unwanted treasures

This morning I accompanied a friend of mine to the government hospital where she goes regularly to feed babies who are abandoned and unwanted by their families. Since I adore newborn babies & just the whole hospital environment, I was excited to get involved in this ministry. Upon arrival, she began to give me the tour and show me how things ran. On one side of the small room, there were probably 10 babies in small cribs and these are ones that have mothers and will be going home. On the other side, there were 7 babies and these were ones that were abandoned by their mothers for a variety of reasons: some mothers were unwed, some babies had birth defects, some were simply abandoned because the mother had too many kids & could not afford to raise another. The job at hand was to feed, bathe & clothe these 7 babies. I asked what would happen if there was no one to do this and they said these babies would wait until all other work was done & then they'd be tended to. My friend said that sometimes they go hours without being fed because there simply aren't enough hands. We began to feed the babies that were crying. One scary thing was getting the right baby back into the right crib. I guess they've had mix ups before! If we weren't finished feeding the baby in our arms, we'd have to go prop a bottle up for the other crying babies. After they were all fed, we began giving them all baths and changing the sheets in their cribs. There was an extreme shortage of baby clothes and by the end, we were simply putting on an undershirt & socks (2 different colors). The babies that were being born (seemed like every few minutes they were bringing in a newborn)had absolutely no clothes and were simply wrapped in a blanket with a diaper. We had to go to another floor to get the bottles for the babies and it was interesting watching them wash them! Very unsterile technique! They used tap water to make the bottles. We later would pass the bottles around to different crying babies with no thought of who they belonged to. One thing that was glaring was the horrible diaper rash that every baby had. They pour red Mercurochrome all over their raw little bottoms. It's so awful to see. We have a large tube of Desitin that we plaster their bottoms with. It's really a hopeless situation but somehow fulfilling to just hold these little guys and love them a bit and meet some of their basic needs. After giving a bath, we even brushed their hair and put cologne on them. At the end of the time, they asked what I was doing tomorrow? I found out that neither volunteer could come tomorrow and they asked if I'd come do the whole thing?? How could I say NO? I'll let you know how it goes. I wish I could post a picture but my friend told me it's forbidden to take photos. I might still try and sneak one tomorrow if I'm there alone.