“We speak in hushed voices so as not to wake our memories.”
The room that we entered was full of small plastic domes with blue lights glowing softly in most of them. At first I didn’t know what I was looking at. It took several seconds for my mind to register what my eyes were seeing.
Then I realized that the minuscule little bodies under the lights were babies.
I think my heart actually skipped a beat.
They were smaller than any person should be, and it was a miracle that they were alive. I had heard the term ‘micro preemie’ before, but to be in a room full of these tiny infants wasn’t something I ever thought I would see.
Their arms could be as wide as my finger. Their little heads hadn’t had time to fully develop. Their skin was translucent. You could see all the veins running through their bodies. Their fingers and toes were barely more than bumps sometimes. Their weight was calculated in ounces, not pounds.
This growing process wasn’t supposed to be happening outside their mothers womb.
We went from dome to dome praying for each minute child, holding back tears for these tiny children. It broke my heart. And yet, somehow, it was an experience I almost forgot.
I tucked this memory away deep and safe. I didn’t even mention it in my journal. It was safer there than dealing with the possible realities of the fate of these children.
It wasn’t until seven months later that it all came back to me. I was reading the story of one family’s ordeal in watching their preemie daughter struggle for life. The descriptions of all the equipment and procedures needed to keep her breathing and nourished. The host of complications she experienced. The absolute need for a sterile environment to help prevent infection. The team of trained professionals that worked round the clock to keep her alive.
All I could think was,
Those babies in Rwanda didn’t have any of that.
What became of them? Did they manage to hang on and grow to a healthy size and weight? Did they escape complications and somehow stay nourished in a severely malnourished part of the world? Were our prayers for protection and strength answered that day and in the days to follow?
I’ll never truly know, and trusting God’s will for their lives is something I have to do every time I think about them.
Someone once asked me what I would do, right now, if there wasn’t anything stopping me. If money wasn’t an issue and I could just simply be where I felt I was called to be. When I think about that question, all I can picture is taking care of little ones like this. I don’t know yet how God will use that desire in my heart, but I don’t think it’s there for no reason.
It hurts to remember things like this, but it would also be wrong to forget them.
