In a joyful mess, the babies are tossed from arm to arm like a precious little package left by the stork. It is for them that they crossed the jungle of Panama on foot, for them that they crossed the Roxham path, for them again that they learned to live in the moment. There’s nothing like survival to bring you into the present moment. Tomorrow is a luxury or another year on the calendar of hopes. Fortunately, motherhood is a country in itself. Regardless of nationality, you are always a permanent resident.
At this Christmas party organized by the Maison Bleue in the Côte-des-Neiges district, a country of 56 nationalities in the land of two solitudes, many came, even if the strollers got stuck in the snow bank. The cotton wool slowed everything down.
Some arrived this year, others, seasoned, are in their second winter. But no one complains. Never. Winter is nothing but an inconvenience compared to the violence and insecurity from which they try to escape.
Whether they come from Congo, Mexico, the Philippines or Haiti, these young mothers do not want to attract attention. They are silent. And this silence punctuates each end of sentence, like ellipses where courage is deposited. It took Darline, a Haitian woman who passed through Chile, then Mexico on foot, who crossed the United States by bus, then the famous Roxham Road on December 25 with a 2-year-old child. Merry Christmas and welcome to Canada.
It is obvious that birth can be a magical experience, it is a supernatural experience as far as I am concerned, it is sacred, and I want it to remain so for each family… But the work of birth also consists of saving lives.
Two years later, Darline is again 23 weeks pregnant. Natacha, the warm midwife, advises her and helps her with her gestational diabetes. Also pregnant, Natacha knows all these mothers, distributes kind words or an encouraging pat on the back, leans in to listen to the silence of resilience.
While the mothers share the dishes of a pot luck meal, fried plantain, grilled chicken and homemade “pickles”, the student volunteers from the Saint-Nom-de-Marie boarding school, in pajamas and Santa hats , take care of children, even older ones who don’t have school. Mothers never go on strike.
A village and a house
A gingerbread cookie decorating workshop turns into sugar icing tasting with predicted hyperactivity. Elvis sings Christmas softly, glory, glory hallelujah, and Chilove breastfeeds her youngest while eating. Also leaving Haiti, Nicole passed through Puerto Rico by boat, then through the United States before crossing Roxham Road. Jinicson, her baby, tries to grab a ravioli from her plate. With Darline, the three Haitian women speak Creole among themselves. Here, they found a village, a house. Sometimes they help themselves out, coming with someone else’s baby for the vaccine.
Other women left one or two children behind in their country of origin to be admitted to Canada. They hope for family reunification, even after years. Added to homesickness is mothersickness.
Stéphanie Moncion, the head of Maison Bleue CDN, notes the benefits of this net for social perinatal care: “This is the first time they are raising a child without the famous “village”. With us, they can find a network, break the loneliness. » Almost 30% of the population of Maison Bleue CDN (400 families) is made up of single mothers.
Each woman is followed as well as all siblings up to 5 years old; we try to guide or resolve pitfalls, arguments, violence, perinatal mental health, Christmas gifts, contraception, pregnancy follow-up, school registration, housing, work boots winter.
Stéphanie Moncion, a former manager of the health network, voluntarily preferred a reduction in salary to work in this house halfway between private donations (for the shell), the CIUSSS and the community.
When you can no longer love, hope. When you can no longer hope, believe.
My family doctor, doc Hélène Rousseau, has been helping out here for almost 17 years; she told me blood-curdling stories over the years, of women raped on the road to death (Colombia, Panama, Mexico) who arrive in Quebec not knowing how many weeks pregnant they are.
This House was born from the frustration of doctors who were looking for an avenue for these women lost on the liner of the health system. La Maison Bleue is a more accessible lifeboat, a local service that looks like a real house with a portico, a kitchen and a veranda for chatting.
The hospital that doesn’t give a damn about charity
With her daughter Amélie Sigouin, the DD Vania Jimenez, who had seven children in Quebec, founded Maison Bleue in 2007. “We lead them towards autonomy. Pregnancy monitoring and vaccines are the carrot. But all the services we offer in parallel allow us to monitor them more closely. We build a bond of trust. »
The vulnerabilities add up and 80% of women have an immigrant background. Three out of four women experience problems of isolation and emotional fragility. “But our most difficult cases here, in Côte-des-Neiges, come from the DPJ, from Quebec women who have escaped the social safety net. Immigrants are very resilient, in general. »
Amélie agrees: “Life is made of legs. We cover the medical, psychosocial and community sectors. » The lifeboat will not abandon these women in the middle of an inhospitable ocean, even without papers.
The DD Jimenez, an Egyptian of Armenian origin who still practices women’s medicine at over 75 (and who writes novels!), adds: “No matter the spiritual life of people, misfortune has no religion: it hits everywhere and not just at Christmas. » And each small donation from sponsors, a skin cream, baby pajamas, a wrapped toy, is a source of calm, an offering, myrrh and incense.
Call it Christmas or not, the Blessed Virgin doesn’t care, as long as there is a child’s smile at the end of this path.