Child History 12.0

Each child comes with their own unique story:
heart breaking, tragic, with conflicting details, many unknowns and doubts...or all of the above. Here's the story of siblings in the Baby Home.

When we got the call about Mary*, we already had a newborn in the house. However for some reason, we took her in. She arrived after office hours on August 19, 2008, at five days old. I always remember taking her to the pediatrician that evening with my sister Emma because our parents were going out. Then we went out to eat together, enjoying our new little sleeping bundle. =)

The reports say that Mary’s mother is mentally ill and has lived on the streets for many years, since she was a teen, and is often taken advantage of. Although she was a model when younger, she got in with the wrong crowd and has never been the same since.

Eventually the grandmother appeared and while interviewing her, we found out that Mary had a brother. Michael had lived in another baby home his whole life and was now 1 1/2. Since we had already bonded with Mary, we of course voted to bring him to us rather than send her to him, and the other baby home, overcrowded, readily agreed with our decision.

It took a long time for everyone to get their act together and he finally arrived on December 22, our Christmas present. Unfortunately, the other home had failed to mention that they were in the middle of a chicken pox epidemic. On Christmas Eve Jennifer was changing Michael for bed after festivities and noticed too many spots to be ignored. Thus began a horrendous season in all the homes of chicken pox, with each cycle of the virus more vicious than the last. Almost all the kids still have scars.

Michael and Mary’s mother alternates between living on the streets and a psychiatric hospital. She abandoned both babies at the hospital after they were born and has never visited them. We have been unable to speak with her since she is often high from sniffing glue and very violent.

Mercifully, Michael does not appear to show signs of damage from his mothers’ addictions….unless you call having a superior attitude and wanting to be treated like a king at all times a problem! He’s a cute toddler with a great sense of humor. He plays little jokes on the staff all the time, like hiding so that everyone will search for him, or doing silly things to make everyone laugh.

We are less convinced that Mary has not been affected by her mothers’ addictions and trauma. Only time will tell if she suffers lasting damage. For now she is growing and developing fairly well, and is good at entertaining herself—helpful in a house with so many!

Michael and Mary’s maternal grandmother visits them regularly but is not in a position to care for them. The siblings’ papers are currently in the court to be processed towards providing both with a loving adoptive family.


*Names are changed

Pictures from top of post to bottom:
1) Baby Mary (right) the night she arrived, 5 days old
2) Michael dressed up like a bug (he loves being silly and playing jokes!)
3) Mary at 1 year
4) The two together, Easter 2009

Help provide loving care for Michael & Mary for $50/month through Casa de Amor's child sponsorship program. Download THIS form to start!

Child History 10.0

Each child comes with their own unique story:
heart breaking, tragic, with conflicting details, many unknowns and doubts...or all of the above. Here's the story of another baby who came to us directly from a street canal.

I’ll never forget the night I first met Kevin. It was June 21, and I’d been to the canal where he lived with his teen mother and her friends. I got home and typed some cryptic notes through my grief:

What a sad experience going tonight with Skip [former CDA volunteer] and Dad. To see kids lives being ruined, and kids choosing to live that way (or being forced into it), it’s nothing short of heartbreaking. It hurts. A lot. When adults live like that it’s one thing, to ruin their lives, but these kids are no bigger than my sisters. It’s so bad. I can see why so many in the world feel called to work with them and do it with all of their hearts. It’s just unjust and heartbreaking and so awful to see. Sad. I’ve been to the Coronilla 4 times, but still. Not nice… They’ve brought me to my knees tonight. God, please lead us.

The visit was also memorable because I had a fleeting sinking feeling that I was going to be stuck there. I had jumped down into the canal with the kids (and don’t forget the mangy dogs), but getting out was another matter. I’m tall, but the sheer concrete sides were taller than me….but my Dad and Skip were taller. They lifted me out by my hands!

Skip had introduced me to Kevin’s mother, who was suspicious of who I was. I rarely talk to a mother on the street about letting her baby come to me, but from what Skip and Rehanna had told me, this situation was a little more urgent. While visiting, I could also see that Kevin was very sick and living on the street at wintertime wasn’t going to help anything. His mother consulted with her new boyfriend who said that she should let me take the baby. Since I don’t take babies that “directly”, we explained how she could turn over the baby to the home legally. It was hard to get Kevin and Gladis off my mind in following days (another little girl several people wanted us to take in).

On June 25, I started getting phone calls that Kevin’s mother had decided to voluntarily bring him in. We gratefully took him in and I carried him straight to the hospital. I thought he would be admitted but there the doctor said that his breathing was okay and that we could treat him from home, but isolated. Against my better judgment (what mother would insist that her baby be hospitalized?)…and we rarely use this hospital now!...I took him home. Back in those days we actually still had a room we could use for isolation. We set up extra precautions like putting on a hospital gown when tending to him. So you know what happened? Me and the nurse caregiver became extremely sick with what he had, passed it to the other kids, while two days after he arrived he was still hospitalized—for a CDA record of 14 days! Another complication was his refusal to accept our formula—milk not tainted with the toxins he had grown addicted to even at such a young age.

Kevin has suffered from environmental allergies (and thus rashes, lots of colds and ear infections, etc.), possibly due to his immune system getting a poor start as he was exposed to so many toxins and unhealthy living situations while on the street. However, he has a great appetite and expects to receive food on schedule!

One day we had quite the scare at the Baby Home when his mother's boyfriend had a fight with his mother and declared he would prove his devotion to her by bringing her son. Somehow he figured out where the Baby Home was and arrived high on glue, violent, and cussing us out, demanding to leave with Kevin. (Incidentally, I learned a couple bad words during that whole event!) Amazingly nothing worse than a beaten up gate happened, and the guards from the chicken factory next door "rescued" us women and children (the police arrived about an hour after the danger was over).

Kevin's grandfather was stabbed to death on the street last year, so we know of no other relatives besides his mother (who is on and off the street).

Now Kevin is a chubby 2 year old that is active but somewhat reserved. He really looks up to the older boys at CDA III, where he now lives, and will follow their lead on any made up game. His favorite things to do are ride on the toy cars, sword fight, and wrestle. We are working on teaching him speech skills (currently is in speech therapy), trying different types of food, what God is like, and how to use the potty. He loves to go for drives in the car and search for barnyard animals, then makes their noises at them out the window!

Kevin’s papers are in process in court for him to be provided with a loving and forever family.

*name changed

Pictures in post, top to bottom:

1) Skip bringing Kevin to the Baby Home, the day he arrived
2) really pale and sick, his first day in the Baby Home
3) Enjoying a gift, Christmas morning 2008

4) Happy 2nd Birthday! (Gotta love his dripping chin...we call him our St. Bernard!)

Help provide loving care for Kevin for $25/month through Casa de Amor's new child sponsorship program. Download THIS form to start!

Child History 8.0

Each child comes with their own unique story:
heart breaking, tragic, with conflicting details, many unknowns and doubts...or all of the above. Here's the story of two little girls who arrived with an uphill climb.

On November 9, 2007, I was standing in the kitchen meeting with the cook I think. The phone rang, and the social worker/administrator found me and said it was child welfare, asking for space for sisters ages 5 months and almost 2. We hadn’t taken in siblings all year so I felt drawn to take them in although we were starting to get overly full. We conversed just a minute and I gave the go ahead.

Within an hour the little girls arrived, and it was quickly obvious that we had our work cut out for us. But first we interviewed the two ladies bringing them, supposedly the (young) aunt and (elderly) grandmother. Both were obviously very poor, from a hard life far outside the city, and were more comfortable speaking Quechua. It was several months before the “aunt” confessed to the caregivers that she was indeed the mother, justifying her decision by saying that if she had told the truth no one would have helped her (possibly true, since she is young and healthy and can work hard to provide for her children).

We took the girls right to the doctor. Helen was almost two and yet didn't walk. She was in a precarious state of health, with bronchitis, multiple infections, oozing sores, diarrhea, and severe malnutrition. Although it was a Friday afternoon, they made an exception to admit her to the nutrition center. (I was relieved, wanting to protect the other babies in the home.)

But we soon learned that her emotional state was worse than anything. She seemed to have “shut down” inside and was very easily frightened, making us think she had been severely neglected and abused. After a month long stay in the hospital to begin recuperating nutritionally and to be healed of her many ills, Helen came home to us and began the very slow process of coming out of her shell.

Iris was also a sight to behold upon arrival, but in comparison to the struggles of her sister, she’s been a hardy and healthy baby. However once she began walking, we realized that her legs were much too outward curved, causing her to trip and stumble constantly. She is now in a long-term treatment plan with an orthopedic specialist. During waking hours she wears a custom brace and special orthopedic shoes to correct the curvature of her legs and flat feet. Helen is also in treatment with the orthopedist to correct very flat feet that cause her legs to curve from the knee.

As Helen took fully twice as long to pass normal developmental milestones, our neurologist diagnosed her with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) due to drug and alcohol use by her mother while pregnant. The brain damage from FAS is permanent and the only course of action is much stimulation, love, and nutrition. After one year of living in Casa de Amor, the neurologist gave us very positive feedback on the great progress Helen has made. She is a delight to be with, very sweet and quiet, and loves the games of little girls such as caring for her baby dolls.

Iris has always been one of our most easy-going babies, and now as a toddler hardly makes a peep (although she hates change, such as leaving the house for any reason or even suspecting she might have to leave the house). She plays contentedly alone or with the other toddlers.

Although we’ve presented papers that could lead to the girls’ adoption, at the same time we are starting to formulate a plan of action to get the girls back with their mother. It’s still a long road ahead, but we’ve come a long way!


*Names changed


Pictures from top of post to bottom:
1) The girls upon arrival, pre-baths
2) Holding Helen in the doorway as the kids and caregivers greet the newcomers
3) Iris recovering from chicken pox, January 2009
4) The sisters together last year after being at Casa de Amor one year

Help provide loving care for Helen & Iris for $50/month through Casa de Amor's new child sponsorship program. Download THIS form to start!

Child History 6.0

Each child comes with their own unique story:
heart breaking, tragic, with conflicting details, many unknowns and doubts...or all of the above. Here's the heartwarming story of our "church baby".

This baby was a memorable arrival! First, to set the scene, in early February 2008 we received a gorgeous, approximately 1 month old baby girl, even though we didn't have room. The same day we were also asked about taking in twin 1 year old girls whose parents were in jail/the street. My social worker said no because we didn’t have room at all, but of course I couldn’t get it out of my head and when I found out a couple days later that they still didn’t have a place for the twins, I said yes and we started seeing how we could rearrange things (and kids) and fit in another…two!

But the girls didn’t come, and didn’t come, and no one knew when they might. Then on February 29, I woke up thinking “how cool it would be to get a baby today on Leap Year Day”! That afternoon I was running errands with my sister Emma (then 9) when our social worker assistant called me. “Jennifer, the director of child protection himself called begging for us to take in a newborn found at a church. No one else has room, but we are waiting on the twins so what do we do?” After talking for awhile (or more correctly yelling, since I was on a busy street), we decided that I would swing by Child Protection offices before going to my praise team's rehearsal (during these times held in the middle of the afternoon which was nuts for my schedule).

Once there, I asked what they knew about the twins. The immediate answer from our social worker friend and the head of child protection was “the twins are not here right now; this baby IS here right now”. They had a point there! [And in the end, the girls ended up staying with their parents.]

And when I peaked at this baby under his blankets, well……..my heart melted. You just can’t turn down a baby you’ve already met!! But I tried to act nonchalant and say yes reluctantly, trying to avoid another hard-to-turn-down call the NEXT day. They whipped out the memo admitting him to our home, happily passed him over to me with the police report, and Emma and I stepped out into the bright sunshine with our little bundle. My Dad was on his way to pick us up and run me to rehearsal…now with a baby. The whole process of deciding and getting the proper papers had taken maybe 4 minutes total. Emma looked at me and said “Is that ALL we have to do?!” And I was like yeah, he's ours now…….that is so crazy! Another little life to care for until God takes him elsewhere. I've never stopped marveling at that, even with more than 85 children through our doors.

He decided he was hungry at rehearsal so I think they sped it up on our account (kinda hard to play the piano with one hand and concentrate while jostling a baby you don't know in your other arm)!

Elias’ arrived with an intriguing story. He was found on a church bench near the main market downtown. We went back to interview the priest and he greeted us by saying “Oh, you want to hear about baby number 3!” We were like uh...number 3? And he explained that this was the third baby abandoned there in recent weeks. He was left after the morning’s open mass. When they ran out to the (very busy) street to see if anyone seemed to be standing around watching, but no one seemed to care. I appreciate the kind way the elderly priest spoke about the mother, saying that she was most likely in a very difficult situation, and what love she showed by leaving her baby in a safe place. (The rest of 2008, we got several babies who were left to die in river beds with adverse life long affects, so I became even more grateful to Elias’ mother, or whoever left him there.) Even though we checked back with the priest, it appears that no one ever returned to inquire about the baby.

Our “church baby” was one of our healthiest EVER. Barely a sniffle his 10 ½ months with us! Also one of the quietest. Then unfortunately, while we waited and waited for his adoption to be finalized, he came down with chicken pox on its second round through our house in January. It even delayed him leaving one day (guess the court didn’t want to “catch” it), but then he went to a lovely Christian Bolivian couple and their teenage daughter. We are so happy with how his story turned out, and how loved and cherished he is in his new doting family. (To read about the day they took him home, click here.)

*name changed

Pictures, top to bottom:

1) Elias in a highchair
2) The priest of the church pointing out where Elias was found
3) Jennifer holding Elias his first minutes in the Baby Home
4) The four youngest babies in March 2008 (Elias is the first on the left)
5) The babies are always popular visitors at CDA II!
6) My family always said that he looked just like this doll of my sister Emma

Child History 5.0

Each child comes with their own unique story:
heart breaking, tragic, with conflicting details, many unknowns and doubts...or all of the above. Here's the particularly difficult story of one.

Eliana had an unimaginably rough start to life. She was born several hours outside the city in a poor rural area. As with many or most of our babies, her mother was the victim of rape, but with the awful twist that her older brother was the perpetrator. She had to hide her pregnancy and then the birth of baby Eliana under threats of death or injury from the brother/father.

When Eliana was still a small baby, her mother was taking her out to drown her in the river when her father (Eliana’ grandfather) discovered her. At that point, authorities were notified, Eliana was hospitalized with severe malnutrition and other illnesses, and Eliana’ family was scattered: her mother went into hiding for her own protection, her father ran away and when caught was put in jail (although he has since escaped), the grandfather ran away to avoid receiving punished from the community for such a disgraceful family, and the grandmother was left to sort through the mess and get another son out of jail on drug charges (drugs supposedly planted in his car by Eliana's father as manipulation to keep the brother silent on what had happened...although who knows what the real story is).

Although Eliana arrived to us straight from the hospital, she was in a very poor state of health, weighing just 11 pounds. At times we even had her isolated because she had such bad infections. But how she has recovered nutritionally! At 18 months she weighed in at 24 pounds.

Despite her tragic past, even when a sickly baby Eliana has always been one of our brightest, sunniest babies…as well as noisiest! She loves to joke and play and is a busy, active toddler.

There's been some concern that she might have kidney issues because of repeated UTIs, but a sonogram showed all to be fine, at least externally. All year she's been very healthy and so we've elected to not do further [expensive and invasive] exams for now. (Unless you count in violent vomiting when she's in the car for too long!! She's our first who definitely gets car sick, and these roads are anything but smooth.)


At one point my family and I took a road trip to personally pick up an important report from the Child Defense that "rescued" Eliana. Long story short, I did not obtain that report. Still, after much effort and more delays than I'd care to recall, Eliana's papers are being processed in court so that she will someday have a loving adoptive family.

Pictures, top to bottom:

1) January 2009 (I love this dress on her!)
2) My sister Emma holding Eliana her first days with us (when we adopted Emma from Russia, she was in the same condition as Eliana: 11 pounds at 8 1/2 months)
3) Just TWO months after her arrival and already a new baby!
4) Always a drama queen!!


*name has been changed

Help provide loving care for Eliana for just $25/month through Casa de Amor's new child sponsorship program. Download THIS form to start!

Child History 3.0

Each child comes with their own unique story:
heart breaking, tragic, with conflicting details, many unknowns and doubts...or all of the above.
Here is the story of our tiniest baby to date.

Our Daniela is a survivor! She was born in a large hospital weighing just two pounds. Why? Was she preemie? Sadly, it seems like we will never know details surrounding her past, the pregnancy, or birth. After multiple trips to the hospital, all we came away with was the mother’s name and address, and that investigation came up dry (false data, most likely). They couldn’t even find the medical records on the mother or birth, if you can imagine that. I mean, how much more important could it be?! The mother gave birth in the middle of the night so we can only conclude that with few staff present, not much was recorded. Someone said that the baby was born at 30 weeks.

After seven weeks of incubator recuperation, Child Social Services called us and asked if we could take in a two week old baby. When Daniela arrived to our door weighing less than the multitude of blankets she was wrapped in (it was fun uncovering her enough to finally find a teeny tiny finger!), I started to read the reports and saw that she was actually almost two MONTHS old. Then I freaked out! She weighed only 3 ½ pounds. How could we have her in with so many other fragile children who always got sick?! I was afraid a slight cold might do her in! I told staff to prepare a bottle and if she didn’t drink it well, I was bundling her straight off to the nutrition center for further weight gain before I’d feel good about having her in the home. I mean we can do a lot, but a hospital we are not and there was no room to isolate her.

As we all hovered around to see the results, Daniela sucked very poorly. An hour later, almost the same amount of milk remained. I started canceling my afternoon meetings and my Dad offered to drive me up to the nutrition center/hospital (it’s at the top of a huge “hill” in the city). It was amazing on the ride there, observing how she looked like a tiny doll, so perfectly formed just so TINY. I still can’t believe how little she was. She was a long baby, but without a bit of meat on her fragile bones! They admitted her immediately. We ran lots of tests but nothing was uncovered and she remained perfectly healthy in the hospital. In hindsight, I think that I could have kept her here rather than leaving her in a hospital bed and working so hard to be able to visit her and cuddle her just once a week. But I remember the context, that we didn’t know at the time how hardy she was, and that we had also just received several new children with special needs, and one was just about to be released from the nutrition center.

She ended up living in the center for 7 weeks, until she tipped the scales at 6 pounds. My sister Emma loaned us some doll clothes to dress her in!

As Daniela grew and progressed very slowly, always very much a baby and with a small head, I became concerned. A meeting with our neurologist yielded the diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Although we know nothing of her mother, her desire to not be traced could very well point to the type of lifestyle of alcohol and/or drug usage. I also wonder how her low birth weight and subsequent incubation affected her. FAS is permanent brain damage, but good nutrition and a stimulating environment can do much towards a healthier development.

That’s the main reason we chose her to go live at Casa de Amor III with the Alseth family last year in May. (Interestingly, she was born on the exact same day they arrived to Cochabamba!) Daniela has done well there, brightening up socially and losing the “flat head” she always had as a younger baby due to all the time in the crib. She began sitting up around 11 months and walked by 17 months. She makes us laugh with her one main sound, an alien-like noise!!

Now Daniela is a happy-go-lucky little toddler, active and adventurous. She loves music and will dance, clap her hands, and swing her head from side-to-side when it is being played. Her favorite things to do are torment the older kids in the house, watch High 5, and pretend that she is a mountain climber by climbing into the toy boxes, up on shelves, and onto any other furniture in the house. The family is working on teaching her how to feed herself, first words, what "no" means, and not to bug the older kids in the house. She loves worshipping at church, and giving hugs and blowing kisses. She is always ready to give or receive more!

Pray with us for Daniela’s speedy adoption into a loving forever family who will be patient with her special delays and needs.

Pictures, top to bottom of post:

1) NZ volunteer Ruth gives her first bottle at CDA
2) Jen on a visit to the nutrition center
3) My sister Emma holding Daniela when she weighed the same as Emma at her birth in Russia (4 1/2 pounds)
4) Baby line-up, March 2008 (She's second from the left, with her nutrition center roommate, Baby B, on her left. The other two babies have both been adopted by Bolivian families!)
5) Christmas Day, 2008 (1 year and 4 months)

*name has been changed

Help provide loving care for Daniela for just $25/month through Casa de Amor's new child sponsorship program. Download THIS form to get started!

Child History 1.0

Each child comes with their own unique story:
heart breaking, tragic, with conflicting details, many unknowns and doubts...or all of the above.
Here is the story of one who arrived last year.

Baby Alex* weighed about 5 pounds at birth. He was likely born prematurely, but we have little way of knowing. His teenage mother, assumed by hospital personnel to be from the countryside, was deaf and couldn’t make clear any of her personal information. She couldn’t even tell them her name. She refused to nurse or even look at her baby, making her rejection obvious with gestures and grunts. Most likely the baby was conceived by rape, since disabled or mentally ill girls are more easily preyed upon.

Shortly after being released from the hospital the mother was sent to a shelter for girls since no one knew what to do with her. (Some friends of mine think she saw her during a visit to that girls home, and said she was crying in a corner, alone. Isn't that sad? But no one could communicate with her.)

After a few days, she made clear that she wanted to leave and since the center is under-staffed, they let her go alone. We wonder—did she try to go back to the hospital to see her baby? Did she get lost while out? Or did she just want to go back home, where ever home is? I had just read a book written by a girl with deaf parents. My parents and I wondered if she could be helped with treatment, surgery, hearing aids….but with absolutely no data, there was no way to find her.

Baby Alex stayed in the hospital a couple of weeks recovering from respiratory distress syndrome. The elderly, long-time social worker of the hospital chose his name, giving him the masculine version of her own name. Then he arrived to our doorstep by ambulance! (There are so few in our city, one would think they could use their ambulance for better things...?)

As the social worker proudly passed the baby from her own arms to mine, she said “Here’s your healthy baby boy”. I just smiled a knowing smile. One can never tell right away with a newborn what's ahead. During his first months with us, I personally took him to the doctor at least a dozen times and the lab many more times. Some of his health issues were due to the untreated STD of his mother: chronic eye infections and bronchitis, calcium deficiencies and other mineral imbalances, lack of appetite and thus slow growth.

Then there was the umbilical hernia that just grew and grew... and grew. After seeking the most economical and yet safe option, we had it surgically removed by an excellent pediatric surgeon who offered his services to us. I donated blood the morning of the surgery since we had short notice. After the surgery, he finally became a happier baby. Since we can't imagine that the hernia bothered him that much, maybe it was because he was no longer severely anemic??

Of course, his crankiness and all the trips to the doctors and labs meant that I HAD to hold him, and seeing as he weighed less than a full-term baby for the longest time (preemie clothes!) it was a dream… A couple times I had him in a sling and carried another baby (or the twin babies we had at that time, in a car seat) as well. I shocked more than one person when my “purse” wiggled or cried!!

The past few months, Alex has been much better. His cough comes back often so he’s a regular at our “cough doctor”, but overall he's a cheery little fellow. And chunky!! Everyone jokes he should go on a diet. Since after his surgery when he would calm himself by sucking hard on his fingers (long story—it was a weekend and took me a while to track down the stronger pain med), he’s stayed with the habit.

He has a shocking lack of hair for a Bolivian baby, but he's on supplements because it seems to be due to his struggles with vitamin/mineral deficiencies. His motor development is a bit delayed, so I’m hoping to see that catch up soon. But anyway, he is now adoptable and I have hopes that he’ll be with his new family in a few months!

*name changed

UPDATE: Help provide loving care for Baby Alex for just $25/month through Casa de Amor's new child sponsorship program. Download THIS form to get started!