Lost baby at sunset

Not every baby lives here in Kenya.

"You have to be strong" they told me. "Don't cry. We don't cry."

The Masai culture is very stoic. They don't cry about pain or sadness. They don't express grief in tears.

But I am American I say. Someone must cry for the baby who didn't live.

Because for me crying is caring..

And the day I stop caring about beautiful babies and children, is the day I stop being a nurse.

Friday was a sad day because I helped deliver a premature baby that died an hour after birth. At only 2 and a half pounds it was just a little babe with a high pitched cry. After delivery it needed oxygen and some stimulation but it seemed to be doing well. We had plans to take the baby in the ambulance to the NICU about 2 and a half hours away. The baby was in the isolette (warmer) and then it just stopped breathing. We tried ambu- bagging the baby, pouring oxygen into the lungs, performing infant CPR to no avail. The baby died in our arms, the baby died in our care.

"It was just too little they told me"- a premature baby like that can't make it here.

But in America, in my hospital- the baby would have lived.

And that's the harsh reality that seems so far from fair.

That here- things are different- and there's some things you can't save or change.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.