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Rafa is born
In January 1999, Dr. Yoram Kaufman invited me to come to the US for post doctoral work in his
group at NASA Goddard. Marines and I happily decided to take this exciting
opportunity and move to the US
for one or two years maximum. A few months later, still during negotiations,
we have a big surprise: Marines is pregnant.
At that point I had to tell Yoram and I am pretty sure that my post-doc is over:
“…who would take a young post-doc with a pregnant wife?” Only later I learned
that Yoram was about to have a highly productive
group with many babies to come (from other young members of the group). We
were happily accepted in the group and the upcoming baby was taken as “…great news – excellent!”.
The miracles from Rafael’s life
started very early, even before he was born. Marines’ pregnancy had some
early hiccups with bed rest and some medication early-on but that was nothing
compared to what was still to come. When she got better I went with her to a
few ultrasounds and everything seemed fine. Our trip was materializing for
early December and Rafael was supposed to be born in the end of February. In
the last appointment I insist with the physician: “Look. We don’t have to travel to the US now. If there is any sign that
something is wrong with the pregnancy we will stay here. We can always travel
later in another opportunity. There is no essential reason to go now…”
and the Doctor insisted enthusiastically: “There
is absolutely nothing wrong. You definitively should go now!!!”
Before traveling to the US we make this trip to Sao Paulo’s coast and while walking on the
sand with Marines I touched her belly and had the first sensation that
something was not right. “Her belly
felt a bit softer than it should be”, as if I had any idea on how it
really should feel like. And, anyway, the doctor really insisted that
everything was perfectly OK. We traveled anyway and everything went perfectly
well during the trip. We temporally rented a gorgeous furnished apartment in North Bethesda for two weeks till we could find our
own. Between Bethesda
and Old Greenbelt we quickly decide that we wanted to live in Old Greenbelt.
Exactly 7 days after we arrive to
the US,
we entered this apartment complex in Old Greenbelt and asked if they had a
two bedroom apartment available for immediate occupancy. The attendant
replies: “No way; we have a long
waiting list and it takes months to get one.” We turned around and as we approached the
door to leave she called us back: “Wait!!!
I actually have something for you. Someone just moved out in a family
emergency and unless someone occupies that apartment right away, they will
have to keep paying the rent. You can have it in a week”. The timing was
exactly right for us. We signed for it and went home. We had no idea that the
timing was really providential for us.
Earlier that same day, out of the blue, I had asked the secretaries at
work if they knew a good maternity in the area. They pointed me to the Holy Cross
Hospital, which that
same day we saw on the way driving back home. That same evening, Marines did
not feel well and luckily (since I asked) I knew exactly where to take her.
It did not take long for the resident Physician to tell us that something was
very wrong with the baby. This was December 8th, and except for a
couple days home, Marines would expend most of the time in the hospital till
Rafael was born on December 28th.
Later we understood that it was
essential for Rafael to be born in the US and, in particular, in the DC
region. He would have had no chance otherwise. Everything happened just the
way it was supposed to. Everything went perfectly well despite of all the
issues. Rafael was born weighing 3 pounds and 11 ounces and was transferred a
few hours later to Children’s Hospital in Washington DC.
The same day the Children’s Doctors gave me an amazingly accurate diagnosis
of Rafael’s issues that held for his whole life: “Rafael has a rare syndrome with a few known cases worldwide, with
different associations of problems depending on the case. We still don’t know
the full extent of his problems but his kidneys are fully compromised and may
never work. He is too small for dialysis and he may not survive but, with
your permission we will do for him everything we can.” Different Doctors kept coming and telling me
many details about Rafael’s situation that later proved amazingly accurate.
We now know many families with ill kids that took a few years to come to the
right diagnosis and we got it the day he was born. There was no question that
we were at the right place and that if Rafael had any chance to survive, this
was it. Rafael had to be born in the US, and in this particular
location. And, as always, from the beginning, the support from friends and
from the Greenbelt Community was overwhelming and essential to us.
The hardest issue at that point was
to have Marines at Holy Cross and Rafa at
Children’s Hospital several miles away from each other for the first few
days. Rafael stayed for 45 days in the NICU before we brought a whole NICU
home with us, but that is another story…
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