A Baby Born Homeless Saved Her Mother's Life

Today I held a tiny baby, outside a temporary shelter in Port-au-Prince. She was born on Saturday, four short days after the earthquake smashed her mother's home into rubble. She was sleeping in my arms silently, peacefully, so contrary to the chaos around her. I couldn't take my eyes off her perfectly formed fingers, gripping my own with extraordinary force. Her mother told me that the little girl had saved her life, before she was even born. When the terrible shaking began, she heard screams of "Get outside, get outside." All she could think about was that her baby was in extreme danger. In a way that only mothers could fully understand, she said that the thought of her daughter gave her the force to jump through falling concrete, out of the building, before it all collapsed in complete destruction. Now they live in a tent, and they are surviving together, one week into this new child's life.