SHE WAS OUR LIGHT

They were overjoyed at her birth – then Covid-19 claimed her life just seven weeks later

- JANA VAN DER MERWE

A PINK babysuit is neatly folded in her cupboard, ready to be worn, and a plush toy elephant sits waiting to be snuggled. On the wall, emblazoned in golden letters, is a name: Milané.

But there are no contented gurgles or hungry cries of a baby demanding to be fed or any of the usual chaos that comes with having a newborn in the house. Instead, Adela Malan and Christo Grobler’s home in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, is strangely silent.

Adela (24) anxiously clutches her phone as if she’s expecting someone to call and tell her it’s all been a big mistake.

“I wake up in the middle of the night wondering where my child is; expecting a call from the hospital,” she says.

But she knows that call will never come because, at just seven weeks old, Milané became one of South Africa’s youngest Covid casualties.

Adela still can’t get over how fast it happened. “It was a roller coaster,” she says.

Adela needed an emergency C-section four weeks early but she wasn’t particularly concerned. As a type 1 diabetic, she knew the babies of moms who use insulin are often larger than other babies.

In keeping with hospital protocol, she and Christo (35) were tested for Covid the day before the C-section.

Just hours before the operation they got the results and were stunned to discover they were both positive. Adela had a bit of a runny nose, which she’d thought was a cold, while Christo showed no symptoms at all.

But Covid or not, the baby had to be delivered and on Tuesday 13 July, Milané was born weighing a robust 4,6kg.