A sad night

Well, after our merry dinner with each other and a movie, we headed to the hospital for our evening rounds. One of the med students, Krissy, came up to me to tell me my baby died. What? I immediately went to maternity and saw that baby Zsila was not in the incubator. If you don't know this story, please read my previous blog about it. She was septic this morning but on antibiotics immediately after birth yesterday. I knew this morning that she could die at any second, since we didn't have all of the resources here. However, this afternoon she looked a little better. Sure enough, at 7:55pm she died. I went in the maternity ward and her mother and grandmother looked devastated. My heart was so broken for them. When I prayed this morning, it was in faith for God's miraculous healing but in His will, even if it meant He wanted to take the baby home to heaven. Well, God's plan was done. He chose to take this baby back home to heaven after a short life. The parents are Catholic and believe in Jesus, so I told them we will see this baby again one day in heaven. Let's rejoice in that! We prayed together. It is so hard also for me to tell them we did everything we could here in this country, while knowing what would have been done at home with equipment. This just clearly demonstrates what a privilege it is to live in America with our medicine. I value the NICU in many ways I haven't seen until now. That is even a new field to medicine--just several decades old. Things have always worked out the way they are supposed to. God may have even chosen to take home the baby, if they were in the U.S. You never know. All I know is that I was honored to be a doctor in this child's short life, even if it meant I could start antibiotics and give the minimal amount of oxygen we had to her and, most importantly, lay my hands on her and pray. Bless this child. May she be sitting at Jesus' feet right now worshiping Him. What a place to be!


Immediately, I went to round on the rest of the peds patients, when we had news that a patient literally just arrived and died before any of us got there. This is life here. I am learning that this is just the way things happen. Sometimes people find healing that they can find in no other place, and sometimes they die here yet receive the comfort of a staff who will pray with them while they mourn. Either way, I am blessed to be here.