Thanks for all the kind words. I'm very proud of Matthew and look for any chance to show him off
As for the story. For those that have heard it, my apologies for boring you again. I'll try and keep it short But I do like to brag about my wife too
After we lost our son and daughter in the car wreck in August 2005 it became very tough to be anywhere near home in August. We managed to be away the next two years. In 2008 I couldn't plan anything due to work obligations. My wife went looking for something she could do during that time. She is a nurse with both ER and Labor & Delivery experience. She volunteered for a mission trip to Liberia for the month of August 2008. She figured since Liberia was just out of 16 years of civil war, they would have some understanding of grief, and it seemed a good place to try and help.
So she ended up at a little hospital in the middle of nowhere, called Phebe. Not a hospital to our standards as it had no running water, limited time for electricity, no food, little medication etc. But she was able to teach nursing while working alongside the other staff at Phebe. She saw lots of bad things there but also was able to literally save some lives. On August 20th, which also was our anniversary she took care of a young mother who had brought in her baby. The little boy had a bilateral cleft lip and pallet. The mother was not able to breast feed the baby. Cathy helped her express milk and got her to use it to get some food into the little one. There was no formula at the hospital so it was up to the family. Cathy then admitted them to the pediatric unit. The little boy was 4 days old.
On the 25th of August Cathy went to work in Labor and Delivery. Again not like we know it, but a place where the most difficult births are handled. Infant mortality in Liberia is about 1 in 5. She helped the midwife on four births, of which 2 kids died and one mother. Cathy also saw that the little boy and mom were still there.
On the 26th she came back to L&D and happened to look into the closet that was used as the Peds ICU. The little boy was still there but the mom was gone. The boy was being fed sugar water through a tube in his nose. The tube was covered with ants and the little guy was soaked up to his neck in urine. When she asked what had happened, she was told the father had come and told the mother that it was really not their baby. The village elders had told them an evil spirit had switched the baby at 3 months. This explained the birth defects. Tradition in that case had the baby then being placed in a tree for the animals to eat or buried alive to kill the evil spirit. The nurses had talked the mom out of this but they had fled leaving the little guy behind. The nurses were using the sugar water to keep his tummy died until he died.
In typical of my wife fashion, she said "I want him." They looked at her like she was nuts, Why would she want such an ugly baby. She couldn't explain it, but she just did. She fell in love with him in a heartbeat.
Meanwhile our hero is back in Minnesota sitting on his backside wondering how he's going to get through August 28th which is the anniversary of the kids dying. In general I was feeling quite sorry for myself. Cathy has no phone to call, just intermittent e-mail. On the 27th I get an e-mail saying she is having a hard time writing with a baby in her arms. She explains that this little guy has gotten into her heart and asking what we should do.
Our hero sitting on his duff reading his e-mail while the Mrs. is working her tail off, replies, bring him home, that's our son. We couldn't save our two kids but we can save this one and give him a chance and give us a purpose again.
Easier said then done, but after all kinds of haggling with Liberian police & courts, homeland security, USCIS etc, we finally got Matthew into the US on a Humanitarian parole on September 11, 2008, which was also the birthday of our daughter Christina who had died in the accident. Matthew went right into the hospital where he spent the next two weeks. Since then he's had surgery seven times to correct his lip and pallet, his stomach and to put in cochlear implants as it turned out Matthew is deaf as well. It took about 16 months but we finally got the US adoption finalized on December 24, 2009 so he's officially ours. But he was ours from the second Cathy saw him that day. He's a great little guy and as Shuff said, as much as we might have 'saved' him, he certainly 'saved' Cathy and I.
Yeah I like to brag about my little guy and my best girl
Matthew when Cathy first found him and got him cleaned up a bit.
Mathew now
