little monkey
The baby lying in the crib in the darkened room can't be the child I'm here to see. This is a baby, not a 14 month old child. My referral says 14 month old child. This baby, this very, very thin baby is not who I'm looking for, but this baby looks like she's in trouble.
Mom picks her up and we take her to the light in the living room. She hands me the baby, only she's not a baby, she is a 14 month old child, wasted and shrunken, skin hanging in folds from her thighs, her backbone rigid through the thin urine-stained t-shirt she's wearing.
Her eyes are sunken and there's no spark there. Her gaze is dull and unfocused. I hold her and she does not move, she is limp in my arms. She does not make eye contact, I cannot engage her. My finger placed in her hand does not elicit the typical baby grasp. She is alive, but barely.
I am shaking as I hold her. I am terrified she's going to die in my arms. I ask mom about her feeding, when does she eat. "Not very often, she sleeps a lot and she's getting weaned." She's on formula only, about twice a day, 6-8 ounces, according to this mother creature sitting across from me.
I tell mom I'm taking the baby with me to the Justice Center. I get on the phone with the judge to make it happen. We go. She weighs 10 pounds and some ounces. She weighed 6.5 at birth. Babies triple their weight in the first year. This one is grossly underweight, on the verge of dying, with dried out skin, wisps of hair, slow heart rate, low body temp.
I hold her at the Center, try to get her to drink formula from a bottle. She is too weak to suck and the milk dribbles from her mouth. She is in such bad shape she's admitted to the hospital, put on IV fluids. With hydration, she regains some ability to eat and begins taking bottles. The nurse tells me this by phone before I go to bed.
I'm at the hospital next day. The change is dramatic. She is still emaciated, with drooping skin, bones everywhere, still sick, still in danger. But she sees me. She makes eye contact, she's still in there. I pray she is not brain damaged from too little protein. I pick her up and she clings to me like a little monkey, her tiny wrinkled hands grasping my hair, her head wobbling on her scrawny neck. I breathe in her little baby scent and I kiss her cheek and she coos. It is the first sound she has made throughout this ordeal.
I think of what might have happened had I not found the family that day, if mom had not come to the door, a more typical behavior for families in trouble. I think this baby is supposed to live, was supposed to be rescued and I am grateful that this one is saved. I curse parents who harm their children, but I am enraged by parents who intentionally do not feed them, who starve them on purpose. I don't know how they can do it: the chronic crying of a starving child must surely get on their nerves. Ultimately there is silence, but it takes a while. Once the baby is too weak to cry, there is nothing but quiet and lots of sleep and then death. This one was saved. She does not haunt my dreams, but I can sometimes still feel her clinging to me, her little monkey hands, her small husk of a body, cool next to my own. This one was saved.
Mom picks her up and we take her to the light in the living room. She hands me the baby, only she's not a baby, she is a 14 month old child, wasted and shrunken, skin hanging in folds from her thighs, her backbone rigid through the thin urine-stained t-shirt she's wearing.
Her eyes are sunken and there's no spark there. Her gaze is dull and unfocused. I hold her and she does not move, she is limp in my arms. She does not make eye contact, I cannot engage her. My finger placed in her hand does not elicit the typical baby grasp. She is alive, but barely.
I am shaking as I hold her. I am terrified she's going to die in my arms. I ask mom about her feeding, when does she eat. "Not very often, she sleeps a lot and she's getting weaned." She's on formula only, about twice a day, 6-8 ounces, according to this mother creature sitting across from me.
I tell mom I'm taking the baby with me to the Justice Center. I get on the phone with the judge to make it happen. We go. She weighs 10 pounds and some ounces. She weighed 6.5 at birth. Babies triple their weight in the first year. This one is grossly underweight, on the verge of dying, with dried out skin, wisps of hair, slow heart rate, low body temp.
I hold her at the Center, try to get her to drink formula from a bottle. She is too weak to suck and the milk dribbles from her mouth. She is in such bad shape she's admitted to the hospital, put on IV fluids. With hydration, she regains some ability to eat and begins taking bottles. The nurse tells me this by phone before I go to bed.
I'm at the hospital next day. The change is dramatic. She is still emaciated, with drooping skin, bones everywhere, still sick, still in danger. But she sees me. She makes eye contact, she's still in there. I pray she is not brain damaged from too little protein. I pick her up and she clings to me like a little monkey, her tiny wrinkled hands grasping my hair, her head wobbling on her scrawny neck. I breathe in her little baby scent and I kiss her cheek and she coos. It is the first sound she has made throughout this ordeal.
I think of what might have happened had I not found the family that day, if mom had not come to the door, a more typical behavior for families in trouble. I think this baby is supposed to live, was supposed to be rescued and I am grateful that this one is saved. I curse parents who harm their children, but I am enraged by parents who intentionally do not feed them, who starve them on purpose. I don't know how they can do it: the chronic crying of a starving child must surely get on their nerves. Ultimately there is silence, but it takes a while. Once the baby is too weak to cry, there is nothing but quiet and lots of sleep and then death. This one was saved. She does not haunt my dreams, but I can sometimes still feel her clinging to me, her little monkey hands, her small husk of a body, cool next to my own. This one was saved.
Labels: child abuse, dreadful things, failure to thrive
posted by BigAssBelle at 11:18 PM
13 comments
