Sarah: She has been the most scary. She threw up almost everything she ate for the first week. I think the amoxicilin was too strong, but I followed the advice of the orphanage doctor. As soon as I suspected what was happening, I stopped the antibiotics and she stopped throwing up. Her weight has remained the same after 9 days and so we are going to work extra hard to make her gain weight. She is the smallest of the babies and has the medium size cleft lip.
Jade: She is the oldest of the bunch at six months. She has heart disease, but we need to take all the babies to the hospital for testing and a diagnosis. She has the biggest eyes and the longest lashes. She is extremely quiet and does not have strong muscles in her neck. She must have been left on her back for a very long time. She is physically way behind. Comparing her to Antoinette who is only a few weeks older is amazing.
Michael: He has the biggest cleft lip. I have suspicion that he and Gabriel are brothers but I have no way to prove that. They share many of the same characteristics. He picked up a huge amount of weigh after the first few days.
Gabriel: He is supposedly three days old but we knew immediately that none of the three cleft palette babies were three or four days old. All their umbilical cords had healed, but they still looked newborn. That put them at four or five weeks. Gabriel's cleft lip is the least sever. He has huge hands and feet for such a small body. I can imagine how big he is going to be when he fills out. He already grew one centimeter in the first week.
Benjamin: He also has heart disease and is small for his age. He looks all boy and he has a small crew cut going. He sleeps really well and eats with gusto as they all do. Loves lying sideways when you hold him.
Angel: She is three months old and looks like she come from Africa and a famine. Her belly was so disproportionately big. We found out it is from severe malnutrition. You could not hear any gurgling sounds in her tummy for the first two days. This morning the swelling had gone down by three centimeters. She sucks her index and middle fingers to hard that you need two hands to take them out of her mouth. She also has some heart disease. She reminds me a lot of Nina at that age.
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