Today Farouk and Beatrice little boy, Abraham (or Ibra), has come back from the hospital.
He spent his first week in this world fighting for his life from a serious infection of septicemia.
And to be honest, if you saw the boys condition, you would be amazed that he is still alive.
Ibra was born from Al-Shafa hospital early Sunday morning, and came home on Sunday evening.
The first night of Ibra being home in the house, I had heard him cry in the next room a few times, and Farouk had mentioned that it had been a rough night for them.
But it wasn't until Mum and myself came back from town at around 2 pm, that we realized the seriousness of the situation.
Beatrice had been complaining for a while that she thought Ibra was sick, and that he was too hot.
We had been telling her not to wrap the baby up too much, because here in Africa culture they wrap babies up in about 5 layers of blankets.
But mum and I decided to have a look at him at 2 pm on Monday to see what the problem was.
There was little Ibra, wrapped up in way too many layers, with bulging eyes and a panting mouth.
We felt him and automatically realized he was too hot. We then asked Beatrice when the last time he had fed was, which was 7 am that morning (7 hours)
This put up red flags straight away! I grabbed the thermometer and measured his temperature, which was at 40.5.
From there it was no messing around, we rounded them into the car as fast as we could to race Ibra to the hospital.
Remember a lot of the time people here are very ignorant of a lot things, especially when it comes to babies.
There are no such things as birthing classes, or being taught in the hospital how to look after your baby. People don't have access to education like we do on this matter, and a lot of the time people like Farouk and Beatrice are learning things as they go.
So they didn't really get how serious the situation was.
This happens a lot in Uganda, with people being taken to the hospital when it is too late.
Both mum and I felt sick in the car on the way to the hospital, we were both just praying that the boy wouldn't die in the car.
Mum drove as best and as fast as she could, we reached Nile International Hospital (where Ethan was born) and when they saw the baby at reception, they treated it as an emergency and rushed him to the doctor.
Ibra was admitted and put in the same room that Aggie and I had been in with Ethan. It took about 10 minutes before any kind of medical treatment came, but it felt like 40 minutes to us all.
It was suspected that he had septicemia (blood poisoning) or even meningitis.
During that time we all laid hands on Ibra and prayed that God would heal him.
At this point in time, Ibra had gone completely floppy and out of it, he was not responding to anything and he looked like he was on deaths door.
I believe that God worked a miracle on Ibra, when you see how he was, he should of been dead.
Even the doctor told us that he couldn't assure us that the boy was going to live.
And then the treatment came. A Paracetamol suppository to bring the temperature down, a shot of antibiotics for any infection that he had, a shot of vitamin K, a shot of medicine to help him with his breathing, and a IV drip placed into his arm.
He also had a blood test taken to see if they could pick up on anything.
All we had to do was wait and see how he would respond. It was horrible to see a day old baby getting so many injections and medication pumped into him, just to save his life. And perhaps there may be a price to pay later on in life for that. We don't know.
While he was getting all these injections, Ibra didn't make a sound, no cry, no flinch, nothing.
But after a few hours his temperature had gone down, and his eyes had started opening again as he started to stir.
By the next day he had finally gone down to a normal temperature, and he started breast feeding again.
By the next day he was pooing and weeing as normal.
The doctor had checked over the boy and had noticed that the umbilical cord had never been tied properly, and was extremely infected. He diagnosed that this was the source of the infection.
He also added that the way the cord was cut from Al-Shafa was very poorly done.
I won't go into too much detail about how horrible the care was at Al-Shafa when Ibra was born. But basically he was never checked over, and even when they were discharged, no doctor had come to check on them.
I did go to Al-Shafa in the following days to speak with the head doctor about everything, and give them a bit of my concern (opinion) .. but they basically denied that they did anything wrong and didn't seem too phased or sorry about it.
I won't be recommending anyone to go that hospital again.
But we are just extremely thankful to God, that He has spared the life of Ibra!
I truly believe that God worked a miracle. There were so many factors that worked out for us, like us having a car around to jump in straight away and go to the hospital (and not have to wait around trying to find one) the fact that we had filled up with petrol before hand (so we didn't have to do it on the way to the hospital and lose precious time) that we came home early from town, that we decided to have a look at Ibra and check his temperature.
All of these things could be looked at as coincidence and luck! Or you can choose to look at them as God's sovereign hand.
C.S Lewis talks about how there is two ways to view the world. One way is to see nothing as a miracle, and the other way is to see everything as a miracle.
I choose to see the world in the latter.
I don't believe anything comes down to chance or coincidence, and I have a little bit more confidence in the power of prayer for healing as well now!
So today is a good day! And we celebrate that Ibra is finally home!
Meshach visits his little brother in the hospital.
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