Small Wonder : Ecuadorean Orphan Is Fighting Odds Stacked Against Her; But One Big Health Problem--Her Heart--Has Healed Itself

With a Baby Bop doll by her side to lend comfort, 1-year-old Ecuadorean orphan Maria Salome Gamboa received a clean bill of health on her heart Friday from a Orange County pediatric cardiologist.

Maria, who weighs only about 12 pounds, was brought to the United States last week by Melinda Vaughn, a 40-year-old Los Angeles County native who moved to Ecuador five years ago with her husband, son and daughter to open an orphanage.

Maria was tested six months ago in Quito, Ecuador, by a doctor who detected a hole between the baby’s atriums but suggested that it would not require surgery.

Vaughn wanted to make sure and was glad to hear Friday morning from Dr. Richard E. Swensson at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center that the hole had closed and no longer posed a problem.

“Looks like Mother Nature took care of this one, and that is good news,” Swensson said.

Maria will also undergo brain and eye exams next week because she is slow in her physical and mental development.

The tiny girl fussed a few times during an echocardiogram that provided Swensson with a moving picture of her beating heart. She drank diluted apple juice from a bottle, wiggled her toes and occasionally let out a cry.

Vaughn said she hopes that a U.S. family will want to adopt Maria now that she has cleared a major medical hurdle.

“That’s a big question for adoptive parents,” Vaughn said. “This is a fairy tale ending to get the report that her heart is OK.”

Maria was abandoned by her teen-age mother at a clinic in Ambato, Ecuador, and is one of 10 children--most of them a year old or younger--at the Vaughns’ Quito orphanage. The orphanage, called For His Children, is funded by donations from churches and families in the United States.

Vaughn said that she, Maria, her husband and son and daughter, ages 14 and 11, will be traveling through Western states the next two months, speaking at churches and civic organizations. They also plan to visit a 3-year-old boy who lived at their orphanage but now lives with his adoptive family in Nebraska.

While they are in the United States, a Nevada family and five local women will run the orphanage, Vaughn said. The acre of land for the orphanage was donated by a family from Chatsworth, Calif.

Since opening the orphanage in 1990, the Vaughns have cared for more than 100 abandoned infants. Couples who have adopted babies from the orphanage live mostly in Europe, the United States and Scandinavia.

Vaughn said she was able to fly Maria to Los Angeles using frequent-flier mileage vouchers that her 45-year-old husband, Clark, had accrued.

Although he gave up his Mammoth Lakes law practice when the family moved to Ecuador, a handful of clients asked Clark to continue doing legal work for them and have paid to fly him to California when needed, Vaughn said.

The free medical services being provided for Maria were arranged through the hospital after Vaughn told her sister-in-law, who is a nurse there, of the concerns about Maria’s health.

U.S. hospitals have better technology and equipment to diagnose heart problems, Vaughn said.

According to Maria’s birth records, she was born “cold and didn’t move a lot,” Vaughn said.

Vaughn said she figured that the Maria’s young mother was overwhelmed emotionally and chose to sneak out of the clinic shortly after giving birth.

Although left behind by her birth mother then, Maria was the star attraction Friday in Laguna Hills, drawing attention from hospital personnel and television cameras and microphones.

Anyone interested in adopting Maria is asked to call Holt International Children’s Services, in Eugene, Ore., at (503) 687-2202.