Celebrating Baby #1500: Meet Mom & Dad!
The Heartline Maternity Center has cared for Haitian women since 2007. Sixteen years ago, when the doors opened to the Port-au-Prince community, there was nothing like it; no other provider was offering holistic care that stretched from the pregnancy test to labor and delivery to postpartum check-ups. No other provider sought to meaningfully equip and educate parents. It was uncharted territory.
Against all odds, amidst unprecedented violence and unrest, with gang rule in Port-au-Prince and an absentee government, the Maternity Center stands strong. Thousands of women have received medical care, education, & family planning services at the Maternity Center.
Today, we’re celebrating a new milestone. The beautiful young Haitian woman with the round belly pictured above is 34 weeks pregnant with the Maternity Center’s 1500th baby – a girl!
What a joy! The whole team can’t wait to meet this little one and celebrate all that she represents. But while we wait for him to honor us with her presence, we’d like to introduce you to her mom & dad, Florinecia and Théodore.
Florinecia & Théodore. Photo provided by the author.
Meet the parents
When you meet Florinecia, you notice that she has an incurable dynamism; assertive and youthful, always moving, smiling. A pastor’s daughter, she’s spent her life heavily involved in her family’s church. That community involvement may be why you also notice that she’s remarkably kind, clearly sensitive to others and their own difficulties and sufferings.
With five siblings, Florinecia was always fond of little children. Even as a girl, she spent her time sharing what she knew with neighborhood friends and classmates. At 12, when she left her hometown to start a new life in Port-au-Prince, it was no surprise she sought out a classical education and became an educator! Today, she teaches kindergarteners in Port-au-Prince.
Florinecia met her husband Théodore on the benches of the Lycée Horatius Laventure (their high school), while she was preparing for college. They lost touch for some time, but were reacquainted at a class reunion a few years later. From there, the two fell in love and were married on December 20th, 2020. These days, while Florinecia is teaching little ones their alphabet and numbers, Théodore is a drywall technician, out on job sites working with construction and home renovation teams.
Florinecia & Théodore’s pregnancy story
In November 2021, Florinecia became pregnant with her first baby – a moment of great celebration. But a few months later, she felt a discomfort in her lower abdomen that she couldn’t explain. Soon after, on a regular day doing household chores, she saw blood trickling down between her legs and rushed to the hospital. The doctors declared that she had suffered a spontaneous miscarriage, blaming ginger-cinnamon tea she had drank. Within minutes, Florinecia had lost her child.
Carrying life and then suddenly and involuntarily losing it is painful. In addition to judgment from others, there’s your own guilt to contend with, your own sadness at having to let go of this piece of life that had settled in so warmly, and to which you’d already become attached.
It’s this guilt, this sadness that Florinecia tells me so much about. She had already become attached to this baby, even giving him a name, but she lost him through what she believes was her own mistake. “I find it very hard to forget this experience, and I really feel responsible for the death of this child. Instead of drinking tea, I should have gone to the hospital immediately,” she confides. “Today I have to live with this weight on my conscience.”
Editor’s note: As is sadly common in Haiti, a male-dominated, authoritarian medical system blamed a mother for her own miscarriage. There’s no good evidence that ginger or cinnamon would have caused Florinecia to lose her baby, and now she lives with blame and guilt that she shouldn’t. Haitian traditions are frequently confused with treatments, even among medical providers, and often impede patients who take their advice at face value. This is part of the reason the Heartline Maternity Center is so important – here, Florinecia and women like her are treated with dignity and given legitimate medical education that equips them to make the right decisions for their bodies and their children.
New beginnings
Babies are the blank page on which we write our hopes, capable of warming even the saddest, coldest hearts. That’s how Florinecia felt when she found out she was pregnant again.
Photo provided by the author.
Sometimes, nature does things well. Today, Florinecia is healthy and about to give birth. She’s overjoyed at the prospect. “It’s great news,” she says. “I can’t wait to meet her. I’ve waited so long for this child that I can’t wait for her to show up,” she says with a broad smile.
Théodore shares the same sentiment. “The joy of having a child with the person you love, of forging an unbreakable bond between two beings that will make the couple’s relationship more intense and solid, is simply inexplicable. Introducing something new, experiencing pregnancy, birth and parenthood together. Sharing an extraordinary moment in life…”
We can’t wait for you to meet the little girl who will be Heartline’s 1500th baby! Florinecia’s due date is in just a few short days, so keep an eye out for Part 2 of her and Théodore’s story, where we’ll update you on the delivery and hopefully have some beautiful photos of the new baby!
$15,000 for #1500
For now, there’s a huge opportunity for Heartline coinciding with this special occasion. We’ve secured a partnership with One Day’s Wages to celebrate Baby #1500 – so for every dollar you give to Heartline through their campaign, One Day’s Wages will MATCH it, up to $15,000! It’s a chance to make a monumental difference for young families like Florinecia, Théodore, and their little one.
Send a message of congratulations!
You can get in touch with Florinecia & Théodore to send a message of congratulations! Just click below to share your well wishes. We’ll translate your message to Haitian Creole and share with the new parents!
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.
