A Friend Stepped In: Josena’s Story
The day a mother delivers her child is eagerly anticipated – perhaps not the work and labor of it all, but the first meeting between mom and baby: something awaited for so many months, something that changes your very brain chemistry, something that changes everything. You prepare: buying baby clothes, setting up the best nursery you can, asking for advice and sometimes getting unsolicited and unwelcome opinions.
Yet no matter how prepared you are, birth and pregnancy complications can turn that first meeting dark. They can turn something that should be a dream into a nightmare. This is what happened to Josena. But that’s not how I met her.
I met her at the Heartline Maternity Center, and between her youthfulness, her quick wit, and her intelligence, it's hard to say what struck me first. She’s a force of nature, one of 6 children. She told me stories about riding a donkey to town with her mother to sell at the market, and her mom’s courage and intelligence despite her lack of an education. She told me about her father, who was a model of resilience, who told her she could be “anything she wanted to be.”
It's hard to listen to Josena and not be drawn in by her natural enthusiasm and high spirits, despite the difficult life she describes. She didn’t finish high school, because financial difficulties in her family meant that she couldn’t afford tuition. In her early adulthood, she had to leave home and come to Port-au-Prince to support a cousin who had just given birth and didn’t have a support system. She was a housekeeper, then a school maintenance worker. There was an odd job here, an odd job there, and then she got pregnant.
"I quickly got in touch with one of my friends who had recently joined the Heartline Maternity Center program,” Josena says. “She advised me: come and see Miss Fredelyne, the clinic administrator, to get a consultation card. Once I had the card, I never missed a visit.”
Josena at the Maternity Center. Photo by the author.
“The Most Beautiful Experience of My Life”
With the help of the nurses, midwives, and support staff at the Maternity Center, Josena’s pregnancy was smooth; she had no complications beside the inherent life-changing experience of having a child growing in your belly.
"Honestly, my first trimester was difficult,” she says. “The hardest thing for me was to accept that my body no longer obeyed me, but that I was at the service of this little human being that was quietly growing. And then, when I finally let go and accepted the process, a new relationship with my own body began. In a way, I ‘reconciled’ with it. I learned to love the baby more. Feeling the baby move, having the hiccups, feeling him grow slowly, it was the most beautiful experience of my life."
All was well, and the entire Maternity Center team was looking forward to meeting Josena’s baby soon. Then, at 38 weeks, Josena developed preeclampsia. More common in first-time mothers, preeclampsia is a dangerous and unpredictable condition that often forces care providers to deliver a baby preterm. It can cause a range of difficult symptoms in mothers: headaches, vision problems, decreased organ function, and even hypertensive emergencies, such as seizures. Babies delivered preterm are at increased risk for health complications. Preeclampsia can only be cured with delivery, and in Haiti, safe and high-quality delivery is hard to come by.
But Josena wasn’t just in Haiti. She was at Heartline.
Taking Action
I spoke to her midwife, Mica. She diagnosed the preeclampsia on one of Josena’s regular Thursday consultations. What started with high blood pressure readings became persistent hypertension, and a decision to keep Josena under observation. She was hospitalized at the Maternity Center for 18 days.
"The more we tried to stabilize her blood pressure, the more it increased," Mica explains. "Her blood pressure was 180/110. Then she started having false contractions. Sometimes she was fine, sometimes she was writhing in pain. Yet she hadn't gone into labor."
“We've already had several cases of preeclampsia at the Maternity Center," says Clinic Administrator Fredelyne. “But we never panicked. We just gave them the care they needed, and everything went well. We also have great faith in God. That's why we always call on God before touching our patients. And He has always heard our prayers. The proof is in the pudding. Josena has come through it well."
"I couldn't stand having to stay in bed,” adds Josena. “I wanted to go home. But I never panicked. I felt confident and well taken care of. The staff at the Maternity Center did everything they could to make my delivery as easy as possible. I have no words to explain how they took care of me.”
Averting Disaster
It was September 18th, 2023. With Mica and the Maternity Center team by her side, Josena gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. His name is Théophile Dauphin, and he’s a healthy little guy. Mica, Frede, and the rest of the Heartline Maternity Center Staff get to see him and his mom every single week at their postnatal appointments.
Josena, smiling with baby Théophile. Photo by the author.
Today, young Josena from Côtes-de-Fer is satisfied with how far she's come. The sleepless nights, the financial difficulties, the sacrifices of adult life have paid off for her. "I'm satisfied with what I've been able to achieve. I'm proud of what I am today. Being a mother is a commitment that drives me at every moment, every second. It's part of who I am,” she says.
In the United States, the lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 2,700. In most of the developed world, it’s better than that. In Haiti, it’s 1 in 94. The World Health Organization reports that nearly 95% of maternal deaths, which measured 287,000 in 2020, could have been prevented and occurred in low and middle-income countries like Haiti.
We know we can do better. We see better in every single country that just happens to have more money. At Heartline, we get a chance to give Haitian women the care they deserve – to give them better. We can be the friend who steps in, the way Josena’s friend stepped in to refer her to the Maternity Center, the way Mica and Frede stepped in to give Josena the best care she could.
When you support Heartline, you step in for a child’s education, for prisoners who need a meal, for pregnant moms and their babies, for students pursuing an educational dream, for an entire nation.
Step in with us today.
About the Author
Aljany Narcius
Haitian journalist Aljany Narcius is currently pursuing a Master 2 in Media Management, online from France’s University of Lille. With ten years of experience in the fields of journalism and communication, Aljany is a linguist who uses the Creole language as her weapon in the fight against social inequalities, exploitation, and all kinds of violence.
