients as every bed has at least 5 patients and many others are on the floor. Sleeping, sitting and eating is all done on the floor.
Brandina wasn't allowed to eat for 6 hours before the operation. The operation was planned for  the next morning and we had a sleepless night. At 8am a nurse brought us to the main operating theatre and they informed me the operation was going to take about an hour. So I waited outside, and waited and waited. Brandina finally came back after 3 hours. During the operation it turned out Brandina did not had pyloric stenosis but bowel obstruction. A minor procedure turned into a major operation. The operation went well but the next few hours were critical. In the afternoon we were back at the pediatric emergency department. Back in the room with at least another 100 patients. Because of her critical condition Brandina was given a place on a bed and luckily not on the floor. I observed her closly for the next 24 hours. She wasn't allowed to eat and had a lot of pain. She cried for the entire 24 hours. I tried to give her some comfort by holding her in my arms. It looked like the day and night passed by very slowly. The next morning at 9am she passed stool which is a sign the bowels are working again. The doctor came at 10am and after examination he said she could start drinking some milk. I gave her half a bottle and finally she fell asleep. We agreed with the doctors to be discharged and monitored at Nkhoma Hospital. Right now she still has a lot of pain and is only able to drink small amounts of milk. But she is improving and we thank and praise God for that!


Love,
Nicole

Maria's adoption

I'm taking care for Maria since she was born in November 2012. Maria is the fourth born to a mother which is mentally unsound. Her two brothers and sister all died soon after birth.
Maria was found a few days after birth in the bush were her mother delivered her. She was send to Nkhoma hospital as she was a premature baby with very low birth weight (1 kg). On arrival she had sunburns all over her body and she was put immediately on neonatal sepsis protocol. Together with the grandmother I took care of Maria. I taught the grandmother how to bottle feed her and the importance of hygiene. After two months in the hospital Maria left to the village however she came back very often because of severe diarrhea, malaria, sepsis etc.
After 6 months the grandmother asked me to adopt Maria, we visited the district social welfare office in Lilongwe and I became her official foster mother.

In November 2014 I started Maria's official adoption process. I contacted a lawyer who helped me preparing for the court case.  
In order to adopt a child in Malawi you have to get approval from the high court. Unfortunately soon after I contacted the lawyer the high court closed because of a strike.
End of January they opened again and beginning of February the Judge assigned a social worker from national office to investigate the case. A few weeks later the social worker visited my house and he visited the grandmother of Maria in the village. He wrote a report and supplied it to the judge. In meantime I supplied many documents to the lawyer. Copies of my passport, police clearance, medical report, family background report etc.

Thursday February 19^th the lawyer, I, Maria and Maria’s grandmother had to appear in court. The adoption petition was heard at 08.30 in the morning.
The judge decided to sign the adoption petition with a final adoption order. As of this date Maria Tirzah van Elteren is officially my daughter.

Since 2011 the Dutch law says that children adopted from Malawi automatically qualifying for a Dutch passport. Off course we have to do a lot of paperwork before Maria will receive her Dutch passport but soon she will have a Dutch nationality and passport!

Love,
Nicole

My Family

 

We enjoyed our Christmas holiday a lot. Christmas day we spent in the home village of Diana. We shared a meal with the family and celebrated Diana is still with us today.  
Diana Kambalame is currently 20 months old and has been living in the africare house for 10 months now. She finished her tuberculosis treatment and is doing very well. She is catching up, growing and learning fast. She loves singing and dancing! Every day when she comes home from school she sings new songs to me. She is very active and runs all day around. Beside singing and dancing, Diana loves animals. She helps the gardner every day feeding the chickens.
Every time I look at this girl I’m so proud of her. She is so young but lost all her close relatives. She has been malnourished since birth and diagnosed with TB twice however she never gave up. She still has often nightmares and her behavior needs a lot of correction but we know God is looking after her.

Maria loves going to school. She is able to count to 5 and is practicing on the alphabet. Her favorite word is NO! She speaks mostly Chichewa (the local language) and loves playing with her doll. She puts her in bath every morning, dresses her (with some help from mama) and put the doll on her back like Malawian women do with their babies. Maria’s grandmother likes to come for sleepovers in the Africare house. During the Christmas holiday she has spend a lot of time with us and enjoyed being around Maria. Maria loves to sing Chichewa songs with her grandmother.  
 

Hannah is a10 months old, adorable and very sweet girl. She talks in baby languages all day! She loves crawling around in the house and develops very well. When she is hungry she screams very loud. We make our own likuni phala from maize, soya and bean flower which she eats a lot! We are building up a better relationship with her grandmother. Her grandmother now comes to visit her once a month.

Brandina Yosefe recently joined us in the Africare house. She was born on the same day as Maria, two years later. She is now 3 months old and struggling to gain weight, she vomits most of her feeds. Brandina’s mother is mentally unsound; she is improving but not able to take care of her twins. She is taking care of Brenda however some days she is not interested in the child and leaves her all day alone inside the hut. The Grandmother is assisting her daughter a lot and because of her help Brenda is doing very well. Two girls were too difficult for the family and therefore Brandina is living with us.

At the moment it is raining season in Malawi which means we have to spend a lot of time inside the house. The house is filled with laughter, screaming, crying and singing all day. We read a lot of books, sing the same song over and over again and I try to teach the girls that playing is much nicer as fighting. However often they do not agree with me. We are looking forward to some sunshine and outside time again! The washing never ends and we are struggling great time to get it all dry. We are experiencing major power cuts so we cook often on charcoal. The maize and beans we planted are growing very well and the chickens are multiplying frequently.


Two weeks ago my mother arrived in Malawi and we are enjoying having her around. She is helping us a lot with Brandina! She loves taking care of her and is trying to feed her often small amounts so she keeps more of the feeding inside. We are very thankful she is able to visit us for 8 weeks. Maria and Diana already call her agogo (which means grandmother in Chichewa).

A Father to the Fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5

Love,

Nicole