Babies

Winter is coming and the nights draw quickly in. It was dark outside when my mum and I arrived at the hospital last night to be with the babies. As we climbed the stairs sad cries came through a locked door.

I have been unable to go to them for a month due to a persistent cold and a crazy work schedule. The last time I had been there 4 babies lay abandoned although 2 (I had been told) would within the next few days go to foster families.  Imagine my surprise to find that now 7 babies lay alone and unattended. The youngest was barely a month old and the eldest not more than 6 months. WHY?

I can't put photos up. I don't think I can even explain properly the sight, the feeling, the desperation of walking into a room where you know the precious children are unwanted and not properly cared for. I think I have said this before but the only person to care for them is the lady who is cleaning the whole 4 floored building and helping the doctor and nurses do rounds and give medications. She barely has time to feed and change them let alone cherish them.

I can see the sadness in my mothers eyes as she looks at one of the babies and says "imagine how it is that no one looks into your eyes and thinks you are the most beautiful thing they have ever seen". But someone does - we're here I replied. But for two hours on one day in a month. How can that be enough. It isn't.

They need so much more. So much more than the few minutes they get to feed through bottles with holes so large that the milk flows into their hungry mouths. So much more than the 3 changes they get a day because there are not enough diapers, creams or wipes for them. So much more than a hospital crib with a bright fluorescent light blinking above. So much more than the pathetic start to this life they have been given.

It is heart breaking and yet here I sit typing it down knowing that today they lay unheld, unloved, unwanted. What a cruel start they have been dealt.