More Baobei...

Apparently, Ke Xin [可馨] is now staying with a Baobei Ayi in Shanghai, until they manage to find a 'healing home' (foster family) to look after her and then hopefully an adopter.

According to some other volunteers I met the other day, one of the previous babies (about 3months old) who was born with a massive Teratoma (aparently bigger than her head)possibly a fetus in fetu, and had surgery to remove the growth at 15days old which resulted in her being sliced from hip to hip both at the front and back. She apparently has a waiting list of 200 people (mainly American: lots of Chinese orphans are adopted over to the States) waiting to adopt her. Despite this they think it will take well over a year until she is with her new adoptive parents due to the paperwork involved with the Chinese orphanage, the Chinese Government and the American Government.

I spent my Wednesday lunch time with a little boy (nearly 4 years old) who has some Gastro Intestinal problems and who throughly enjoyed hitting me with a little toy car.

Baobei Babies...

I finally managed to find some volunteering (which doesn't involve paying money to do worthwhile causes - weird i know) with the Baobei Foundataion which basically involved poking a little orphan who is in hospital either waiting for or recovering from an operation.

The Baobei Foundataion basically works with orphanages all over China to fund operations for children mainly born with from some kind of spinal problems, like spina bifida and some other thing which i had never heard of... anyway the foundation organises for the orphans to come to Shanghai, they then pay for their operation and once recovered they try and place the baby in a 'healing home' - a foster family who look after the baby until they are adopted.

The Ayi and baby, 'Ke Xin' [可馨]

Often they try and get an Ayi (carer) from the same orphanage the baby is from to bring the baby to Shanghai and stay with the baby 24/7 during the baby's hospital stay. So I spent some time with Ke Xin (a 9month baby girl with spina bifida) to allow the Ayi to have a little break, like have a shower or go buy lunch.

Attempting to speak to the Ayi in Chinese, she said that many of the children from her orphanage (in HeNan province [河南]) tend to be adopted by americans, however some children, especially those with more serious disabilities tend to stay in the orphange long term. According to one of the ladies who works for Baobei Foundation, some of the children are found days after birth and some with no information on their birth or name, which leads to some babies having to have their birth date estimated from the state of their umbilical cord and names given to them by the orphanage.

You'll be happy to know that Ke Xin recovered very quickly from her little surgery and was discharged on thursday to stay in her foster home. Even the Ayi was impressed at how well Ke Xin had been doing and that she had put on weight since the operation.